Homemade Seitan

This is one easy homemade seitan recipe with vital wheat gluten, red miso, soy sauce, nutritional yeast and more. You mix some seitan ingredients in a bowl and then, you simmer it in a pot. You slice it up, and incorporate it into your favorite recipes. I tend to use this vegan wheat meat recipe in place of beef.

Some of my favorite seitan recipes include Seitan Beef Stew, Slow Cooker Vegan Chile Verde, Slow Cooker Vegan Italian Beef, Vegan Slow Cooker Seitan and Green Pea Stew, Seitan Wheat Berry Chili, and Cowboy Skillet Pie. Seitan adds a satisfying chewy texture and a serious protein punch to any dish. A 1 ounce serving has about 21 grams of protein.

Store bought seitan can be expensive. Making it from scratch can be more cost effective. As part of my meal prep practices, I make it on the weekends, and then, load up my freezer. Any time a recipe calls for it or I want to add it to something, I have it on hand!

This homemade seitan recipe makes ~4 cups. There are less than ten ingredients. Red miso is used, because it has a strong umami flavor. If you use another type of miso, it may not turn out very flavorful. For best results, make your seitan with red miso paste.

After it simmers, you’ll have seitan that you can use right away in a recipe or freeze for later. And it freezes very well! Simply chop it up (or leave it intact to decide how you want to slice or chop it later), add it to a container with a lid, cover the seitan with the miso simmering broth, seal with a lid, and freeze it until you’re ready to use.

Let’s make some DIY seitan!

Homemade Seitan

2 cups vital wheat gluten

⅓ cup nutritional yeast

2 ½ tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

10 ¾ cups water

2 cups reduced sodium soy sauce

3 Tbsp red miso

1-2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

1. In a large mixing bowl, add the vital wheat gluten, nutritional yeast, 1 ½ tsp garlic powder, and 1 tsp onion powder. Mix until well-combined, and then, make a well in the center.

2. In a second mixing bowl, add ¾ cup water, ½ cup reduced sodium soy sauce, and 1 Tbsp red miso. Whisk together, then pour into “the well” (see photo above).

3. Using your hands knead the seitan ingredients together until it forms an elastic dough ball. It should take ~1 minute.

4. Using a bread knife, slice the seitan dough ball into 6 equal pieces (see photo above). By slicing the big dough ball into smaller parts, the simmering broth will penetrate deeper into each piece.

5. In a large pot, add 10 cups water, 1 ½ cups reduced sodium soy sauce, 1 tsp garlic powder, 2 Tbsp red miso, and 1-2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar.

6. Add the chunks of seitan to the pot. Bring to a simmer, lower the heat, and cover with a lid (leaving the lid slightly ajar, so heat can escape). Simmer for 1 hour 15 minutes.

7. Remove the lid from the pot, and let the homemade seitan rest in the miso simmering broth for 15 minutes.

8. Remove the seitan chunks and chop however you want–chunks, strips, thin slices or leave as they are and decide later. If you are going to use it in a recipe right away, you can skip steps 9 and 10. It is ready for use. If you want to store it for later use or freeze it, proceed to the next step 🙂

9. Add the homemade seitan to a storage container, and pour the miso simmering broth over it until it’s submerged. Seal the container with a lid, and either store in the fridge until ready to use (within a few days) or place in the freezer for future recipes.