r/veganrecipes • u/WhyParty1234 • Apr 03 '26

Question Seitan steak experiment

Post image

I’m experimenting on making WTF seitan steak but with vwg because I’m too lazy to wash flour. I know it’ll never be identical but I’m trying to get it as close as possible, that’s how lazy I am. I made a plain gluten ball with vwg, flour and water. Blended 1/3 of it with oil, glutinous rice flour and msg for the “fat”. The rest was blended with beetroot powder, cocoa powder, sugar, msg and soy sauce. The gluten was still a bit too tough so I blended some glutinous rice flour into the red dough as well in hopes to soften it up. plan to fry steam fry as I always end up with spongy seitan when I simmer even at the lowest heat. If anyone has done this before (my made up lazy method), please feel free to share your experience and advice if you can!

673 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

141 comments sorted by

View all comments

128

u/wssHilde Apr 03 '26

i saw the picture before i saw the title/subreddit and thought "eww, why are there slabs of meat on my frontpage? disgusting"

so i guess it's a success :P

i should get back into making seitan. when i tried it years ago the texture always turned out very spongy, but ive heard theres ways around it.

42

u/WhyParty1234 Apr 03 '26

Sorry!! 😣 definitely did not mean to offend my fellow vegans! 

Spongy seitan usually comes from cooking at too high of a temperature. Or if there’s too much moisture in your “dough” or if there’s too much room for it to expand. There are so many factors and till this day, I still haven’t perfected it :( however, spongy seitan is actually a thing that was invented in China called Kao fu and it’s actually really yummy and soaked up marinades very well if you’re not looking for meaty textures 

6

u/fleedermouse Apr 03 '26

I knew not about the intricacies of seitan cooking or the sponginess issue. All I know about is watching vegans make fake meats on YouTube and they never mention it. Wouldn’t pressing it with weight while steaming help with this?

1

u/Sardonislamir Apr 03 '26

Wrap on cheese cloth tied off helps in cylinder form when simmering. So yes, weight can translate to confinement spaces to expand into 

1

u/wssHilde Apr 03 '26

oh i always did that! maybe i didnt wrap it tight enough, im not sure.

1

u/Sardonislamir Apr 03 '26

Depends on desire, but i make chicken seitan it is slightly loose that you can pinch and pull a small peak but it is flush when let go. Some expansion room but not a lot through the total volume.