Vegan recipe: make your own seitan

Seitan is a key ingredient in the vegan kitchen and a very versatile one too. You can use it in stews, or on the BBQ, as ‘mince’ in sauces, as ‘kebab’ in wraps and pita, … Learn more about seitan (and more).

It’s made from vital wheat gluten (not appropriate if you have a gluten intolerance), broth and spices of your choice. I make a basic version with nutritional yeast (read more) for added flavor and vitamins.

Ingredients

• 125 g vital wheat gluten
• 1.8 dl water
• 3 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1.4 L vegetable stock
• 80 ml shoyu or tamari sauce

Preparation

1. Mix the gluten powder with the water and nutritional yeast, knead the dough for about 3 minutes until you create a spongy texture. Leave it to rest for about 10 minutes.
2. Bring the vegetable stock to a boil with the added soy sauce.
3. Knead your dough for another 2 minutes.
4. Pull or cut the dough into equal size balls.
5. Boil the dough for about 1 hour in the vegetable stock, leave it to simmer. The dough will increase a lot in size.
6. The longer your boil the seitan, the softer the texture will be.
7. Take the pan of the stove and leave the seitan to cool off in the stock. You can keep it in the fridge for about 10 days or freeze the seitan with the stock and keep it for about 3 months.
8. You can also cut the seitan in its desired size and prepare it directly.

Recipe idea: vegan kebabs

• Slice the seitan into kebab-like pieces, fry with a mixture of spices of your choice (i.e. 2 tsp ground cumin, 2 tsp dried oregano, 2 tsp dried mint, 1 tsp (Aleppo) chilies,  2 tsp paprika, 1 tsp black pepper, 2 tsp salt) and serve in a toasted pita bread and with a vegan yoghurt dressing or tahini dressing and some fresh raw veggies (grated carrots, lettuce, …).