Seitan Turkey Roast

Washed Flour Seitan Turkey Schedule

Day 1: Add Flour to water to create a ball of dough. Cover in salted water and let sit overnight.

Day 2: Rinse salted water and knead the dough under water to remove the starch. Season and shape the gluten, wrap it up, and let it simmer overnight. 

Day 3: Unwrap the seitan and roast in the oven. Ready to serve!  

How to Wash the Flour

This is the most challenging part of this recipe. Washing the starch away from the ball of dough is intimidating the first time you do it. But once you have your first success with it- you’ll be addicted! Especially if you normally make seitan from vital wheat gluten!

Because it took me a two failed attempts to figure out washing the flour, I made multiple videos with tips and tricks on how to be successful. Now that I understand how to work the dough and how to know when it is fully washed, I make this recipe frequently. Once you learn how to make your own seitan, it will be tough going back to buying overpriced premade vegan meats (almost all are seitan).

I recommend you watch the videos on making this seitan and washing the flour!

Get Your Hands Dirty

Think of this step as squeezing out the starch.
The smooth ball of dough will be transformed into a web like structure, showing strands of protein. When you squeeze a section of the dough under the water you can literally see the starch separate out. Anywhere where the dough looks smooth, there is starch to squeeze out. The more you squeeze and work the dough, the cloudier the water becomes. Be gentle so you don’t tear the dough.

After you squeeze the dough there will be a point where the water is very milky and thick with starch. Pour that into another bowl or jar to save for later. You can use this wheat starch water like any other starch. It can thicken sauces, made into steam noodles, added to pasta dough, or you can make a wheat starch specific recipe with it.

You’ll keep squeezing the dough under water for about 25-40 minutes (depending on how fast you work or if you are taking breaks!). If you are halfway through washing and starch keeps coming out of the dough- take a break! I’ve had other people say that the starch doesn’t stop coming out of the dough. I’m here to say you need some patience with this step because it does take roughly 30 minutes for the starch to completely separate from the gluten.

Put it in the refrigerator since the gluten is strongest when it is cold and your hands will warm up the dough as you knead it. This means after washing the dough it can start to feel like it is coming apart because it is getting to warm from your hands. Adding ice cubes or placing it in the fridge helps prevent that.

The gluten will be done when it looks like webby, no smoothness to the dough, and it rinses mostly clear. It doesn’t need to rinsed to be 100% clear, but to the point where there are no pockets of starch left in the dough. Just make sure there are no smooth pockets in your webby dough! The more you rinse the dough to be clear, the better layers and shreds you’ll have in your seitan.

Seitan Turkey with a Skin

Now that you’ve washed the flour and have pure gluten and wheat starch water we can form our seitan to be a vegetarian turkey!
Set your gluten aside in a bowl and water will leak from the gluten. Pour away any water that comes out of your gluten.
Create a “fat sauce” out of the wheat starch water, oil, and seasonings. If you are familiar with pastry baking, think of this step like creating a fat for laminating the seitan. If you did only oil and seasonings, the gluten would absorb it and there wouldn’t be separate layer. You would be left with a moist loaf- which is great for slicing for sandwiches.
But to have a Seitan Turkey for a holiday roast, you’ll want a skin and layers. The wheat starch helps break up the gluten so the layers come apart and you are left with a more realistic meat like seitan.

In order to have a crispy, meaty skin with a moist center you’ll need to create the ‘fat sauce’ so there are separate layers.

I like using the smoked yeast because the flavor is full of body, but that is totally optional! You can swap out the coconut oil for another oil if you prefer. I would recommend a neutral flavored oil if you don’t use coconut oil.

How to Form Your Seitan Turkey

After the gluten has rested and lost some water it’s ready to work with. Letting it rest is important because if your gluten is holding too much water it won’t keep it’s shape when we are forming the seitan. It’s also messier if you don’t let it rest as water will leak out of the gluten while you work with it.
Divid your gluten into two chunks, separating roughly 1/3 of the gluten from 2/3 of the mass. Set the smaller chunk of gluten aside, and stretch out the larger chunk into a rope. Coat the long rope of gluten with your fat sauce.
Create tight knots in the rope of gluten without tearing it. Continue to knot it until it is one big knotted loaf. Do another coating of the fat sauce over the knotted loaf.
Stretch out the smaller portion of the gluten into a flat rectangle and coat one side with any remaining fat sauce. Wrap the rectangle of gluten around the knotted loaf with the fat sauce inside the loaf itself. This is how we make our skin for our seitan!

Now tightly wrap your loaf into some cheesecloth to keep it together. The tighter the loaf the rounder your seitan will be- also keeping it tight will help you get a better textured seitan.

Vegetarian Turkey Style Broth

This recipe has you make a broth that tastes very similar to turkey! To create this broth you’ll need vegetarian chicken bullion, onion, shiitake mushrooms, and miso. The additions of the mushrooms and miso helps add an iron like flavor and further depth. Turkey is typically more ‘gamey’ in flavor compared to chicken. The shiitake mushrooms helps add that funky flavor that makes it taste more like turkey.

When you are done with making seitan you’ll be left with lots of this broth. It’s a great base for soups! It’s phenomenal in my Chicken of the Woods Wild Rice Soup or any soup that uses ‘chicken’ broth. You can also reuse this broth for another batch of seitan!

I typically pour my leftover broth into glass jars with about 2 inches of head space and store them in the fridge. Once they are fully cooled off I’ll put them in the freezer so I can ready to go broth for a future recipe.
The broth stores in the fridge for about 1 week and will last for up to 3 years in the freezer.

Simmering Your Seitan

Once your seitan is wrapped up it’s ready to simmer in your broth. Seitan needs a long and slow simmer. If you don’t cook it long enough it will have a soft and doughy texture. If you cook your seitan at too high of a temperature it will expand and create air bubbles- giving you a spongy texture.

The simplest way to accomplish this is to use either an Instant Pot or Slow Cooker. Both of these devices have a setting for slow cook on low that you can safely leave on overnight. All you need to do is add the wrapped seitan into the broth and leave it on slow cook for at least 6 hours.

The beauty of this is you can’t over cook seitan this way. If anything, the longer you leave your seitan simmering the better the results! One of my best seitan’s was when I forgot about it in the instant pot when it was on slow cook over the weekend. It was left simmering for 36 hours! The seitan picks up the flavor from the broth and the longer it rests, the more shreddy the texture gets.

Let it simmer for at least 6 hours to ensure it is fully cooked, but ideally, you’ll let it cook overnight.

Roasting Your Seitan Turkey

The final step of making this seitan turkey is to oven roast it!
You’ll unwrap your seitan after you remove it from your instant pot. From there you’ll cover it in some seasonings and add it an oven friendly pan with some of the broth.
You’ll roast the seitan for about an hour, basting it every 15 minutes. This is how you get your crispy and ultra flavorful skin!
Once it is roasted it is ready to serve!

What to Serve with your Vegan Turkey!

This is a recipe I make for Thanksgiving, but it is also great for Christmas, or your Sunday Roast.

• Being raised in Minnesota, you can’t have Thanksgiving without some Wild Rice Stuffing! This stuffing is a veganized version of my family recipe. It’s perfection with this seitan turkey!
• Even vegans love their wheat meat and potatoes, these Crispy Roasted Potatoes are a great side dish!
• Roasted Butternut Squash is one of my favorite Thanksgiving sides and is awesome with some Roasted Seitan Turkey!
• A quick and healthy side to go with this seitan turkey is Air Fried Brussels Sprouts! These brussels sprouts are nice and crispy with a savory flavor.
• This sourdough recipe is one I save for when I want to impress my guests, Sourdough Garlic Pull Apart Bread! This bread is loaded with garlic and is the perfect holiday side.