Seitan

Preparation

1. Bland

   Step 1

   The most basic recipe for homemade seitan calls for gluten flour (also known as vital wheat gluten) and liquid. For more flavor, you can add nutritional yeast, sage, thyme, garlic, broth, soy sauce, and tomato paste or ketchup. If you’ve already cooked up some bland seitan or if the stuff you bought from the store is tasteless, you’ll just have to make an extra-flavorful sauce for it.

2. Bready

   Step 2

   You probably needed more high-gluten flour and/or less liquid. Also, when simmering your seitan next time, make sure that you start with cold liquid and never let the liquid fully boil. For now, you may want to take your bready seitan, slice it, and brown it in a pan. This will help disguise the texture somewhat.

3. Rubbery

   Step 3

   You may have used too much high-gluten flour. It’s a necessary ingredient to hold the seitan together, but it can cause rubberiness. Use a 1:4 ratio of another flour (we recommend chickpea, though all-purpose is fine) to gluten flour to avoid this. You may also need more liquid in your seitan. And when cooking, be sure it’s fully submerged in liquid (if you’re simmering it) and that you cook it long enough. But what to do now with your rubbery seitan? Your best option is to cut it into small pieces and brown them. Serve with a sauce or in a pot pie.

4. Spongy

   Step 4

   Have you let it cool completely? Seitan firms up as it cools. If you have, use the same fix as for rubbery seitan. It won’t be perfect, but it will certainly be edible.