Vegan Shawarma Kebab

This Vegan Shawarma Kebab recipe is made from seitan flavoured with traditional spices. Get the recipe below.

What is shawarma?

Shawarma is a delicious Middle Eastern dish that is usually made up of meat that has been roasted on a spit and then cut into thin slices. It’s then stuffed into a pitta bread or flatbread with a range of sauces and salad items.

Spices traditionally used include cumin, cardamom, cinnamon, turmeric and paprika – all of which feature in my recipe.

Shawarma is an incredibly popular Middle Eastern street food. Now you can enjoy my vegan version.

How do you make shawarma kebabs vegan?

Shawarma is traditionally made with lamb, mutton or chicken. But, these days there are other variations and it’s even possible to make it vegan using meat substitutes like seitan. The key to a good vegan shawarma is to get the spicing just right.

Follow my full proof seitan recipe, spice it well and you will have delicious vegan shawarma every time.

What is seitan?

Seitan is the name given to the meat like substance made from vital wheat gluten and other ingredients. (More about vital wheat gluten below!) It is often beige or a pale brown/grey in colour and has a meaty, chewy texture.

Because seitan is so versatile, you can flavour it and cook it in lots of different ways. By adjusting the cooking process or the herbs and spices in the dough, we are able to mimic different types of meat even though we always start from the same base recipe.

How do you make seitan at home?

The first step is to make a simple dough out of vital wheat gluten.

Vital wheat gluten is made by washing wheat flour dough with water until all the starch granules have been removed. It looks like a flour once it has been processed. Using powdered vital wheat gluten is the simplest, and easiest way to make seitan or vegan “meat”.

To get a really moist, “tender” vegan meat / seitan I add silken tofu to my dough along with the spices that make it taste like shawarma.

Once the dough has been mixed and kneaded well, it’s twisted and torn to create a meaty, fibrous texture. It’s then seared before being cooked in a bath of stock.

The result is a meat substitute that tastes just like shawarma and can be thinly sliced in the same way too! All you need to do is stuff it in a pitta or lavash along with all the other fixings.

How to serve shawarma

Stuff your shawarma “meat” into a pitta or flatbread with some of these popular fixings:

• Fries
• Pickles
• Lettuce
• Sliced tomatoes
• Red onion
• Cabbage
• Sliced cucumber
• Tahini sauce or hummus
• Garlic sauce
• Chilli sauce
• Amba mango sauce

The recipe

As kebabs go, it is pretty damn healthy! It is the perfect combination of simple flavours and how a little bit of home-cooking can go a long way. I make my own pitta breads (you can find the recipe here) but you could of course use a store bough pitta or flatbread if you choose.

Vegan Shawarma Kebab

This Vegan Shawarma Kebab recipe is made from seitan flavoured with traditional spices. Stuff into pitta with your favourite sauce and salad.

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Prep Time 1 hour hr

Cook Time 2 hours hrs

Total Time 3 hours hrs

Course Dinner, lunch

Cuisine Middle Eastern

Servings 4 people

Calories 384.25 kcal

Ingredients

 

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For the seitan shawarma

• 300 grams silken tofu
• 250 ml bouillon or vegetable stock
• 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 tbsp white miso paste
• 1 tbs cumin
• 1 tbs coriander
• 1 tbs garlic powder
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp all spice
• 250 grams vital wheat gluten
• 25 grams chickpea flour
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 2 tsp rice flour or potato starch or tapioca flour
• 1 tsp agar agar dissolved in 4 tsp water

For the cooking stock

• 750 ml vegetable stock
• 4 cloves garlic
• 3 shallots halved
• 2 sticks celery
• 1 carrot peeled and roughly chopped
• 4 bay leaves

Instructions

 

• Pre-heat your oven to 150 C / 300 F / gas mark 2.
• Place the silken tofu, bouillon, apple cider vinegar, miso paste and spices into a blender and blitz on high until smooth.
• In a large bowl, mix together the vital wheat gluten, chickpea flour, nutritional yeast and rice flour.
• Pour the wet ingredients (including the dissolved agar agar) into the dry ingredients in the bowl and mix well until it has formed a dough.
• Next, knead the dough (either by hand or using a stand mixer) until it is stretchy and elastic and all of the ingredients are well combined.
• Twist the dough into a long, knotty sausage shape.
• Pinch the ends together to prevent the sausage twist from coming undone .
• Heat a little oil in a large heavy bottomed frying pan, add the sausage to the pan (seam side down) and cook for 5 minutes until it has formed a crust. Roll the sausage around and cook until you have an even crust all over.
• In the meantime, add the ingredients for the cooking stock to a large casserole dish.
• Lay a cheesecloth out on your counter, place the cooked sausage in the middle and wrap it up, using kitchen twine to seal the parcel.
• Place the wrapped sausage into the stock (it should be at least half covered by the stock), add the lid to the casserole dish and cook for 2 hours, flipping it over halfway.
• Once cooked, remove from the oven, unwrap and serve sliced stuffed into pitta bread or lavash with your favourite sauce and salad.

Nutrition

Calories: 384.25kcalCarbohydrates: 31.42gProtein: 56.15gFat: 4.64gSaturated Fat: 0.63gPolyunsaturated Fat: 2.16gMonounsaturated Fat: 0.88gTrans Fat: 0.01gSodium: 1219.89mgPotassium: 596.32mgFiber: 4.86gSugar: 6.85gVitamin A: 3255.67IUVitamin C: 5.96mgCalcium: 174.21mgIron: 6.32mg

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