Seitan is made from vital wheat gluten and is used as a plant-based meat substitute. It’s an excellent source of protein with around 20g per 100g. As a plant-based protein, it does a limiting amino acid in lysine, which you can find in legumes and nuts to pair with.
If you’re gluten-sensitive or celiac, we’d recommend avoiding seitan – but you can swap in tempeh or tofu as a solid replacement in your plant-based recipes.
Now, to the good stuff.
Prep and cooking time: 1hr-1hr 10mins
Serves: 4
Ingredients
3 litres water
1 vegetable stock cube, crumbled
4 tbsp soy sauce
4 tbsp nutritional yeast flakes
180g vital wheat gluten
35g chickpea flour
250ml water
Method
To create the broth, combine the water, stock cube, soy sauce and nutritional yeast flakes in a stockpot or large saucepan over medium heat and bring to a boil.
Combine the vital wheat gluten and chickpea flour and use a spoon to stir while slowly adding in the 250ml water. Knead the dough for 2 minutes to encourage the dough to bind together.
Transfer the dough to a chopping board and roll into a log shape and cut into 8 even portions.
Once the broth has come to a boil, reduce the temperature to maintain a gentle simmer. Using a ladle, carefully place all of the dough portions into the saucepan so they are submerged in the broth.
Cook the dough in the broth for an hour. As the broth evaporates, you may need to add more water to keep the dough submerged.
Remove the dough from broth and place on paper towel. Continue to change the paper towel to remove as much moisture as possible.
Second Nature special tip:
These ingredients may not be available in normal supermarkets, but health food stores or online shops will stock them readily. The above recipe is to make seitan for use in other recipes in place of meat.
Just like meat, seitan takes on the taste of the sauces and seasoning it’s cooked in, so it might not taste like much just yet! Seitan works well crumbed in almond meal and parmesan, cooked in a stir fry, or in a wrap or Shawarma.
