I made Gordon Ramsay's popular vegan BLT, and it's a decent plant-based dupe but it doesn't beat real bacon

I pitted Gordon Ramsay's plant-based "bacon," lettuce, and tomato sandwich against a traditional BLT with real meat, and there was a clear winner.

• Gordon Ramsay's vegan BLT is popular online, so I tested it out against the traditional sandwich.
• The tofu "bacon" was too spicy for me and it fell apart once I took a bite of the sandwich.
• I much preferred the sandwich with real bacon, but I liked the addition of an aioli.
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I'm not vegan, but after watching Gordon Ramsay make a plant-based BLT on TikTok , I knew I had to try it out.

I tried his recipe, which has 3.2 million likes at the time writing, with homemade tofu "bacon" and regular bacon to compare the two.

Here's how it went:

I was surprised by how many ingredients the vegan recipe needed

I had most of Ramsay's ingredients on hand with the exception of tofu, rice paper, and nutritional yeast.

I measured out the dry and wet ingredients for the tofu marinade

From the looks of it, the tofu "bacon" was going to have a kick.

I enjoy spicy food, but the combination of sriracha, cayenne pepper, and paprika was enough to burn my tongue. I hoped the maple syrup and vegan butter would balance out the spices.

I followed the exact measurements and whisked everything together.

From there, I started to prepare the 'bacon'

I crumbled the tofu into pea-size pieces and sprinkled a tablespoon of nutritional yeast to season it.

Next, I measured out 3 tablespoons of the spicy marinade and coated my tofu.

I took the rice paper out of its package and was shocked that it felt like thin construction paper. The texture confused me, but I continued and cut it into strips.

From there, I coated the paper strips in the marinade and placed half of them on my prepared baking sheet before sprinkling on some of the crumbled tofu to resemble fat.

I pressed the remaining marinated strips on top of the tofu crumbles and put the tray in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes, flipping halfway through.

After the timer went off, I was surprised by how much it resembled real bacon.

While my brioche bread was toasting, I made the aioli

Instead of putting my aioli ingredients in a food processor, I used a blender, which was a mistake.

The recipe said to slowly add avocado oil to vegan egg yolks so the mixture could thicken, but I must have done it too quickly because my aioli looked more like a dressing than a spread.

I finally began assembling the sandwich

The last step before assembling the BLT was cutting a tomato and avocado.

Once that was done, I took my brioche bread out of the toaster and spooned some aioli on each slice.

I layered the lettuce, tomatoes, "bacon," and avocado on one slice of bread. Then I put the second piece of toast on top and sliced it diagonally.

Before I tried the vegan BLT, I made a sandwich with real bacon to compare

I cooked my bacon on a baking sheet at 375 degrees Fahrenheit while I toasted my bread and cut another tomato and avocado.

I assembled this sandwich the exact same way except for the bacon.

Overall, the vegan BLT was tasty, but I preferred the bacon version

The vegan BLT was flavorful but a little too spicy. The aioli and the other condiments helped balance out the spice, but it was still too much for me.

The tofu "bacon" also had a nice crunch, but the pieces fell apart after one bite.

Once I swapped in the real bacon, the sandwich went up several notches. I loved the hearty brioche bread, the subtle aioli, and the creamy avocado.

But if you're vegan, vegetarian, or looking for a new take on a classic, I think Ramsay's vegan BLT is definitely worth a try.