Basic, baked seitan recipe

If you’re an adept of vegetarian or vegan dishes, you’ve probably came across seitan at least once in your life.  It’s a very versatile animal free protein made with vital wheat gluten (basically straight gluten flour) and it can be flavoured countless of ways to make it taste like chicken, beef, unicorn (lol)…you name it.

This is my personal baked seitan recipe that I use in almost everything but, I don’t think I could classify the taste under “beef” or “chicken” because it really has it’s own flavour profile.  It’s beyond amazing in a vegan gyros, in stir fry and even as a bacon replacement.  You can freeze it easily and it will keep for a decent amount of time in the fridge.  If you’ve already made a batch of my homemade vegetable broth, you’re already half way there for this one.

The classic way to make seitan is to boil it in the broth but I’ve had better results doing it this way because the end result is nice and soft compare to many other recipes out there who give you a very hard like rock seitan.

So let’s start!

Basic seitan recipe

 

Print

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

1 hour 30 mins

Total time

1 hour 40 mins

 

*As you mix, time is important because the flour will start absorbing the liquid and you want to make sure that all the flavours are well mixed in and there's no more white clumps of flour. It's totally ok to use your hands, at the end, to really mix everything in.

Author: ZestyandSpicy.com

Cuisine: Vegetarian / Vegan

Serves: 1 loaf

Ingredients

• Spice mix:
• - the seeds of 1 black cardamom pod
• - ½ teaspoon of dried, minced onions
• - 1 teaspoon of dried, minced garlic
• - ½ teaspoon of dried marjoram
• - 1 teaspoon of dried basil
• - 1 teaspoon of regular paprika
• - 1 teaspoon of smoked Spanish paprika
• - ½ teaspoon of salt
• 
  
• 1½ cup of vita wheat gluten flour
• 3 tablespoons of tomato paste
• 2 cups of homemade vegetable broth

Instructions

1. - Pre-heat your oven at 325F, line a GLASS loaf pan with parchment paper.
2. - In a mortar, crush the spice mix until powdered.
3. - In a mixing bowl, add the vital wheat gluten flour and mix in the crushed spiced BEFORE adding the last two wet ingredients.
4. - Add the tomato paste and the broth, start mixing*
5. - Transfer the mixture in the loaf pan and press it gently with your hands to form the loaf and remove as many air pockets as possible. This is not an exact science but you just need to shape it a bit. The mixture will keep a very soft like texture and will harden once cooked.
6. - Bake for 1h covered and then an extra 30minutes uncovered.

3.5.3251