Quality Attributes of Selected Minced Meat Products and Plant-Based Alternatives: A Comparative Study

This study aimed to compare selected quality attributes of three types of minced meat—beef, pork, and chicken—with those of three specific commercial plant-based minced-meat alternatives available on the Polish market. The plant-based products represented three different brands and formulations. The analyses included proximate composition, energy value, pH, colour parameters, water-holding capacity, cooking loss, shear force, amino acid profile, and microbiological quality. Compared with the tested meat samples, the plant-based products provided dietary fibre and showed lower cooking loss, but contained more salt and ash. Their water-holding capacity was greater than that of minced beef and pork, although Analogs 1 and 2 did not differ significantly from minced chicken. Their structural properties after heat treatment varied considerably: one product disintegrated during shear-force measurement, whereas another required approximately one-third of the force required to cut pork. On a dry-weight basis, chicken had the highest total quantified amino acid (TAA), quantified essential amino acid (EAA), and branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) contents. However, the ranking changed when the data were expressed on a product basis: Analog 1 had the highest TAA and BCAA contents per 100 g of product, whereas chicken and Analog 1 showed almost identical EAA contents. When normalised to measured protein content, Analog 1 showed the highest TAA, EAA, and BCAA values. These amino acid data describe composition only; tryptophan, protein digestibility, amino acid score (AAS), and digestible indispensable amino acid score (DIAAS) were not determined. Salmonella spp. were not detected in any sample, while presumptive Listeria monocytogenes and other Listeria spp. remained below the detection limit. The findings highlight considerable variation among the tested plant-based formulations and show that their similarity to minced meat depends on the quality attribute considered. The limited number of products examined should be considered when extrapolating these results to the broader Polish market.