Delicious and Easy Vegan Seitan Recipes (Homemade)

From vegan beef to vegan chicken and everything in between, this collection of 19 Vegan Seitan Recipes will give you so many meal options and a TON of plant-based protein!

Hey Internet, if you happen to be a member of the Zardyplants Fan Club, you probably know we love seitan and love making delicious vegan seitan recipes.

We first came out with our basic seitan recipe when we made our Instant Pot Seitan, and it really opened the floodgates of experimentation and creativity for us. 

We started making all kinds of unique seitan recipes with vital wheat gluten and all kinds of wet and dry ingredients. Seitan is a vegan meat substitute that has TONS of protein.

If you're new to a plant-based diet and want to learn more about vegan meat alternatives and plant-based protein options, check out our Vegan Meat Recipes compilation.

What is Seitan?

Seitan is a high protein vegan and vegetarian meat alternative made out of wheat. It is unfortunately not gluten-free and therefore not appropriate for anyone with celiac disease or gluten sensitivity.

Affectionately called "wheat meat," seitan is made in one of two ways. The most common and easiest seitan recipe involves a product called vital wheat gluten flour. This option is inexpensive (though not the cheapest) but definitely the fastest way to make seitan. The other method, called washed flour method, I will mention later on in the article.

Vital wheat gluten is often used to create a better texture in bread recipes (you'll often see it in the ingredients list in store bought bread as well). It is essentially wheat flour that has been stripped down just to its protein so it has almost no carbohydrates or fat.

Seitan can be the main ingredient in so many other vegan recipes too, such as my Vegan Beef Stew. You can use the prepared seitan meat in any way you like... and remember it freezes well! I like to freeze in a single layer on a parchment paper lined tray and then put them in a freezer-safe airtight container or food storage bag. They'll last a long time in the freezer!

Incredibly high in protein and low in fat, seitan is an excellent meat alternative with the perfect meaty texture and there are SO MANY ways to make it and shape it and flavor it—I make it all the time and I never get bored of making new seitan dishes. If you've never made your own seitan, I highly recommend it. It's honestly the perfect vegan meat alternative and a very high protein option.

Is Seitan Healthy?

Short answer is yes! Seitan is healthy. It is a processed meat alternative, but not as bad as products you may buy in the store. It is almost always healthier to make your food at home anyway, since you can control what goes in.

And honestly, processed food is NOT evil. The word "processed" has such negative connotations in the plant-based community. Plenty of foods are "processed," but still healthy, such as whole grain bread, tofu, even canned beans!

Seitan is loaded with protein, and my seitan has other healthy things like beans. 

Some store bought seitan contains oil. Some of my homemade seitan contains oil too, such as olive oil (just a small amount), as I have found that it makes a more tender and juicy seitan like my Seitan Turkey. But you can always omit it; I've made a LOT of seitan, some with oil and lots without. 

In fact, many of my recipes on the site still *don't* include it, like my first homemade seitan recipe: Instant Pot Seitan. And if they do, it's usually about 2 tablespoons for the whole recipe so across many servings, you're not getting much.

The nutritional info for every seitan recipe is different, even seitan that you can buy in a store (yes, there are some ready made packages of seitan that I've seen at various grocery stores and often in a natural foods store.

What Does Seitan Taste Like?

Seitan is a blank slate that only tastes like whatever you flavor it with. There are many ways you can affect both the flavor and texture of seitan, and the flavor of plain seitan is just that: it's pretty plain on it's own. So that's why my seitan recipes impart TONS of flavor.

There are so many different things you can use to flavor your seitan, from soy sauce to nutritional yeast to spices such as garlic powder and onion powder and anything else you can think of! Liquid smoke, bbq sauce, sriracha, stir-fry sauce, other different sauces etc.

A lot of people use vegetable broth to make their seitan and that's a good option. But I really like to use vegan chicken broth and vegan beef broth.

An excellent replacement for meat-based broths are some products from Better Than Bouillon. Their No Beef Bouillon Base and No Chicken Bouillon Base are LOADED with flavor (much more than veg broth) and really great if you're trying to obtain a more authentic meat flavor. This will help you make the most delicious vegan seitan recipes with loads of savory flavor.

For example, if I were making a beef recipe like my Vegan Seitan Steak or Vegan Gyros, I'd use the No Beef Base. If I were making a recipe like my Vegan Drumsticks or Seitan Chicken Nuggets, I'd use the No Chicken Base. Poultry seasoning is also a nice addition to make a chicken-style seitan.

For other recipes, such as my Vegan Pepperoni Recipe, I do often use vegetable broth (or another liquid) and I add different flavorings to achieve the flavor I'm hoping for.

How To Make Seitan

There are two methods to making the wheat flour use to make seitan: the washed flour method or you can use store bought vital wheat gluten.

The washed flour method is essentially a long process of washing flour and rinsing the dough that's created by the flour and water mixing together. It is a lot of work, though many seitan makers consider this to be a superior method (with far superior results). I have never tried it myself, so I'll discuss the vital wheat gluten method instead.

If you're using vital wheat gluten, you can mix it with a liquid and any number of seasonings to create a dough. There are so many different flavors and styles of seitan you can create. You can make any shapes you like as well.

I usually toss my vital wheat gluten into a food processor where I've already blended up beans and spices, however you don't necessarily need special equipment. I personally like to use beans or tofu in most of my seitan recipes. There are a few reasons for this:

• Beans change the texture of the seitan and make it more tender.
• Beans also add an essential amino acid called lysine to your seitan. Lysine is the one amino acid that vital wheat gluten lacks, so adding it via beans makes the seitan a complete protein.
• Beans can affect the color of the seitan which is helpful depending on what flavor you're making, such as vegan chicken (white beans) or vegan beef (black beans or kidney beans)

But if you don't have a blender or food processor, you can either hand mash the beans, use silken tofu as part of the wet ingredients, or just stick to liquids and spices with your vital wheat gluten to make the seitan dough.

Now when it comes to making the dough, you want it to be moist and lightly tacky but it shouldn't stick to your fingers. I prefer not to knead my seitan too much because it can become tough.

One thing I do recommend though is letting the seitan rest (covered) for 30 minutes before cooking it. This seems to make a big difference in gluten development in the wheat protein and the tender texture of seitan.

You can cook seitan in a variety of ways. If I've got a large hunk of seitan like my beef style seitan, I love to cook it in my pressure cooker. If I've got smaller pieces like my Seitan Chicken Nuggets, sometimes I'll boil them in a flavorful broth (such as vegan chicken broth or a brine) to infuse more flavor.

But since using boiling as the initial cooking method causes seitan to expand rapidly, you may want to bake or air fry the pieces afterward to make the texture more chewy and less spongy.

My favorite method for the initial cook of most seitan is to wrap it in parchment paper or aluminum foil and steam it in a large steamer pot. Different size seitan pieces call for different steaming time.

My Seitan Burgers, for example, take about 20 minutes to steam. And we really don't want to over steam seitan that gets a second cook, like searing it on the stove such as the burgers or like our Vegan Steaks. 

However, some of my seitan recipes are done after the initial steam, such as my Vegan Pepperoni and Vegan Salami. Just make sure to let them cool fully before slicing!

Check out my all my delicious seitan recipes below, each with their own unique flavor and flair.