Publised on 29/10/2022. Last Updated on 06/12/2024 by Richard
Succulent vegan steak with a surprisingly meaty flavour and melt in the mouth texture. It's high protein too
If you'd told me three years ago that I'd create a vegan steak recipe which is one of the tastiest meat replacements I've ever tried, I'd have said "yeah, that sounds like me! I'm a plant-boss and I'm ready to kick butts and take names!".
That's the kind of confidence, energy and insufferable self-worth you'll exhibit after making this vegan steak too. Baby, it's SUCCULENT, it's MEATY and omg wait until you taste that umami kick! 100% the meatiest flavour I've ever managed to conjure up - as confirmed by GENUINE MEAT EATERS!
I honestly can't tell you how happy I am with this vegan steak recipe, so instead I'm going to URGE you to make it with a batch of chips or roast potatoes and maybe a side of cauliflower cheese and green beans?? PERFECT dinner and no animals were harmed - that's what it's all about!
Jump to:
🥫 Ingredients!
Alright, before I show you HOW to make a vegan steak, let me show you what goes INTO a vegan steak. This is a seitan recipe which consequently means it's made from vital wheat gluten, but with a twist! Some of these ingredients may however be unfamiliar to you so here's a little break-down!
Red onion - we're going to caramelise these for that gorgeous, sweet steak and onion flavour.
Cannellini beans - these guys provide more protein and fibre to the vegan steak, improving the texture. Use canned, pre-cooked ones!
Dark soy sauce - great for that super umami, almost metallic meaty flavour.
Marmite - also known as yeast extract, this stuff tastes super beefy and will provide a salty tang.
Vegan stock cubes - I use Oxo vegan beef flavour but any will do and mushroom bouillon cubes are a good alternative.
Nutritional yeast - aka nooch! Firstly, it beefs up that Glutimate flavour and secondly makes meat so savoury!
Vegan gravy granules - responsible for more meaty flavour but also helpful for emulsifying the seitan dough.
Mustard powder - steak and mustard! Classic combo!
Vegan Worcestershire sauce - for a super savoury tang, I use Henderson's Relish.
Vegetable oil - to help keep our vegan steak realistically meaty.
Vital wheat gluten - the magic ingredient! Also known as wheat protein!
Before you panic, this is not the recipe: see the recipe card at the bottom of the page for quantities.
🔪 Method!
I've broken things down to help stop YOU from breaking down! This vegan steak recipe is perhaps unusual in method if you've never made any other of my seitan recipes, but don't be spooked! It's actually super simple!
1. Make the seitan dough! Some methods of making seitan involve kneading by hand, but not mine. If you blend your dough together in a blender or food processor, you'll get a much meatier texture.
2. Wrap and steam the dough! Cut your vegan steak dough into steak-ish shapes and wrap in baking parchment, then tin foil. Try your best to keep the dough in roughly steak-ish shapes!
3. Marinate the vegan steaks! You can do this for up to 3 days if you like, but really it's only strictly necessary to do while the vegan steaks cool down after steaming. The dough is already very flavoursome!
4. Grill or fry the steaks! Now the seitan has been steamed and marinated therefore it should be firm but still juicy. Time to grill those bad boys! Heat up a grill pan and cook on both sides for a few minutes.
Hint: Yep, you read that right: seitan needs to be cooked twice. The first cook (in this case the steaming step) is to set the shape of the seitan and cook the wheat gluten thoroughly and the second cook (in this case the grilling step) is to get everything nice, hot and browned before serving.
🔄 Vegan Steak Substitutions
Need some help making these vegan steaks suit your diet? Here are some tips!
- Gluten free - Unfortunately, seitan by definition is impossible to make gluten free because it literally IS gluten. However, why not use the marinade section of the recipe on a huge field mushroom or a slab of tofu! Just be sure to swap the soy sauce for tamari! and ensure your stock cube is also gluten free.
- Mustard - If you have a mustard allergy this recipe can easily be made by substituting the mustard powder for paprika instead!
- Soy - If you have a soy allergy, this recipe is easily adaptable. Just swap the soy sauce for tamari and double check your vegan stock cubes and worcestershire sauce for soy.
If you've made this recipe with some swaps, let me know how it worked out in the comments!
🍽 Serving Vegan Steak
This vegan steak recipe fills a very similar niche to real steak: it's meaty and chewy with a bold savoury flavour, plus it's high in protein too! Here are some ideas for serving it!
- Steak sandwich! - After grilling, why not slice into strips and serve hot in a toasted ciabatta with vegan horseradish mayo and watercress!
- Keep it classic! - I like to serve my vegan steak with fresh twice fried chips and some mustard! If you're going for a mixed grill vibe, serve with grilled mushrooms and tomato!
- Salad! - Sliced thinly and tossed with lettuce, red onion, coriander, mint and thai basil! Makes a great Thai-style beef salad!
Some delicious sides for this vegan steak include my vegan mashed potatoes or my vegan twice baked potatoes!
🫕 Equipment!
Here's everything you'll need to make your vegan steak dreams come true! get them ready ahead of time and you'll sail through this recipe!
- 1 x large frying pan
- 1 x blender or food processor
- Greaseproof paper/baking parchment
- tin foil/aluminium foil
- Steamer or Steamer Basket
- 1 x grill pan or skillet
❄️ Storage!
To refrigerate - Once the vegan steaks have been steamed, unwrapped and marinated, transfer them to an airtight container and cover with the marinade. Store in the fridge for up to 3 days.
To freeze - Once refrigerated, transfer individual steaks to freezer bags or air-tight containers with a little of the marinade. Seal tightly and freeze for 3 weeks or even longer! Defrost fully before grilling.
🙋♀️ Vegan Steak FAQs
A: This vegan steak is made from seitan (vital wheat gluten) and many other flavoursome ingredients. These include marmite, soy sauce and nutritional yeast, all selected for their meaty, savoury flavour.
A: Mushrooms make wonderful and easy vegan steak substitutes. Alternatively you can use a wedge of cauliflower. Use the marinade in this recipe to boost the meaty flavours!
Vegan Steak
Equipment
- 1 x large frying pan
- 1 x blender or food processor
- Greaseproof paper/baking parchment
- tin foil/aluminium foil
- Steamer or Steamer Basket
- 1 x grill pan or skillet
Ingredients
For the Seitan
- 40 g vegan butter or margarine
- 150 g red onion peeled and roughly chopped
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- pinch fine sea salt
- 400 g can of cannellini beans drained
- 150 ml water
- 2 tablespoon dark soy sauce
- 2 tablespoon marmite
- 2 x vegan stock cubes I use Oxo vegan beef flavour
- 2 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 2 tablespoon vegan gravy granules I use Bisto vegan beef flavour
- 1 teaspoon mustard powder
- 2 teaspoon vegan Worcestershire sauce I use Henderson's Relish
- 3 tablespoon vegetable oil or sunflower oil
- 300 g vital wheat gluten
For the Marinade
- 200 ml boiling water
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 x vegan stock cube I use Oxo vegan beef flavour
- 6 sprigs thyme stems removed
- 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon vegan Worcestershire sauce I use Henderson's Relish
- 2 tablespoon vegetable oil or sunflower oil
Instructions
To Make the Seitan
- Heat a large frying pan over medium heat and add the vegan butter. Once hot and melted, add the onions. Stirring often, fry for 5 minutes or until soft. Add the sugar and fine sea salt and fry for another 5 minutes or until the onions are starting to caramelise and turn brown.40 g vegan butter, 150 g red onion, 1 teaspoon sugar, pinch fine sea salt
- Add the onions and any remaining butter in the pan to a blender along with all the other seitan ingredients except for the vital wheat gluten. Blend on the highest speed possible until you have a smooth dark sauce.400 g can of cannellini beans, 150 ml water, 2 tablespoon dark soy sauce, 2 tablespoon marmite, 2 x vegan stock cubes, 2 tablespoon nutritional yeast, 2 tablespoon vegan gravy granules, 1 teaspoon mustard powder, 2 teaspoon vegan Worcestershire sauce, 3 tablespoon vegetable oil
- Add the vital wheat gluten to the blender or, if you need more room, transfer everything to a food processor. Blend on high-speed again until a wet dough has come together. Stop the blender and leave to rest for 5 minutes. Blend again for around 2 minutes until the dough becomes gummy and very stretchy. It should be visibly fibrous when stretched apart.300 g vital wheat gluten
- Note: If your blender or food processor struggles with the dough after the vital wheat gluten is added, remove half of the dough and process it in two batches.
- Remove the dough from the blender and transfer to a clean work surface. Push the dough into a rough circle and divide into either 4 or 8 segments, depending on how large you'd like your vegan steaks to be. Push and pull the dough segments into rough steak shapes.
- Wrap each steak individually in a layer of greaseproof paper/baking parchment followed by a tight layer of tin foil/aluminium foil. Do your best to keep the steak-like shape in tact.
- Turn on a steamer or place a steamer basket over a pan of boiling water. Place the wrapped vegan steaks in the steamer/steamer basket and steam for 50 minutes, flipping half-way through.
- Note: you may need to steam the steaks in two or three batches. Do not overcrowd the steamer or the steaks won't cook through.
- While the vegan steaks steam, prepare your marinade by whisking together all the ingredients in a medium bowl. When the vegan steaks are done steaming, unwrap carefully and submerge in the marinade while still piping hot. Leave to marinate until room temperature.200 ml boiling water, 1 teaspoon ground black pepper, 1 x vegan stock cube, 6 sprigs thyme, 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce, 1 tablespoon vegan Worcestershire sauce, 2 tablespoon vegetable oil
- Note: At this stage you can either continue to grill the steaks or cover, place in the fridge and leave to marinate for up to 3 days. Alternatively, once refrigerated, transfer individual steaks to freezer bags with a little of the marinade and freeze for up to 3 weeks or even longer. Defrost before cooking.
- To grill or fry the vegan steaks, heat a grill pan, skillet or frying pan over high heat. Once ripping hot, drizzle with a little vegetable oil and cook the steak for around 3-4 minutes on each side. As the steak cooks, use a pastry brush to baste it with the remaining marinade multiple times on each side.
- Serve the vegan steaks with chips, vegan horseradish sauce or however you wish.
Roland
This is the most succulent and flavoursome seitan recipe I have made. Thank you for the guidance. Love it 🥰
Michelle Sullivan
This was so good! I followed the directions exactly and was surprised at how delicious these turned out. I recently cooked my last Viana Cowgirl Steak thinking I'd never have anything like it again. These were better! I am so grateful to you for creating this recipe and sharing it with others. One thing I wanted to let others know about is steamers are not created equal. I used my little rice maker's steamer and my big instapot's and the former was far better at getting the steaks to be solid and not squishy. The instapot required a lot of additional time. So if you don't think it's the right texture, you might just need to steam a little longer.
Peter
This is the best seitan recipe I've encountered so far. I've made it at least 30 times. I've made some tweaks to save time, I don't fry the onion, just chop it up with the rest of the wet ingredients. I don't wrap the steaks in tinfoil, just put them directly in the steamer, as long as you turn them over half way they keep their shape. I found it a bit too salty, so I just use 1 tbsp of Marmite, 1 stock cube and no gravy granules. If you'd like the steaks to look darker you can use a tsp of gravy browning to give them a nice deep brown colour. Hope that helps someone.
Bob smith
This is a very good meal, highly recommend.
julie
cracking recipe. Great texture and good flavour We had it with celeriac dauphinoise which worked really well.
Ivana
How did you make this round of butter? Looks absolutely amazing on steak!
Natasha
Incredible
Dani
You nailed this one Richard! Thank you!
Suzette
Thanks for sharing this great recipe. Very proud and impressed with how my vegan steaks turned out!
Fiona
Sounds totally yucky!
Sue
Another FANTASTIC recipe
Thank you SNV. My hero ❤️
Lillian
Wowowowoowowoiwwoiwow