Vegan Practically

Two things up front: 1. If you can’t do gluten, then seitan isn’t for you. 2. I get that my photo of the seitan doesn’t make it look super delicious, but you can think of seitan as a starting point.

What is seitan? It’s a source of vegan protein that is made from vital wheat gluten. I’ve always been a little bit intimidated by it (from a making perspective, not an eating perspective), which is my usual attitude towards things that involve unfamiliar ingredients, especially if they also involve kneading. Until I started reading recipes for seitan, I had never heard of vital wheat gluten. It’s not exactly flour, though it is powdery in the same way and some companies call it “vital wheat gluten flour,” probably so as not to get overly technical with the lay user.

Allrecipes.com describes it like this: “Although it’s not technically flour, vital wheat gluten is a flour-like powder that contains nearly all gluten and minimal starch. It’s made by hydrating wheat flour, which activates the gluten protein, and it is then processed to remove everything but the gluten. It’s afterward dried out and ground back into a powder again.” The result is almost all protein and virtually no starch.

Bakers will sometimes toss a tablespoon or two into their bread dough. As Emma Richardson of the kitchn explains: “Because it’s almost pure gluten, a little goes a long way to improving the elasticity and rise of the raw dough and the crumb and chewiness in the final loaves.”

When I first became vegan, I encountered seitan most frequently described as “wheat meat” both because of its protein richness and its texture. The texture is a lot more substantial than tofu, so it has that chew-factor that you might get from meat-products.

Before last weekend, I had made it once before, and though it looked great, it was a disaster. What I didn’t know at the time was that vital wheat gluten, like any flour or grain, can go rancid. Since it was a new ingredient to me at the time I didn’t realize that mine was off. About eight years ago I made a big batch based on a recipe from Isa Chandra Moskowitz, and then made a stew out of it to take for a weekend away at a cottage with friends. It looked absolutely amazing but YUCK. At the time, I didn’t put two and two together and I thought I just didn’t like seitan. But it turns out I just don’t like seitan made with rancid vital wheat gluten. Check the best before date on your vital wheat gluten and give it a sniff.

Eight years later, I bought some more vital wheat gluten, determined to give seitan another try. By now, I am much more familiar with it. It figures large in many of my favourite pre-made products, like Field Roast vegan sausages and Tofurkey deli slices. I got a message with a week’s worth of meal suggestions from Nora of Nora Cooks a couple of weeks ago that included a recipe for Easy Seitan. The recipe has two parts. There is the Easy Seitan itself and then a Honey Ginger Seitan recipe (uses agave, not actual honey) that basically makes a sweet, thick sauce (for which I would adjust down on the recommended amount of cornstarch).

The seitan is so much easier than even the first time I made it. The dough takes about five minutes — a couple to gather the ingredients and then another 2-3 minutes of light kneading. Then you just tear off bite-sized pieces and place them in a steamer basket. No wrapping in tinfoil or poaching in a pot of stock. You steam it over a couple of inches of water for 15 minutes. And presto! Seitan ready to go in a stir fry or whatever you want to do with it.

Quick and easy seitan is apparently a thing now, with another similar recipe here on It Doesn’t Taste Like Chicken, from Sam. In the past, all the recipes I encountered involved slow poaching of wrapped pieces of the dough in huge pots of simmering stock. Maybe I have a bad association with that method because of the rancid vital wheat gluten incident. But tearing it off into small pieces for a quick steam is so much faster, easier, and good for many of the ways you might want to use seitan, and there are indeed many (for 27 suggestions, check out this post from Vegan Food & Living.)

Now that I have faced my seitan fears and made it through to the other side, I’m game to try more. If you have any experience making your own seitan and have tips or recipes to share, please share in the comments.

Bon Appétit!