Seitan Phillys – Heres Some Food

Seitan phillies, back again~~

I don’t know why the two members of this team can’t spell phillies the same way, but consider it charming and/or endearing, please. The point is: philly cheesesteaks are fantastic, and you don’t even need real meat to make them tasty!

To make the seitan

Ingredients:

2 cups vital wheat gluten
1/2 cup nutritional yeast*
Spices (I use salt, pepper, cayenne, onion powder, and garlic powder)
1 3/4 cups cold broth of choice (I used “Not Beef” veggie bouillon here)
1/3 cup soy sauce
3 tbsp oil (olive or vegetable; I haven’t tried coconut oil here because I think it’d taste weird, but if you give it a go, let us know how it turned out!)
8ish cups broth
1 onion, quartered
2-17 cloves garlic, crushed
another 1/4 cup soy sauce

*Note: I have recently learned that nutritional yeast isn’t actually necessary for seitan. If you’d like, leave it out and add another 1/4-1/2 cup wheat gluten)

What Do:

Mix your dry seitan ingredients (gluten, yeast, and spices).
Make a well in the bowl, and add your wet seitan ingredients (cold broth, soy sauce, and oil).
Combine wet and dry ingredients together until a thick dough forms. Knead the dough for 4-5 minutes. This activates the gluten, which is what gives the final product its chewy, meaty texture.
Set aside while you get your simmering brother together (bring 8ish cups of broth, a quartered onion, some crushed garlic, and another 1/4 cup soy sauce to a simmer).
Cut your seitan into four roughly-equal loaves, then let them simmer in a mostly-covered pot (don’t put the lid on all the way) for an hour.
Bam! Seitan! This recipe makes four loaves, and depending on what I’m making I average one loaf per recipe.

To make two (2) sandwiches

Ingredients:

Cooking fat of choice
2 hoagie-style rolls
1 loaf seitan
small onion, sliced
Crushed garlic
1 green bell pepper, sliced
Optional: about 1 cup sliced mushrooms
Optional: anything else you like! we enjoy spice in this house, so often I’ll add some jalapeno or other hotter pepper to the mix, for a little kick.
Mayo (or vegan mayo)
Optional: Cheese (dairy or non); the cheese helps hold the ingredients together in the sandwich, but isn’t strictly necessary.

What do:

Let your seitan loaf firm up a little in the freezer. It will make for easier slicing. While it’s in there, you can prep your vegetables.
Toast your rolls! In the video, I did this by cooking the inside parts of the bread in a pan with some butter, but now I generally spread some vegan mayo on the bread and let them heat up in a little oil. So good. Set rolls aside.
Cook your veggies. Put the pan on medium-high, add your cooking fat, then get your onions and garlic going. Slice your seitan while they cook. Once the onions are ready, add your peppers and mushrooms until they’ve browned.
Add your seitan strips, and salt! Feel free to throw some msg in there too if you’ve got any kicking around — I promise you they use it at the diners we’re emulating.
Once everything’s ready, make a couple of roughly sandwich-sized piles, and top with your cheese (if using).
Spread some mayo (vegan or otherwise) on your bread (yes, even if you used mayo to toast it), then get your sandwich stuff scooped on in there.
It’s food! You eat it!