The invention discloses a
lycopene /
starch compound, a vegetarian sausage as well as a preparation method and application of the vegetarian sausage, and belongs to the technical field of foods. The preparation method of the
lycopene /
starch compound comprises the following steps: (1) mixing
starch and a
phosphate buffer solution, gelatinizing, gelling, cooling, adding
pullulanase, hydrolyzing, stopping
hydrolysis, adding excessive
ethanol, centrifuging, and freeze-
drying in vacuum; (2) adding into water, heating and cooling to obtain starch suspension for later use; (3) dissolving
lycopene in
dimethyl sulfoxide, and carrying out ultrasonic
dissolution promotion to obtain a lycopene solution; and (4) heating the lycopene solution, mixing the heated lycopene solution with the starch suspension, stirring, naturally cooling to
room temperature, refrigerating, centrifuging, collecting precipitate, carrying out vortex oscillation, flushing, and carrying out vacuum
freeze drying to obtain the lycopene starch. The lycopene / starch compound prepared by the invention can obviously improve the quality of the vegetarian meat sausages and improve the value of the vegetarian meat sausages.