Vegan Sausage

Instructions

1. Add beans, olives and brine, agave, spices, tomato paste, sriracha if using, and broth (basically everything except the vital wheat gluten and tofu (if using) to your food processor and blend until mostly smooth. Some black specs of the bean skin may remain and that’s OK. Now add the vital wheat gluten and pulse until mostly combined. If using the tofu crumbles, add them in now and pulse a few times. Your dough may still be a little powdery. We’ll fix that. Add the dough to a medium bowl. Press it into one lump. If it looks a little powdery still, wet your hands and smooth the areas. Don’t knead the dough.

2. Set up a station with some prepared sheets of aluminum foil (I recommend 18” wide heavy duty aluminum foil). Each sheet should be about the size of a half sheet pan, about 13” by 18”. A little less or more is fine, but I like to be able to roll the sausage a few times to keep it from coming apart later. This recipe makes about 8-10 sausages, so prep at least 8 sheets.

3. If you care about making all your sausages the same size, weigh the lump of seitan on a food scale and divide it into equal portions for however many sausages you want to have. So, if you have 1600 grams of seitan and you want to make 8 sausages (these will be large and thick, like brats), each portion should weigh 200 grams. This is a step I did not do the first few times I tested the recipe. My vegan sausages were still delicious, just kinda all different lengths and thickness. If you’d like them all to be the same size, I recommend doing this extra step (it really doesn’t take much time at all).

4. Start by laying out your first sheet of foil and taking your first portion of seitan. Using your hands, form it roughly into a sausage shape. Place it in the bottom center of your foil sheet and press it and form it till it produces a sausage shape. Use a measuring tape or ruler to make sure your sausage is the length you’d like--I found just over 7” is the perfect length for a standard brat bun, but it’s up to you. If you did the above step in portioning out your seitan, you’ll find that each sausage should end up the same thickness if you’re measuring the length of each link as well.

5. starting at the bottom, roll the sausage and foil up, smoothing the sides as you go. Roll fairly tightly, but don’t be overly concerned about it. Now take the edges and twist them, kind of like a piece of hard candy. Fold the ends in so they stay and repeat this step with the remaining seitan.

6. In a large steamer pot or pot fitted with a steamer basket, add about 2” of water to the bottom of the pot. Bring it to a boil without the basket part in. Place your sausages in the basket in whichever way they’ll fit. Try not to jam or mush any of them. If you have a smaller steamer basket, you may need to do two rounds of cooking. You can leave out the wrapped sausages for an hour if you do this, or throw them in the fridge for up to 24 hours. But this is one reason I recommend a large steamer pot (also great for veggies, potatoes, etc.)

7. When the water comes to a boil, place the steamer basket with sausages in the pot and place on a lid. Steam (at full heat) for 45 minutes.