Seitan Bacon Recipes

VEGAN WHEAT STARCH BACON

Steps:

• Separate the starch from water: If you are saving the starch water from making washed seitan, save the water from the first 3 washes in a large container, or in several bowls. Let the starch water rest for 4 hours or overnight so that the starch and the water separate. The white starch will sink to the bottom, and the yellow water will rise to the top. Gently pour off and discard the water leaving behind just the starch. Give your starch a good stir to make sure it is smooth (it can get clumpy when it sits), and add a splash of water if needed to get a nice thin batter. *If you are using store-bought wheat starch, mix starch and water together until you reach a consistency similar to the photos above.
• Season the starch: In a large measuring cup or medium bowl mix together all of the "red bacon starch" ingredients. If making the white bacon starch, in a separate measuring cup or bowl, mix together the "white bacon starch" ingredients. The white bacon starch is for making the bacon look more realistic mimicking the fat of the bacon, but feel free to skip this step if you prefer.
• Make vegan bacon crepes: Heat a large skillet or non-stick frying, brush the pan with oil. Working quickly, pour or spoon a small amount of the red starch into the pan to make a thin crepe. Use a spoon to drizzle the white starch across the top of the crepe to make stripes (you only need to do this on one side). Cook the crepe a couple of minutes per side until cooked through. Remove from the pan and set aside. Keep the crepes nice and thin to get the best texture. You can add more water to the starch to make the batter thinner if needed. Repeat these steps until you use up all of the starch, making several crepes.
• Cut bacon strips: Once the crepes are cooled, use scissors or a knife to cut the crepes in the bacon sized strips. At this point, you can store the starch bacon strips in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to 1 week or in the freezer.
• Fry up that vegan bacon! when you're ready to enjoy the bacon, heat 2 - 3 tablespoons of oil in a large skillet or frying pan. Fry the bacon strips until they reach desired crispiness. Drain on a paper towel. Enjoy!

HOW TO MAKE SMOKEY MAPLE SEITAN BACON (VEGAN)

Steps:

• Heat your oven to 350 Fahrenheit. In a large bowl stir together the dry ingredients until combined. In another bowl stir together all the the wet ingredients until smooth.
• Pour the wet into the dry and stir until a dough forms. I like to do my kneading in the stand mixer with a dough hook but you can knead it by hand as well. If you re using the stand mixer the place the dough in the stand mixer and allow it to knead with the dough hook for 6 minutes on medium speed. I think the texture is much better when I use the stand mixer. It makes for a denser loaf. If you are kneading by hand then you will need to knead for 10 minutes until the dough is super dense and rubbery.
• Lightly oil a metal loaf pan and press the seitan dough into the pan pressing hard into the corners until the dough lies flat in the pan. Spoon 1 tbsp of soy sauce and 1 tbsp of water over the top and enclose the top of the pan with aluminum foil so steam doesn't escape.
• Bake for 30 minutes at 350. Remove from oven. Mix up your smoky maple marinade.
• Mix up all the ingredients and taste. A small taste though because it will be strong. Play with the balance of flavors to your own taste.
• Now slice up your cooled seitan into long strips. I like it thick cut! Place the marinade in a pan that can hold all the sliced bacon. Slather the marinade onto the bacon strips on both sides and allow to sit 20 minutes. Fry up the bacon in a skillet about 2 minutes on each side.
• Make ahead tip. This marinated bacon will keep in the fridge tightly covered at least a week. This way you can fry it up as needed. How cool I that?

VEGAN BACON

Steps:

• Add the vital wheat gluten, nutritional yeast, smoked paprika, onion powder and garlic powder to a mixing bowl and mix together.
• Then, in a measuring jug, add vegetable stock, canola oil, tamari, maple syrup, liquid smoke, dijon mustard and tomato paste and whisk together.
• Add the wet ingredients in with the dry and mix in with a spoon until you have a thick dough.
• Move the dough to a wooden cutting board and knead it for 5-8 minutes until it is pretty stiff and firm. 5 minutes is sufficient if you have very strong hands, if you have weaker hands then up to 8 minutes may be needed. Watch for how the dough feels to know when it has been long enough. It should be firm and spring back when stretched. See the blog post for more notes about kneading.
• Form the dough into a square as much as you can, loosely wrap it in foil and steam it for 20 minutes. The water should be boiling before you add the steamer basket so that it steams properly for the full 20 minutes.
• After 20 minutes of steaming unwrap it from the foil and allow to cool completely. When it's cool, use a sharp knife to cut it into even slices.
• Prepare your marinade sauce by adding tamari, maple syrup, smoked paprika, tomato paste, garlic powder, onion powder and liquid smoke to a measuring jug and whisk with a mini whisk until smooth.
• Heat up a frying pan with the grapeseed oil and then add the first batch of bacon slices (we did 5-6 slices at a time) and brush on the marinade sauce. Flip the slices and brush the marinade sauce onto the other side. Flip the bacon slices regularly until charred on each side.
• Keep leftovers in the fridge and enjoy within about a week. It's also freezer friendly if you want to freeze it, and then thaw overnight in the fridge.

SEITAN BACON

Steps:

• Mix the doughs up and form into balls, each one separately.
• Break the red dough into 4 pieces and the white dough into 3-4 pieces. Flatten each piece and layer alternating colors on top of each other. This is your time to be creative. Once you have a big block of dough lay it on an oiled cutting board. Place another cutting board/saran wrap on top. Press your dough for at least 30 minutes.
• After your dough has been pressed bake at 300F for 45 minutes. Your seitan will be a bit undercooked but this is what you want. It makes it easier to slice and it will pan-fry better.
• Slice into bacon strips and pan fry to the desired crispness you like. Enjoy!

STARCH WATER BACON

Steps:

• PREPARE YOUR STARCH WATER After washing flour, let your starch water rest for several hours or overnight so it has time to settle. Check out the step-by-step for washing flour to make seitan here. Once settled, pour off most of the excess water, leaving about 15% on top. Then stir them together. This does not need to be an exact science, but you're looking for the mixture to resemble a very thin crepe batter when its all stirred up. TIP: You can leave your starch water in the fridge for several days if you're not going to be able to use it right away.
• MIX YOUR BATTER Separate the batter (mixed starch water) into 2 parts. Measure out 1 1/4 cups for the "meat," and 3/4 cup for the "fat." Then add all of the "meat" ingredients into the 1 1/4 cup batter, and the "fat" ingredients into the 3/4 cup batter. I used a blender stick to make it super quick, but you can use a whisk, blender, or even a spoon. TIP: The measurements do not need to be exact. I worked with what I had from one washing and you may have more or less. You can adjust the seasonings to however you like and think of this more as a general guide.
• MAKE YOUR "PANCAKES" Heat a large, non-stick pan over medium heat. Add a little bit of cooking spray or oil to keep the batter from sticking. Pour thin stripes of red and white mixture (using more red than white) into the hot pan, and move the pan as necessary to keep the batter as thin as possible, spreading it around the pan into a solid "pancake". If it's too thick your bacon will be more chewy than crispy. As a solid sheet, it should be able to easily slide around the pan. No need to flip, it will cook through fairly quickly if it's thin enough. Just transfer it to a plate and keep making pancakes until your batter is used up. TIP: My measuring cups have spouts so I kept everything in them as I mixed to make the batter easy to pour out later. I've heard some people transfer their batter to used squeeze bottles to make it even easier to keep the batter strips as thin as possible.
• CUT YOUR PANCAKES INTO STRIPS OF BACON Once you have your pancakes made, you can use a pizza cutter or kitchen scissors to cut, or rip them into strips. I did a combination of cutting and ripping for a more authentic look. TIP: Don't worry if your pancakes rip some as cooking, they will look more authentic with torn edges. Any little pieces can be made into bacon bits.
• FRY YOUR BACON Heat another tablespoon or two of oil on the pan over medium-high heat, and working in batches, fry your strips, adding oil as necessary to finish.

SEITAN 'BACON'

Steps:

• Making the red dough
• Add all of the dry ingredients to one of the mixing bowls. Combine with a spoon until the colour and texture is uniform.
• Now add all of the wet ingredients to the jug with the 240ml of water in it. Use the hand blender and mix until the colour and texture are a luscious deep reddy/brown and smooth.
• Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients then pour the wet ingredients in.
• Mix it all up with the wooden spoon until you have formed a uniform looking dough.
• Making the white dough
• Add all of the dry ingredients to one of the mixing bowls. Combine with a spoon until the colour and texture is uniform.
• Add the oil and water together then use the hand blender to combine till smooth.
• Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients then pour the wet ingredients in.
• Mix it all up with the wooden spoon until you have formed a uniform looking dough.
• If you have a food processor then pop the dough in two batches in to it and use the plastic blade on full for a few minutes (give it time to cool down in between blitzes as I have killed them before with over work!). The dough will take on a much firmer consistency.
• Clear the work surface then kneed and fold the red dough until you achieve a bouncy texture.
• Split into six equal parts then form into slabs as big as the base of your loaf tins.
• Wipe down the work surface then repeat with the white dough. The white dough will be a lot wetter this is normal! Make the slabs the same size as the red dough slabs.
• Now layer up a loaf red, white, red, white, red white. Repeat for the second loaf.
• Place both loaves in to the tins then flatten out with your hand until they reach the edges of the tins.
• Cover each tin with a piece of baking parchment and tie with string to hold in place. Make sure you make a good seal around the top of each loaf.
• Place both tins in to the roasting dish, then half fill dish with with boiling water.
• Bake for 45 minutes at 180 °C fan assisted or 200 °C regular.
• Remove both loaves carefully from the tins, turn them upside down then replace them in the tins and cover again. Top up the boiling water and return to the oven for a further 30minutes.
• Now place them on a wire rack to cool down for half an hour.
• You can freeze one of the loaves at this point for later consumption, in our experience though it's better to just keep it in the fridge as the first loaf disappears pretty quickly! I can get around 20 slices out of one loaf but choose your own thickness and enjoy!

SMOKY VEGAN SEITAN BACON

Steps:

• Start by combining dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Stir to combine.
• Next, add in wet ingredients. Mix well until a dough forms.
• Knead the dough for 6-8 minutes on a wooden chopping board. It should be pretty firm and elastic after kneading.
• Shape the dough into a square and loosely wrap it in foil. Steam it for 30 minutes in a steaming basket inserted into a pot of boiling water.
• After steaming, carefully remove foil and let it cool down completely. Slice it into thin strips using a sharp knife.
• Combine everything needed for the marinate in a bowl and whisk to mix. Using a pastry brush, brush on the marinade on both sides.
• To pan-fry: Heat up a small amount of oil in a non-stick pan. Place 4-5 slices of bacon in the pan and cook for 1-2 minutes on each sides, or until both sides are nicely charred. Repeat for the remaining slices.
• To bake: Preheat oven to 200C/400F. Place bacon slices in one layer on a lined baking rack. Place rack at the uppermost layer of the oven and bake for 8-10 minutes, before flipping over and baking for another 8-10 minutes on the other side.

SEITAN BACON - PLANT-BASED BACON

Steps:

• Preheat an oven to 170°C / 340°F
• In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients for the light layer and mix thoroughly
• In a smaller bowl mix together the light layer wet ingredients and then add this to the dry ingredients. Mix to form a dough and then turn the dough out onto a work surface and knead for 1 - 2 minutes. Set aside while you make the red layer
• In the same large bowl mix together the red layer dry ingredients.
• In a smaller bowl mix together the wet ingredients for the red layer and add this to the bowl with the dry ingredients. Combine into a dough and knead together for 1 - 2 minutes.
• Tear off a sheet of foil around 18 x 18 inches and divide both the red and light doughs into two pieces.
• Place half the red layer onto the foil and make a rectangle around 6 inches square. Onto the red layer add half the white layer and stretch to the same size, pressing them together.
• Do the same with the two remaining halves of seitan to create a slab of bacon.
• Wrap the seitan with the foil tightly to maintain the shape and then wrap in another layer of foil to create a tight package.
• Place the wrapped bacon in the oven directly on the oven rack. Bake for 90 minutes and then remove from the oven and allow to cool still wrapped in the foil.
• For best results refrigerate the bacon for a few hours or overnight to firm up. The bacon can then be sliced and heated in a little oil in a pan or added to any other dishes.

SEITAN BACON

Steps:

• Make the seitan in advance, slice thin, and set it aside.
• Whisk all the marinade ingredients together and pour into a refrigerator safe container.
• Add the slices of seitan to the marinade.
• Cover and refrigerate for 1-2 days (the longer, the better).
• Once marinated, set the temperature to 370 degrees in the air-fryer.
• Place a single layer of seitan bacon on the air-fryer base and cook for 7 minutes, stopping to flip the bacon over once 3 1/2 minutes, elapses.
• Remove the pieces and cover with aluminum foil on a plate, so you can batch cook the rest and keep the pieces warm.
• If making a BLT, toast the bread or bun.
• Then, spread vegan cashew mayo on the bun, add pieces of seitan, 2 tomato slices, raw onion (optional), and lettuce.