Vegan Instant Pot BBQ Seitan

If you’re craving a fabulous BBQ sandwich and you’re absolutely committed to plant-based options, and not spending all sorts of money, we’ve got a delicious make-it-at-home solution!

A few years ago we moved to the southern part of the USA, central Florida to be exact. What we now know is that BBQ is absolutely HUGE in this part of the country and that vegans really don’t have a lot of choices. Sure, there are some excellent restaurants, food trucks, and some very pricey (and hard-to-find) products in the market. But that doesn’t really work for us, and we suspect, lots of people.

Time To Make Vegan BBQ at Home!

Many of the vegan BBQ dishes we sampled were made from jackfruit. Now jackfruit is an amazing fruit and makes a tremendous substitute for meat in dishes like barbeque. But, let’s be honest, jackfruit isn’t exactly widely available, or particularly convenient if you’re just making enough food for a few people. Plus, the (admittedly very well done) pre-made, packaged BBQ jackfruit products in the market are pretty expensive. So we decided to make a vegan BBQ that was inexpensive and easy to make – whenever you feel like some barbeque! What we also learned is that people are very picky about THEIR barbeque sauce, sooo we’ll let you pick the one that you like the most (although we happen to love the Fat Tire brand which we tweak for a little extra heat).

Instant Pot Seitan to the Rescue for Vegan BBQ

After making our yummy Instant Pot Teriyaki Seitan (that post also has a lot of background info about working with seitan) we decided that seitan would be perfect for delicious vegan BBQ sandwiches! The recipe below takes you step-by-step through the process, of course, but we thought it would be helpful to see a few photos of how we handle the seitan and make that fabulous sandwich you see at the top of this page!

Once you make the basic seitan it’s time to cut it into strips for cooking up with some of your fav BBQ sauce. It’s a matter of preference but this is what we have found to work well:

Time for a Drippy, Messy, Vegan BBQ Sandwich

Once the seitan is cooked in the sauce we pair it with nice soft rolls, coleslaw, some awesome vegan ranch dressing (a dressing so yummy we’re simply done with buying vegan ranch at the store) and perhaps a little more sauce. 😉

Vegan Instant Pot BBQ Seitan

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• Author: Georgia @ www.fullofbeans.us
• Diet: Vegan

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Description

If you’re craving a yummy vegan BBQ sandwich this is a delicious make-it-at-home solution!

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Ingredients

Units USM Scale 1x2x3x

• 1 cup vital wheat gluten
• 1 Tbs nutritional yeast
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/4 cup barbecue sauce (the choice is up to you. We love Fat Tire brand)
• 1/2 cup water plus

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Instructions

1. Combine the dry ingredients in a medium-sized mixing bowl.
2. Whisk together the barbecue sauce and the water.
3. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and combine them well using a spatula or spoon. If the gluten is not readily moistened (depending on the thickness of the barbecue sauce), add an additional Tbs of water.
4. Form into a ball and knead in your hands for about 2 minutes. The seitan will become firmer and a little elastic.
5. Cut the seitan into desired size pieces (they will expand when cooked) and place in the instant pot.
6. Add one cup of water to the seitan.
7. Cook for 16 minutes, releasing the pressure seal when done.
8. Add additional barbecue sauce as desired for serving.

Serving Suggestions

• For sandwiches, we like to slice the seitan in thin strips (see photo above)
• after cooking in the Instant Pot is done, it works very well to cook the strips in a pan with extra sauce quickly. The seitan absorbs a little more sauce and you gain some warmed sauce to add to your sandwich
• we love the seitan topped with a version of our “Not Your Mother’s Coleslaw” and a vegan ranch dressing

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Notes

• While you can buy some very nice vegan ranch dressing at the market the ranch dressing that we think is AMAZING is from this blog post: https://www.karissasvegankitchen.com/easy-vegan-ranch-dressing/   you will not be sorry that you took the time to make it!
• You can make the seitan in advance and store it in the fridge. Then just use what you need by quickly cooking in a pan with sauce.
• Also, we love the Fat Tire brand BBQ sauce from New Belgium Brewing (the same people who make the beer): https://www.newbelgium.com/shop/new-belgium-bbq-sauces/  You can find it in many markets.