Vegan Sausages – VeganMoFo Day 18

These next two days of VeganMoFo are leftover days…well, today is the beginning, where you make food, and tomorrow is the day where you use the leftover food. While leftovers can just be, well, leftovers from whatever you made, it’s an even better idea to plan your meals with leftovers in mind. Make a meal, and intend to use the leftovers for another meal. That’s what these sausages do!

These are actually, I think, my third sausage recipe on this blog. I have tomato and basil sausages, and pizza sausages! These ones are more traditionally flavoured, I think, and work great in hot dog buns with some fried onions! Once again I used Isa’s recipe as a base, but altered it a fair bit too.

Sausages made from seitan aren’t perhaps the most attractive of things, which makes them a little difficult to photograph, but they really are delicious! I actually use cups to measure this recipe out, because it all goes in the food processor so it’s easier than weighing.

Seitan Sausages

• Servings: 11 sausages
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Ingredients

• 1 can white kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 cup cold vegetable stock
• 4 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 2 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp marmite
• drop liquid smoke
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• several cracks black pepper
• 1.5 cups vital wheat gluten

Directions

1. Place all the ingredients, except for the vital wheat gluten, in a food processor and blend until smooth.
2. Add the vital wheat gluten and pulse until combined and forming a dough.
3. Roll the dough into sausage shaped pieces – they’ll expand as they cook so make them smaller than you want them!
4. Wrap each sausage in tin foil, making sure it’s all sealed in.
5. Place the wrapped sausages in your steamer (you may need to do this in two batches)and steam for 40 minutes.
6. Use how you fancy!

Pizza Sausages

Ah, February. Christmas is over, the new year is over, and it’s absolutely freezing cold. Spring is not yet on the radar, so the best thing to do is to sit tight in the warm and try not to shiver ourselves away.

The VeganMoFo challenge for the month is “Red” – to make and eat food all with the theme of red. This meal did not come out quite as red as I had planned, but it is still a bit red and certainly delicious.

These sausages are adapted from my tomato & basil sausage recipe, but these are flavoured to taste like pizza. Aptly, today is apparently National Pizza Day, which I didn’t actually plan for, but it works! Stuffed full with sun-dried tomatoes, olives, basil, and nutritional yeast, these sausages have a definite pizza flavour to them and smell and taste wonderful!

As with the other sausages on my blog, these are made with vital wheat gluten (you can buy it from health-food or vegan shops) and first steamed, then fried to get a lovely crust. Sausages made with gluten hold their shape very well, making them also ideal if you fancy barbecuing them!

• Servings: 8 sausages
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Ingredients

• 60g sundried tomatoes (the kind that come in oil), finely chopped
• 50g black olives, finely chopped
• 30g fresh basil, finely chopped
• 1 can white kidney beans/cannelini beans
• 4 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sriracha
• 4 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 225g vital wheat gluten
• 225ml cold water

Directions

1. Begin by mashing the white beans in a large bowl until thoroughly mashed.
2. Stir through the remaining ingredients to make a dough.
3. Knead the dough for just a minute until it all comes together and forms a cohesive mixture.
4. Divide the dough into 8 pieces, and roll each one into a rough sausage shape. Don’t worry too much about the shape – they’ll expand as they steam.
5. Wrap each sausage in tin-foil, like a Christmas cracker shape.
6. Place the sausages in your steamer (you may have to do two batches if your steamer is not large enough).
7. Steam for 40 minutes.
8. Once the sausages are steamed, remove them from the steamer, allow to cool slightly, then unwrap the foil.
9. To fry, pour a little oil into a hot pan and fry the sausages for a minute or two on each side, until golden in colour.
10. The sausages freeze well if you have too many!

Tomato & Basil Seitan Sausage (in a sandwich)! – Vegan MoFo Day 5

MoFo day 5 is all about sandwiches. Ok, I will admit that I don’t think I eat a ton of sandwiches. If I’m having bread, it’ll at most be an open-faced sandwich because, same amount of bread for twice the filling? Yes please! But then I got thinking, and, well, I like burgers and things like that, and I guess they’re technically sandwiches, right?

So here it is, this is my kind-of-burger-kind-of-sandwich sandwich. Tomato & Basil Seitan Sausage Sandwich!

I recently got Vital Wheat Gluten for the first time and have been going mad making seitan! Using the gluten makes a lovely chewy, dense mock meat and you can flavour it with whatever you like. I based my recipe off Isa’s bean and gluten sausages but adapted the flavours to make it Tomato & Basil flavoured.

Making the sausages is super easy. You just mix all the ingredients in a bowl, shape into sausage shapes, wrap in foil, steam for 40 minutes and then unwrap, and there you have sausages! Fry them off to get crisp, or put them on a barbecue if you like!

I served mine in sundried tomato cobs (recipe coming soon) with rocket (also known as argula) and a balsamic red onion mix.

Tomato & Basil Seitan Sausage Sandwiches

• Servings: makes 8 sausages
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Ingredients

For the Sausages (makes 8)
• 200g Vital Wheat Gluten
• 1 can cannellini beans, drained
• 3 heaped tbsp tomato puree
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tbsp dried basil
• 1 red onion, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 3 tbsp Nutritional yeast
• 250ml cold vegetable stock

For the red onions

• 2 large red onions, roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp oil

To serve

• Cobs/rolls
• Rocket/arugula

Directions

1. In a bowl, mash the beans until thoroughly mashed.
2. Add the rest of the sausage ingredients, and mix well until a dough is formed.
3. Split into 8 portions, and roll into sausage shapes.
4. Wrap each sausage securely in tin foil, leaving enough space to expand.
5. Steam for 40 minutes. You may need to do this in 2 batches is your steamer is not large enough.
6. Once the sausages are cooked, remove them from the foil, and fry in a pan until the outsides are crisp.
7. Meanwhile, make the onions. Heat the oil in a small saucepan, and fry the onions until they soften.
8. Add the balsamic vinegar and sugar to the onions, and cook 5-10 minutes.
9. Slice the sausages lengthways, and put in the cobs with the rocket, and a spoonful of onion mixture.
10. Serve and enjoy!