Author:
Meal prep is so much easier with this Vegan Chicken in the fridge! This high-protein, homemade seitan recipe is juicy, succulent, and surprisingly easy to make. If you've never had seitan before, it's a chewy, meaty vegan chicken substitute that tastes way better than anything store-bought. Make a batch ahead of time and keep it in the fridge or freezer for quick, satisfying meals all week.
FEATURED COMMENT:
This is the BEST seitan I've ever had and I make this recipe frequently. I freeze the tenders in packs of two and make a different marinade for each pack. - Saraswati ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
After the popularity of my Vegan Seitan Steak, which ended up starting a love of making seitan, I got a lot of requests for a seitan version of a vegan chicken recipe. Well, ask and you shall receive. I introduce to you my Vegan Chicken! ...And yes, it does taste like chicken. Ba dum dum tsk!
What is Seitan?
Seitan (pronounced say-tan) is a high-protein, meat-like food made from vital wheat gluten, the protein-rich part of wheat. When mixed with liquid and cooked, it becomes chewy, firm, and savory, making it one of the best vegan meat alternatives out there.
It's been used for centuries in Asian cuisines and is sometimes called wheat meat or mock duck. In this recipe, we turn it into juicy, tender vegan chicken you can use in everything from stir-fries to sandwiches to sheet pan dinners.
Bonus: It's budget-friendly, freezer-friendly, protein-packed and WAY more delicious than most store-bought options.
Why You'll Love This Vegan Chicken Recipe
Store-bought vegan chicken is often rubbery, bland, or packed with additives, and it's pricey. This homemade version is juicy, tender, packed with flavor, and budget-friendly.
- Juicy and succulent. No dry spongey seitan here! I've balanced the ingredients and flavors in this vegan chicken recipe so it turned out tender and delicious.
- Easy to make. Just 8 ingredients, and most of the work is hands off. I love batch cooking this and stocking my freezer full of plant-based chicken!
- Great for meal prep. This recipe can be prepared ahead of time and stored in the fridge for several days, or in the freezer so you can have vegan chicken on hand whenever you like.
- Perfect swap for any chicken recipe. Once steamed and cooled, you can swap this into any of your favorite chicken recipes. My favorite way to enjoy it? Marinate the tenders overnight, then pan-fry until golden. Chef's kiss.
- A wholesome alternative. 1 batch makes 6 cutlets and each one contains 156 calories, 8g carbohydrates, 26g protein, and 2g fat.
Ingredients:
- Vital wheat gluten: Vital wheat gluten is wheat flour with most of the starch removed (leaving behind almost pure wheat protein)! It is an ancient process, and this wheat protein is what makes seitan have that meaty texture. Unfortunately, there is no substitute. And that means this recipe cannot be made gluten-free. For a vegan gluten-free chicken-inspired recipe try my Baked Tofu Bites.
- Soft or silken tofu: This gives the seitan a juicy, tender texture. Be sure to measure carefully and use the right tofu type, firm or extra-firm will make the seitan too dense.
- Seasonings: Nutritional yeast, onion powder, vegetable broth powder or bouillon, garlic powder, and salt make it taste like chicken. (Do I need to change the name of my blog now?)
How To Make Vegan Chicken
- Combine: Add all of the ingredients to a food processor.
- Process: Turn on the food processor and mix the dough until it forms a ball.
- Shape: Turn the dough out onto a surface lightly floured with vital wheat gluten. Divide into 6 pieces and shape each into an oval.
- Steam: Add the vegan chicken to a greased steamer basket set over simmering water. Cover and steam for 25 minutes, flipping halfway through the cooking time.
- Cool. Allow the vegan chicken to cool to room temperature, then chill in the refrigerate for an hour before using; if you'd like, you can chill it in a marinade for extra flavor. (Check out my recipes for 12 Seitan or Tofu Marinades for endless flavor combos!)
- Cook. The world is your oyster! Use this vegan chicken any way you'd use chicken breast. In these photos, I fried them in a bit of vegan butter, and seasoned with salt, black pepper, parsley, and a squeeze of lemon. This makes the outside crispy and the inside stays tender and juicy.
Tips for Perfect Seitan Chicken
- No food processor? Use a bowl. It takes a little more work, but it's still easy! Just the ingredients to a bowl and stir with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until the dough forms a ball.
- Make any shape you like. You can shape the seitan into small bites or nuggets, make the seitan into a big slab to slice and pan-fry, whatever! Just keep in mind that shapes that are thicker will take more time to steam.
- Cook in batches if needed. Seitan expands while steaming, so leave space in the basket or cook in batches.
- Make them extra chicken-y. You can mix poultry seasoning into the seitan mixture and/or use a vegan chicken bouillon instead of vegetable. (Poultry seasoning doesn't actually contain any poultry, it just has herbs and spices often used with chicken!)
How to Use This Vegan Chicken
Think of this like your plant-based chicken breast, you can marinate it, grill it, fry it, roast it, or slice it into your favorite recipes. Try it in stir-fries, sandwiches, tacos, salads, pasta dishes, or even breaded as vegan nuggets. I personally love it pan-fried with one of these marinades (my favorite is the sweet & smoky), or chopped up in my Vegan Chicken Caesar Salad.
How to Store
- Refrigerator: Refrigerate this vegan chicken in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
- Freezer: To freeze the seitan, let it cool completely and then transfer it an airtight freezer bag or container. If you'd like, you can freeze it in a marinade.
More Vegan Chicken Recipes You Might Like:
- Buttermilk Fried Oyster Mushrooms
- The Quickest and Easiest Seitan Recipe (Vegan Chicken)
- Vegan Chicken (Washed Flour Seitan)
- Vegan Chicken Wings
- Vegan Orange Chicken
If you try this vegan chicken recipe, let us know by leaving a comment, rating it, and don't forget to tag @itdoesnttastelikechicken on Instagram.
Bon appetegan!
Sam Turnbull.
(click stars to vote)
Vegan Chicken (Seitan)
This homemade Vegan Chicken is juicy, flavorful and easy to make. It's a meal prep staple you can use in so many different ways!
Servings:
PRINT
PIN
Video
COMMENT
Ingredients
For the vegan seitan tenders:
- 1 ½ cups vital wheat gluten, plus more for dusting
- 1 block (10.6oz/ 300g) soft or silken tofu, (1 ¼ cups)
- 2 tablespoons water
- 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
- 1 tablespoon onion powder
- 2 teaspoons vegetable broth powder, vegetable instant stock mix powder, or 1 vegetable bouillon cube
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Add the vital wheat gluten, tofu, water, nutritional yeast, onion powder, vegetable broth powder, garlic powder, and salt to a food processor and pulse to combine until everything is well mixed and the dough forms a ball. *Alternatively, if you do not have a food processor in a large bowl mash the tofu using a potato masher until smooth. Add the water, nutritional yeast, onion powder, vegetable broth powder, garlic powder, and salt and mix. Lastly, mix in the vital wheat gluten to form a dough.
- Lightly dust a clean work surfaces with a bit of the vital wheat gluten. Turn the dough ball onto the surface and lightly dust the top with a little more vital wheat gluten. The dough will be soft and very sticky so this will help it from sticking to your hands. Do not knead the dough, kneading it will make it tough. Cut the dough ball into 6 pieces and use the tips of your fingers to press each piece of dough into an oval shape about 5" x 6".
- Add several inches of water to a large pot with a steamer basket and bring to a gentle simmer. Lightly grease the steamer basket and lay the tenders in the basket. If the tenders need to overlap each other, spray the tenders with a bit of oil to stop them from sticking together. Cover and steam at a gentle simmer for 25 minutes, flipping halfway through or until the seitan's internal temperature reaches at least 160°F (71°C) when tested with an instant-read thermometer. If the temperature goes higher, that's perfectly fine-you can't really oversteam seitan.
- Once steamed, remove the tenders and let cool. Cover or put in an airtight container and chill in the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour, or for up to 3 - 4 days. You can either chill the tenders without any additional seasoning, or you could toss the tenders in your favourite marinade. The tenders shrink and firm up a bit when chilled and this results in the best texture.
- Once chilled, the tenders are fully cooked and edible, but you can now treat them as you would raw chicken -season and cook them as you desire. The cooking time can be short as they only need to be heated through but prepare them any way that you might prepare a chicken breast. Pan fry or grill them, bread or crust them, slice them for salad, pasta, or stirfry, cut them into nuggets, add them to burritos, tacos, or sandwiches. The options are endless!* Learn my secret tricks to making perfect seitan in my free masterclass. Click here to learn more and register.
Notes
Shape of tenders: if the end appearance of the tenders is important to you, make sure to allow lots of room around each tender to expand. You may want to steam the tenders in batches as when they overlap each other they can sometimes end up as weird shapes. This won't matter if you plan on slicing them, but you can consider it if you plan to serve the tenders whole.
Oil-free: for oil-free you can skip greasing the steamer basket and tenders. The tenders will expand and stick together when steaming and may tear when you try to separate them, but the end result will still be equally delicious. 🙂
Freezing: to freeze the tenders, let them cool completely before freezing. Freeze in an airtight freezer bag or container. You can freeze them plain or in the marinade of your choice.
Vital wheat gluten is essential to this recipe, and there is no substitute. Therefore this recipe cannot be made gluten-free. For a vegan gluten-free chicken inspired recipe try my Baked Tofu Bites recipe.
Steaming tips: you need to steam the seitan tenders before using them. I recommend getting a steamer pot if you plan to make seitan often, or you can use a DIY method if you do not have a steamer.
Cleaning tips: vital wheat gluten is very sticky and can destroy dish brushes and cloths. So what I like to do is save old clothes, sheets, or towels that are too shabby to donate, and cut them into rags. I use these rags to clean up after preparing a seitan recipe and discard the rag once finished.
Nutrition
Serving: 1 serving (recipe makes 6 servings) | Calories: 159kcal | Carbohydrates: 8g | Protein: 26g | Fat: 2g | Saturated Fat: 0.3g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 0.3g | Sodium: 486mg | Potassium: 187mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin C: 0.3mg | Calcium: 63mg | Iron: 2mg
⭐ Did You Make This Recipe?
I'd love if you left a rating and comment, it helps others find the recipe and makes my day! 💕
Sarai says
Dragged my heels to try this for so long and it took me 3X before getting it right. The first time I think I steamed it too high, the second time I don’t know what went wrong but I had to throw out the batch as it wouldn’t ball up in the processor and was overall too wet to do anything with. The third time they came out great. Perfectly tender and moist! My meat eating husband loved them. As Sam has stated about her Seitan Turkey roast- Seitan is a science. (Why I procrastinated) Like baking (which I don’t), you have to get everything just right for the optimum result. Hope I can keep repeating it with this as it’s great to have a protein that’s not so processed to marinade any way I want. Thank you for this!
Lillian Betancourt says
Hello Sarai, what did you do differently the third time? I did a batch and it was very soft and very difficult to work with, it stuck to EVERYTHING!
Thank you.
Christiane says
Those tenders are fantastic! Perfect consistency and great taste. So easy to make, too!
Sam Turnbull says
So happy you enjoyed them Christiane!
Katie says
If I need to use a different vegetable bouillon, do I use one or two of the recommended serving size? The recipe calls for 2 teaspoons (which is 2 of the “serving size” for that brand) but then states 1 cube (which would only be one “serving size”). Just clarifying 🙂 thank you!!!
Sam Turnbull says
Use enough vegetable bouillon that would make 2 cups of broth if you were to mix it into water. Enjoy!
Katie says
Thank you, thank you!
Christine says
YUM!
It was second time lucky for me with this recipe, first time they were great but just a bit tough, I think because I had the water in the pan boiling rather than the simmer.
This time I was ready for a bit more simmer control and they’ve turned out fantastic!
I used a vegan chicken flavour Oxo cube and a mushroom stock cube instead of the veg stock & onion powder which was a lovely subtle flavour combo.
Think I might have to break some of the tenders up and turn them into deep fried “chicken” balls. My omni other half always orders those from the Chinese takeaway and I’m often a bit envious of them.
Anyway, thanks again for another easy, tasty seitan recipe, I’m hooked and have even bought a steamer pan set to help with my new cooking addiction.
Christine 🙂
Sam Turnbull says
That's wonderful Christine! Thrilled you are loving my seitan recipes so much 🙂
Amber says
Hi! I love this recipe and would love to do it in bigger batches. How would you recommend adjusting the steaming time for double/triple quantities?
Sam Turnbull says
I would steam in batches for the same amount of time. ENjoy!
Dan says
Nothing negative on the recipe but my first attempt didn't go well. I didn't have my reading glasses when I shopped so when I asked for help getting the tofu what I had not realized until I went to make this they had given me extra firm. Trying to make it usable left me with what appeared to be cottage cheese texture so my patties ended up having chunks of tofu. I also could not het the dough smooth. I had no food processor so I used a bowl. It was dry and chunky sort of like a biscuit dough and not a pizza dough. Taste wise this was good but my texture was tough and rubbery. Again, my thought is I kneaded the dough even thought directions said not to.
Definitely something for me to try again and having learned from this first effort I hope I get it right.
Cyndi says
This is my favorite seitan recipe. I've tried a lot of others and I keep coming back to this. I now exclusively use this one. I use your sriracha marinade and freeze them. They come out exactly like your page and I appreciate that you have the cook mode button.
Sam Turnbull says
Aww yay! So thrilled to hear that Cyndi!!
Susan says
Would the addition of mushroom powder be helpful?
Christine says
Hi,
Not exactly mushroom powder but I did use a mushroom stock cube instead of the veg stock/ bouillon and I really enjoyed the flavour. I also used a chicken flavour vegan Oxo cube instead of the onion powder and this seemed to work well teamed with the subtle savoury mushroom flavour.
liz says
wow, these are amazing! I have a recipe that I normally make with chickpea flower but this one has more protein, less carbs, and less sodium AND tastes better. I made one cutlet with buffalo sauce last night and it was so good! I left one in a smokey marinade for the night and I'm sure it will be just as good. Saving your marinades too- thanks so much!
Sam Turnbull says
So happy you loved it, liz!
Julie says
I have a hard time finding silken tofu in my rural area. I use firm tofu, double the water and process everything but the vital wheat gluten until smooth before adding the gluten at the end. Otherwise it is either not smooth enough or gets too bead-like in texture. I also use the entire 396g package of tofu and increase the vital wheat gluten to 2 cups (and the seasonings by .25). Love that this recipe has tofu as well as the vital wheat gluten. We especially like using it to make grilled Buffalo “chicken” sandwiches.
Carrie says
I tried your alternated method with medium firm tofu since that’s all I had and I’m excited for the taste test later!!
Carolyn M. says
I made this today and wasn't surprised that it was as good as it was/is. I made a sandwich with homemade silken-tofu-based mayonnaise (no oill), and I added sliced tomatoes and baby spinach leaves and it was very, very satisfying. Next time I'll make your crackers for some crunch. Excellent "chikun" tenders.
Emily says
I love making this!! So easy and versatile. I like to add extra seasoning. One time I undercooked them because I rigged up a steaming situation. How do you know if the seitan is undercooked?
Karin says
Hi Sam,
Could you say how many grams of gluten 1.5 cups are? I used European measuring cups, and my texture came out odd.
I have a microwave steamer, do you think that could work instead of oven top steamer?
many thanks
Ann says
1.5 cups of vital wheat gluten is 180 grams. Hope this helps.
ann says
I think the microwave would be okay, I used the pressure cooker to cook mine. But did a shorter time
L says
How long did you steam in the pressure cooker?
Abbi says
Question! I love this recipe, but I’m wondering if it’s possible to not separate the seitan to make more of a Thanksgiving roast? I feel like it might work to just leave in a blob and then steam for longer, but wondered if you have any advice. Thank you!
Sam Turnbull says
Hi Abbi, I think that should work fine! You might get an odd shape, but that doesn't matter. You can't really over-steam seitan, so I recommend steaming it for an hour to ensure it is cooked through.Enjoy!
Joanne Lawrence says
I've done this, making just a large seitan "log," and I highly recommend it.
Michael J says
For a turkey-like variation, you can make the texture more flaky and less rubbery by substituting half the mass of the silken tofu for heavily boiled white kidney beans. Just soak and boil the beans for a good hour to get them really soft, then hit them with a food processor or hand blender or even a fork to break them down to mush. Also consider withholding about a third of the salt. The result is a much leaner and slightly flaky meat that resembles white turkey. I'm having this for Thanksgiving with cranberries and stuffing.
Sam Turnbull says
Great tip Michael!
Justin says
Has anyone tried finishing these in the oven after they were steamed? I’m thinking like a chicken parm kind of dish, wasn’t sure if this would have a good consistency after being baked.
Wayne Blizzard says
Justin, doesn't look like anyone answered your question, but it intrigued ME! Did you end up trying that? I'm thinking that it would work fine if you did what one does with chicken parmigiana: bread and fry the cutlet and then bake with sauce and (vegan) cheese.
Justin says
Hi Wayne we actually did try it and it came out great! They had a good crisp on the outside, and they stayed moist inside I would highly recommend trying, I always put these on the grill on top of tin foil and it truly reminded me of what bbq chicken was like.
Lysa says
This recipe was sooooo easy it was unbelievable. I steamed mine in my oven due to lack of proper equipment haha. But my seitan breast came out delicious just in their raw form I can’t wait to see how they taste after breading & seasoning!
Sim says
How did you setup the steaming seitan in your oven?
Arielli says
Hi.
Quick question pls
Is it possible to under or over-steam this? I’ve seen many seitan recipes and some call for steaming anywhere from 25min-90!
This is my first time using the soft tofu so I’m hopeful! It does have a ‘chicken-ish’ taste right out the pot so can’t wait till it cools.
Thanks!
Patricia Ayuso says
It's included in my menu for the last year. Thanks
Elaine says
I like these seitan tenders a lot. I made some adjustments:
- The tofu I buy comes in 350 g containers. Instead of using 300 g of tofu and 180 g (1 and 1/2 cups) of vital wheat gluten, I use 350 g of tofu and 210 g of vital wheat gluten.
- The brand of tofu I use is less wet, so I use 5 Tbsp of water to form a dough.
- I steam all 6 of them at once, separated with parchment paper.
Rose_Anne Hutchence says
Thanks for sharing the results of all your terrific / fun experiments, Sam. I'm a big fan of replicating the flavours and textures we enjoyed growing up on the farm.
Have you tried, or thought about, smoking seitan? The real deal, with a smoker (mind you, if could be fun playing around with adding liquid smoke), wood chips, etcetera?