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Vegan Seitan Ribs

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In college I worked at Chili’s. You know the place with the song about the ribs.

At the time I ate meat and I loved ribs, so other than the annoying song I was often asked to sing by customers, it was a pretty sweet gig. Never mind the fact that I still have nightmares to this day, 20 plus years later, about being the only person working and waiting on a full restaurant. I mean It actually happened once 5 minus before close when a convention of people came in and I was the last server there to close…..needless to say I have some PTSD about ti.

So once going vegan and learning all of the wonders of vital wheat gluten, I knew I wanted to learn to make ribs. And I did.

Once again I turned to Robin Roberson and the Veganze it cookbook (buy this book..trust me) and internet to investigate vegan ribs. What I learned is that most recipes I looked at, including the vegan queen Robin’s, were all pretty much spot on, so I married several of the recipes that seemed very much the same, and made adjustment according to what had on hand and made ribs. I was not disappointed.

I would say this is one the easiest seitan recipes I make! Mix, baked, then grill. Its not hard at all y’all and I have even watched a non vegan 9 year old boy tear a plate of these up.

Vital wheat gluten can be found in most health food stores or on line. If you have never worked with it, it’s just the gluten part stripped from the wheat. It is like making any kind of bread, as you are just making a dough out of the wheat gluten. Once you add liquid and knead it, It becomes stretchy and that texture is what give seitan its remarkable ability to mimic meat.

So fire up the grill and get ready to be wowed! And just as friendly suggestion, never ever ask me to sing that rib song. I promise it won’t end well.

NGREDIENTS: 

  • 1 cup vital wheat gluten

  • 3/4 cups vegetable broth

  • 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast

  • 1 teaspoon minced garlic

  • 2 teaspoons smoked paprika

  • 2 teaspoons onion powder

  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

  • 2 tablespoons nut butter (I use almond butter)

  • 1 tablespoon coconut aminos

  • 1 - 2 cups BBQ sauce

COOKING INSTRUCTIONS:

  1. Add all ingredients except for the BBQ sauce in a food processor, and blend until a sort of dough forms. Let the dough mix for about a minute.

  2. If you do not have a food processor, you can combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix together the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry, combining until forming a dough. Kneed the dough for several minutes by hand.

  3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

  4. Press dough into an 8x8 baking dish. Score the dough with a sharp knife, cutting only about halfway through the dough (don't cut to far, you want then to hold together through grilling.) 8 lines down, then one through the middle making 16 ribs. This will make it easy for them to pull apart after you grill them.

  5. Bake ribs for 25 minutes

  6. Remove ribs from oven, and let cool enough to handle.

  7. Baste ribs with BBQ sauce, then transfer to a heated grill.

  8. Grill on each side for about 5 minutes, adding more sauce while grilling. You just want to get a little char on them, and some nice grill marks before taking them off of the grill.

  9. Once done pull the ribs apart, and serve with extra BBQ sauce for dipping.

Serves 4.