Homemade Seitan Barbecue (Bbq) Ribs - Vegan

Zenmaria's Note:

This is an original recipe by Susan V from fatfreevegan.com. It's so easy to make and incredibly yummy! You can buy Vital Wheat Gluten at most grocery stores (look for Bob's Red Mill). I did not have nutritional yeast so I omitted this ingredient with no lack of taste. These were "grilled" on a griddle and it worked out great. My meat eater hubby loved it as did the kids. Check out http://everydaydish.tv/cookingshow_video.html for a video on how to make this. (it's under Susan's Ribz).

• Total Time: 40 mins
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 2

• 1 cup vital wheat gluten
• 2 teaspoons paprika (smoked Spanish)
• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• ¾ cup water
• 2 tablespoons nut butter (peanut butter, tahini, cashew)
• 1 teaspoon liquid smoke
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 cup barbecue sauce

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F and lightly spray an 8x8-inch baking dish with canola oil.
2. Mix the first 5 ingredients together in a large bowl. Mix the water with the nut butter, Liquid Smoke, and soy sauce and add it to the dry ingredients. Stir to mix well in the bowl for a couple of minutes.
3. Put the dough into the baking dish and flatten it so that it evenly fills the pan. Take a sharp knife and cut it into 8 strips; then turn the pan and cut those strips in half to form 16 pieces.
4. Put it in the oven and bake for 25 minutes. While it's cooking prepare your grill pan or grill.
5. Remove it from the oven and carefully re-cut each strip, going over each cut to make sure that the ribz will pull apart easily later. Generously brush the top with barbecue sauce. Take it to the grill pan or grill and invert the whole baking dish onto the grill (or use a large spatula to lift the seitan out, placing it sauce-side down on the grill). Brush the top of the seitan with more sauce.
6. Watch it closely to make sure that it doesn't burn. When sufficiently brown on one side, turn over and cook the other side, adding more sauce, if necessary. When done, remove to a platter and cut or pull apart the individual ribs to serve.

Reviews

[Wickedgood@Maine]

I've tried many seitan recipes - all good, but this is one of the easiest. Served them several times - and will keep making them often. I don't grill these. I remove them from the oven about 5 min before done and brush the BBQ sauce over the tops of them. Put them back in the oven and when they were done - served them w/more BBQ sauce to dip them in. These are a bit difficult to cut in the pan prior to cooking them, but I had no trouble finishing the cuts when these come out of the oven.

[Is it tasty?]

Excellent recipe! I might try this with different sauces: tone down the smoke/barbeque flavour, cut the batter into squares rather than strips, and use general tso's or sweet & sour sauce.

[Sovay]

I was pretty excited when I found this recipe. I am a soy-allergic vegan so I eat a LOT of seitan, but these are just plain bad. They were the sort of things you started eating and at first thought were alright, but as you chew this realization comes over you that you've just wasted a box of gluten and were gonna need to find something to microwave for dinner instead.
I gave it two stars because the awfulness galvanized me to make up my own recipe for "ribs" that turned out really good.