White Castle tests burger alternative

White Castle’s latest slider is, well, impossible.

It’s made with a patty called the Impossible Burger, a plant-based alternative to ground beef created by a California company. The product looks like beef, cooks like beef and, according to some reviews, even tastes pretty much like beef.

Columbus-based White Castle has offered a veggie burger for a while now, but the Impossible Burger is different. Impossible Food makes its beef alternative out of wheat protein, water, potato protein, coconut oil and heme, a protein found in plants and in meat. No more green or yellow veggie patties; the Impossible Burger is red and turns brown when cooked. The heme is the source of its beefy flavor and color.

“The taste will be surprising to people,” said Jamie Richardson, vice president at White Castle. “I was tentative because i didn’t know what to expect, but I loved it.”

White Castle has been researching plant-based burgers for about two years, Richardson said. Impossible makes the custom, slider-sized patties, and White Castle will cook them as it does its regular sliders. It will serve them the same way as well. Impossible Burgers will cost more, though, at $1.99 each.

“If you want it with a piece of jalapeno cheese, you got it, if you want it on a waffle, we’ll give it to you that way,” Richardson said.

Meatless options are growing in popularity and it makes sense for a brand like White Castle, which is known for taking risks and innovation, to be the first big chain to take up the Impossible Burger.