Bethany's Vegan Kitchen

I quite often get questions from people about seitan, so I thought I’d answer them in a blog post. Firstly for anyone who doesn’t know what seitan is, it’s a high protein mock meat. You can buy it ready made, or make it at home, there are many different recipes for seitan, but this is my recipe that I use the most

You’ll need;

1. 200g/7oz vital wheat gluten
2. 40g/1.5oz chickpea flour
3. 30g/1oz nutritional yeast
4. One tablespoon of smoked paprika
5. One tablespoon of dried oregano
6. One tablespoon of dried basil
7. One tablespoon of onion granules
8. One tablespoon of garlic granules
9. One tablespoon of tomato puree
10. One tablespoon vegan Worcestershire sauce
11. 50ml soy sauce
12. 300ml hot water, boiled water left to cool for a couple of minutes will do

Method;

• Mix together the dry ingredients (top eight in the list) together into a bowl. Do the same with the wet ingredients (bottom four listed)
• Bring a large pot of water to a boil
  While the water heats to temperature, mix together the dry and wet ingredients. (You may need to add some more vital wheat gluten if your dough is a little too wet)
• Knead the dough well for five minutes. The hot water will activate the gluten and you’ll start to see the strands developing
• Once you’ve kneaded your dough shape it into a loaf. Do this by placing the dough onto plenty of cling film/foil/cheesecloth/muslin Shape it into a sausage and wrap up the dough. Tie the ends, leaving an inch or so gap between the dough and the knot. This allows room for the dough to expand
• Carefully place the wrapped dough into the boiling water and cover with a lid. Immediately reduce the heat to low and cook for one hour
• Once it’s cooked you will notice that it’s become firm to the touch
  Remove it from the water and leave it to cool. Once cool, unwrap and chop/slice/mince the seitan. Store in air tight containers

Let’s answer some questions

Q. How long can I keep seitan?
A. Store seitan in air tight containers, it will keep for up to ten days in the fridge, and up to six months in the freezer

Q. Where can I buy the ingredients from?
A. I buy vital wheat gluten and nutritional yeast from Holland and Barrett. I get my chickpea flour from amazon usually, you can also find it in health food shops, or Asian supermarkets

Q. I can’t find any chickpea flour, what can I replace it with?
A. Just add in 40g more vital wheat gluten. I like adding the chickpea flour for a bit of a softer texture, but it will work without it too. You can also use besan or gram flour, it’s not technically the same as chickpea flour, but for this recipe it will give pretty much identical results

Q. Where can I buy fish free Worcester sauce from?
A. In the free from section of most large supermarkets. Or use Hendersons relish instead

Q. What is the nutritional content of your seitan?
A. I have worked it out as the following
Per each loaf of seitan, which weighs roughly 650g
Calories 1181kcal
Protein 177g
Carbs 74g
Fat 8g
Sodium 2,600mg

Per 100g of seitan
Calories 181kcal
Protein 27g
Carbs 11g
Fat 1g
Sodium 400mg

Some people add oil to their seitan, and while this does give it flavour, I prefer to flavour it with other things to keep the fat content down. It’s just a personal preference of mine

Q. How much does it cost to make?
A. If you make seitan with my recipe it will cost around £2.50. If you bought it, it might cost anything up to £15 or £20. So you will save a lot of money by making it at home instead
You can cut the cost down further by making use of sales. Holland and Barrett often have vital wheat gluten on the “buy one get one for a penny” sale, so things like that will cut the cost even further

Q. Can I make it gluten free?
A. Unfortunately I am not aware of how to make gluten free seitan, as gluten is the key ingredient. My apologies

Q. What do you use seitan for?
A. I wrote a blog post on all the different ways I use seitan. If you’d like to read it, CLICK HERE

Q. Finally, have you made any other flavours of seitan?
A. Yes I have, just click the titles to go to the recipe

Tomato & Italian Herb Seitan

Seitan with Sage & Onion Stuffing

Chorizo Style Seitan

Curry Style Seitan

Vegan NotDogs

Chicken Style Seitan