This Stuffed Seitan "Turkey" Roast is the ultimate vegan roast dinner centrepiece. It has an amazingly meaty texture and is stuffed with a soft, buttery stuffing that is to die for. Get the recipe below.
What is seitan?
Seitan (pronounce SAY-tan) is a game changer for anyone who wants to follow a plant based diet but misses the taste and texture of meat. It's a popular meat substitute which originated in Asian cuisine. If you’ve ever eaten “mock meat” from a Chinese restaurant or even bought vegan meat substitutes in the supermarket, you’ve already tried seitan!
Once you know how to make your own seitan, the possibilities are endless. I like to transform seitan into a range of tasty treats including shredded chicken, roast beef and even "turkey" dinosaurs! You won't have to keep relying on store bought options and can even create delicious dishes like my Stuffed Seitan "Turkey" Roast at home.
But first you're going to need to buy a slightly unusual ingredient: vital wheat gluten.
What is Vital Wheat Gluten?
Vital wheat gluten is the main ingredient in seitan. One way of making vital wheat gluten is to "wash" dough made with wheat flour until all the starch granules have been removed. This leaves behind an elastic mass, which is then processed into seitan.
You can also buy vital wheat gluten in powder form. It is pale yellow in colour but otherwise has the same texture as regular flour. Using powdered vital wheat gluten is the simplest, and easiest way to make seitan. Just follow the instructions below...
To find out more about vital wheat gluten and other essential ingredients for vegan cooking, check out my A-Z of vegan cooking.
How to make seitan at home
The basic method of making seitan at home is simple.
First you mix powdered vital wheat gluten with a range of herbs, spices and water to form a dough. Kneading this dough, twisting and shaping it, creates a meat-like texture and appearance.
Once you've shaped it you then steam, bake, boil, fry or otherwise cook the dough until it resembles a juicy piece of meat!
How to make a Stuffed Seitan "Turkey" Roast
These are the exact principles we follow to make this Stuffed Seitan "Turkey" Roast but we fill it with a delicious, seasonal stuffing before cooking.
How to make homemade stuffing
Before we start on the "turkey" seitan, we have to mix up our stuffing. You could use a store-bought stuffing but I prefer to make my own from scratch.
This simple stuffing is made from onion, garlic, sage, vegan butter, breadcrumbs, apricots, raisins and pine nuts.
The onion is sweated off in a pan with garlic and sage. This is then left to cool before it is added to the breadcrumbs, apricots and raisins (which have been re-hydrated) and some toasted pine nuts with plenty of melted vegan butter to bind it.
It's an easy recipe that tastes delicious on its own. It's also the perfect stuffing recipe to pack into my Stuffed Seitan "Turkey" Roast.
How to make vegan turkey
You can see from the photos that I haven't tried recreating the shape of a whole turkey for this recipe. Think of it more like a stuffed turkey crown.
To make the "turkey meat" I start by mixing up my liquids. This is made from silken tofu, bouillon, lemon juice, vinegar, onion powder, white miso paste, garlic, salt, celery salt, mixed herbs and pepper. It gets whizzed into a blender until we have a thick liquid that is jam packed full of flavour.
In a large bowl we whisk together the dry ingredients (vital wheat gluten, chickpea flour, nutritional yeast, rice flour and agar agar). Next we add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix.
The wet ingredients are where we get the flavour from. The dry ingredients are essential in creating the meat like texture.
Once the ingredients have been mixed together I throw it into my stand mixer with a dough hook and give it a good knead. You can of course do this by hand but when I'm cooking a big roast dinner I like to take the easy option.
As soon as the dough is finished kneading it's time to shape it into our stuffed turkey crown. Roll out the dough into a large rectangle, spoon the stuffing down the centre, roll the dough around the stuffing pinching the edges to seal it.
Heat a large bottomed saucepan with a little oil on high then add the stuffed sausages to the pan. Cook the sausage until it has a caramelised crust, rolling it around so it cooks evenly.
In the meantime fill a large casserole dish with stock, shallots, carrot, celery sticks, garlic cloves and bay leaves. This is going to be a flavour bath for the turkey as it cooks in the oven.
To make sure the stuffed sausage hold together as it cooks in the stock, I wrap it in cheesecloth and tie it with twine. You don't need to tie the twine too tightly as the sausage will expand while it cooks. Place the wrapped sausage into the stock, cover with a lid and cook for 2 hours, turning half way through.
Remove the Stuffed Turkey Seitan Roast from the stock and serve in slices. The stock will make amazing gravy so don't throw it away!
The recipe
Stuffed Seitan "Turkey" Roast
Equipment
- large frying pan
- cheesecloth
- kitchen twine
- cassrole dish with lid
Ingredients
For the stuffing
- 2 tablespoon raisins
- 4 apricots dried, finely diced
- 1 white onion finely diced
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 4 leaves sage finely chopped
- 100 grams breadcrumbs
- 25 grams toasted pine nuts
- salt and pepper to taste
- 75 grams non-dairy butter
For the seitan "turkey" roast
- 300 grams silken tofu
- 250 ml bouillon or vegetable stock
- 2 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 2 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 tablespoon white miso paste
- 2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon celery salt
- 1 tablespoon Italian mixed herbs
- 0.25 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 250 grams vital wheat gluten
- 25 grams chickpea flour
- 2 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 2 teaspoon rice flour or potato starch or tapioca flour
- 1 teaspoon agar agar dissolved in 4 teaspoon water
Cooking stock
- 750 ml vegetable stock
- 3 shallots halved
- 1 carrot peeled and roughly chopped
- 2 sticks celery
- 4 cloves garlic peeled
- 4 bay leaves
Instructions
To make the stuffing
- Re-hydrate the raisins and dried apricots by covering with boiling water and leaving them to sit while you make the rest of the stuffing.
- Add the oil, onion and a pinch of salt to a frying pan and place over a medium-high heat.
- Sweat the onion for 5-8 minutes or until translucent before adding the garlic and sage and cooking for another 2 minutes.
- Place the onion to one side and leave to cool with the raisins and apricots (drained).
- Add the breadcrumbs and pine nuts to the cooled ingredients, mix well then pour over the melted butter and season.
- Stir together (it should start to come together loosely), cover and chill until needed.
To make the seitan "turkey" roast
- Pre-heat your oven to 150 C / 300 F / gas mark 2.
- Place the silken tofu, bouillon, apple cider vinegar, onion powder, miso paste, garlic powder, celery salt, mixed herbs and pepper 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.
- Roll the dough out into a rectangle with the longest edge running horizontally in front of you.
- Lay the stuffing ingredients down the middle then pull the top edge of the dough over, encasing the stuffing in the dough in one long sausage.
- Pinch the ends together to prevent the sausage from coming undone and the stuffing escaping.
- 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 while still hot.
Nutrition
Make ahead
If you want to get ahead then you can make the Stuffed Seitan Turkey Roast a day or two before.
Simply encase the stuffing in the dough then, rather than cooking it, wrap it all in cling film and place in the fridge.
It will keep like this in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Variations
Feel free to swap my stuffing recipe for your own. Or, if you want to save time in the kitchen, opt for a boxed version like Paxo.
If you want to make your roast even more meaty, why not lay a few rashers of vegan bacon across the top of the roast in the last 10 minutes of cooking?
Serve with...
Why not serve with some of these simple side dishes that will take your roast dinner from good to great!
The Ultimate Vegan Christmas Dinner
For the full range of recipes that help you have the best plant based Christmas ever, check out my post on the Ultimate Vegan Christmas Dinner. We've got everything from starters to desserts, cheese course and cocktails!
Just click the image above!
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