These totally vegan seitan sausage patties are made with hearty lentils and flavorful spices. The perfect savory accompaniment to your vegan breakfast!
Here’s a recipe that has been in the works for quite some time now. Seitan sausage took me multiple attempts, which began some time way back last spring, sadly, on a day that I invited some friends over for brunch and promised them some amazing homemade vegan sausage. This happens every now and then. When you promise to feed someone some experimental recipe that you’re working on for a food blog, you quickly learn that backup plans are essential. On the brunch occasion in question I tried making a breakfast style sausage out of lentils and seitan, but the result was incredibly dry and gritty. Luckily, my boyfriend make his famous deep dish pancake that day, so a good brunch was had by all, and to be real, there’s just no room for sausage when you’ve dining on a massive eight-serving pancake.
Anyhow, I kept at it with the vegan sausage recipe, mostly because I recognized a need for such a thing as an ingredient in lots of my other recipes. I think at this point I’ve probably suggested using Gimme Lean or Field Roast in at least a few recipes on this blog, and while I think both products are great, I recognize a few things: (1) depending on where you live, your supermarkets might not sell these products, and they aren’t exactly Amazon friendly (the two potentially hard-to-find ingredients in this recipe are), (2) depending on what brand you go with, your meat substitute might not be made from the most wholesome ingredients (I think the two mentioned above are pretty good, but again there’s the availability issue), and finally (3) isn’t it just all kinds of fun to make stuff yourself?! If you’re me it is.
I realized that the trouble I was having with my previous batches of veggie sausage was in the ratio of wheat gluten to liquid. There’s quite a delicate balance going on here, and what I finally ended up doing was working an adaptation from Post Punk Kitchen’s Italian Sausage Recipe. It worked great. This version will give you a nice batch of what I think is a perfect vegan breakfast sausage. While the flavor is quite breakfasty, with just a hint of maple, it’s neutral enough for use in all kinds of veggie sausage-based lunch and dinner recipes, one of which I plan to publish in just a few days.
Lentil & Seitan Sausage Patties
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups vital wheat gluten
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
- 2 tsp. smoked paprika
- 2 tsp. ground black pepper
- 1/4 tsp. dried thyme
- 3/4 cup cooked brown lentils drained
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 1 cup vegetable broth
- 3 tbsp. soy sauce
- 2 tbsp. maple syrup
- oil for grilling
Instructions
- Prepare by cutting two 10" long sheets of foil and setting up a steaming apparatus - a bamboo steamer works great.
- In medium mixing bowl, stir together wheat gluten, nutritional yeast, paprika, pepper and thyme. Stir in lentils and garlic, then add broth, soy sauce and maple syrup. Do your best to mix everything up. The mixture will firm up very quickly. Dig right on in with your hands to get a uniform mixture, as best you can.
- Divide the dough in two and roll into two 6" logs. Wrap each log tightly in foil and steam for 30 minutes.
- Once your logs are steamed, you can either stick them in a sealed container for later use (probably about three days in the fridge will be just fine), or move right on to the next step if you're hungry now.
- Slice logs into about 1/2 inch thick slices (or your preferred thickness). Coat skillet with oil and place over medium heat. Grill slices until browned on each side - about five minutes.
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