Flour and water chicken is a delicious way of making homemade seitan with just flour and water as the main ingredients. I know that this may sound crazy, but this washed flour method is a magical way to turn regular flour into mock meat by isolating the wheat protein and washing out the starch. You can then, season the high protein dough and cook it to replicate chicken, beef, or pork. This wheat meat is fun to make and absolutely delicious!
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📚 History of washed flour seitan
This washed flour (aka WTF -wash the flour) method of making meat substitutes has been published in vegetarian cookbooks for over 60 years, but the origins date back to 6th century China. I first discovered the recipe in The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook (published in 1975) and I've been experimenting with these recipes for over 20 years.
Making homemade seitan using the washed flour method is a labor of love. It will give you a workout and it's a bit time-consuming, but the results are incredibly delicious!
If you want an easier method for making homemade seitan, you can use vital wheat gluten where the starch has already been extracted. I use this method to make easy vegan meats like turkey, ham, chicken, and pepperoni.
However, if you want the fun of getting your hands messy and seeing the magic of making your own wheat meat from just flour and water, let's get started.
🧾 Ingredients and substitutions
- Flour - just regular all-purpose flour works best. You don't want cake flour because that has less gluten.
- Water - just enough to turn your flour into a firm dough.
Seasonings
- Poultry Seasoning - for flavor. You can also use sage, oregano, or any other savory seasonings you wish.
- Onion Powder - for flavor.
- Garlic Powder - for flavor.
- Turmeric - for a little color and flavor.
- Cooking Oil - any neutral-flavored oil will work.
- Vegan Chicken Broth - to season your wheat meat. You can also use beef-flavored broth if you want a beefy taste.
🔪 Helpful tools
- A large bowl for mixing the flour and kneading it underwater.
- A skillet with a lid that is large enough to hold your mock chicken and 2 cups of broth.
- A large colander that can fit inside your bowl. This is helpful, but not necessary.
🥄 Instructions
- Measure 8 cups of flour into a large bowl, add 3 cups of water and knead into a large firm dough ball.
- Cover with cold water and let it sit for 1 hour.
- After the dough has rested for at least 1 hour, place the bowl in the sink and knead the dough ball under the water until the water turns a milky white color. (You can dump this water into the sink or save it to make starch water bacon later.)
- Fill the bowl with cold water again and repeat the kneading process again until the water is white. Dump out this second batch of starchy water and repeat the process until your water is just a little cloudy after kneading for a minute or two. (You can line your bowl with a strainer to help lift the dough out of the water and easily dump the excess milky water.)
- Repeat this washing process about 5-8 times until your water is just a little cloudy and not milky after a minute of kneading.
- Lift the strainer out of the bowl. Squeeze out all of the excess water and allow it to rest for at least 15 minutes.
- Sprinkle your dough with salt and spices and work the spices in with your hands.
- Pull off handfuls of the dough into 4 equal pieces. Pull a piece into a long tube and twist it a few times. Then tie the twisted string into a loose pretzel-style knot.
- Sauté the knots in 1 tablespoon of oil for about 3-4 minutes on each side.
- Add 2 cups of broth, cover, and simmer for 1 hour flipping after 30 minutes.
- Use as you would boneless chicken. Pull apart with a fork for shredded vegan chicken.
👩🏻🍳 Pro tips
- Be sure to allow the dough to rest before kneading it the first time.
- It will not stay together like regular dough, so when I say knead it, I mean squish it around with your fingers and wash it like you might hand wash a shirt.
- You can also let the dough rest during the washing process if you need a break too.
- You want to wash out most of the starch from the flour, but not all of it.
- Be sure to cook your seitan completely. It needs to cook for at least 45 - 60 minutes depending on the size of the piece that you are making. Undercooked seitan will be doughy.
📖 Flavor variations
After you wash your flour, you will have a flavorless dough as your base. At this point, you can add any seasonings that you wish to the dough and cook it in different flavored broths to achieve any type of meat that you are trying to replicate. You can get creative with spices and achieve just about any type of mock meat that you want.
🥡 Storage and reheating
Refrigerator: The washed flour chicken will keep well in the fridge for 3 - 5 days in a sealed container.
Reheating: Reheat your "chicken" in the microwave for about 2 minutes, or pan-fry on low to warm it up.
Freezing: Seitan freezes well and can be stored in an airtight bag in the freezer for up to 3 months. You can allow it to thaw in the fridge overnight, or you can toss smaller strips into stir-fries or soup while still frozen.
❔ Why make WTF seitan?
This washed flour chicken is a fun project for a lazy weekend. This is not an easy 30-minute meal that you should attempt on a busy day.
Washed flour seitan is a really fun family activity. Kids love getting their hands messy in the dough and it's a good fine motor and sensory activity. It's great for learning about the properties of starch and protein in flour and how they can be separated.
There are a lot of people who get very into it and make complex recipes using this method. You can find a whole community of people sharing their creations in the seitan appreciation society Facebook group. It's a great resource for anything you would want to know about this process and other seasoning and cooking methods.
🌟 Easy seitan recipes
All of the following recipes use vital wheat gluten and don't require the washing process. Use my quick and easy seitan recipe for the fastest way to make vegan mock meat.
📌 Be sure to follow me on Pinterest for new vegan recipes!
Flour and Water Chicken (Seitan Washed Flour Method)
Equipment
- A large bowl
- A large frying pan with a lid
Ingredients
For the seitan
- 8 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 cups water (You may need slighlty more or less to achieve a firm dough ball)
To season the seitan
- 1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning
- 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/8 teaspoon turmeric
To cook the seitan
- 1 tablespoon light olive oil or any other neutral-flavored oil
- 2 cups not chick'n broth or any chicken-flavored vegan broth.
Instructions
- Measure 8 cups of flour into a large bowl, add 3 cups of water, and knead into a large firm dough ball. (Add a tiny bit more water if you still have dry spots or add a sprinkle of flour if your dough ball is sticky.)
- Cover with cold water and let it sit for 1 hour.
- After the dough has rested for at least 1 hour, place the bowl in the sink and knead the dough ball under the water until the water turns a milky white color. (You can dump this water into the sink or save it to make other things later.)
- Fill the bowl with cold water again and repeat the kneading process again until the water is white. Dump out this second batch of starchy water and repeat the process until your water is just a little cloudy after kneading for a minute or two. (You can line your bowl with a strainer to help lift the dough out of the water and easily dump the excess milky water.)
- Repeat this washing process about 5-8 times until your water is just a little cloudy and not milky after a minute of kneading.
- Lift the strainer out of the bowl squeeze out all of the excess water and allow it to rest for at least 15 minutes.
- Sprinkle your dough with salt and spices and work the spices in with your hands.
- Pull off handfuls of the dough into 4 equal pieces. Pull a piece into a long tube and twist it a few times. Then tie the twisted string into a loose pretzel-style knot.
- Sauté the knots in 1 tablespoon of oil for about 3-4 minutes on each side. Add 2 cups of broth, cover, and simmer for 1 hour flipping after 30 minutes. (Watch it towards the end to make sure all of your broth doesn't evaporate. Add a few tablespoons of water if needed.)
- Use as you would boneless chicken. Pull apart with a fork for shredded vegan chicken.
Video
Notes
- Be sure to allow the dough to rest before kneading it the first time.
- It will not stay together like regular dough, so when I say knead it, I mean squish it around with your fingers and wash it like you might hand wash a shirt.
- You can also let the dough rest during the washing process if you need a break too.
- You want to wash out most of the starch from the flour, but not all of it.
- Be sure to cook your seitan completely. It needs to cook for at least 45 - 60 minutes depending on the size of the piece that you are making. Undercooked seitan will be doughy.
Nutrition
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Leave a comment and starred review! I would love to hear from you!
I was so excited to try this for fun and my daughter enjoyed making the dough ball, which turned out beautiful. But after the rinsing process, it all just turned to mush. I imagine it was something I did wrong, but I basically have a tiny bowl of what looks like oatmeal or cottage cheese
It sounds like you may have "washed" the dough too much by pulling it apart while you washed it. You want to knead it underwater just like you would knead bread dough on the countertop. If you pull it apart, it will start to fall apart like that. You may have washed it too much as well. Wash it until the water is just slightly cloudy not perfectly clear.
Could I freeze the cooked seitan?
Yes, cooked seitan freezes well as long as it's wrapped air-tight.
After a got it all washed and let it rest it was very sticky. More than in your video. Did you oil it before forming the knots?
I'm thinking that maybe you didn't wash out all of the starch. I don't use oil when I tie the knots. Did you let it rest under the water? It gets sticky if the air gets to it.
Oh no, I did the last rest out of the water! This was my first try so I'm learning. I will try again.
That must be it. I'm sure that it will work for you next time. 🙂
Wowowow so good!! My first seitan recipe and now I am hooked. The possiblities with this are endless! Thank you 🙂
I'm so happy that it turned out well for you! It's a lot of work, but so fun and worth it to make seitan this way! Enjoy! 🙂
I used this recipe a month ago...so good!! Question, after kneading can it soak in the water overnight?
I"m happy that you liked it. You can probably do that, but it may get a little soft where it comes in contact with the water. You could put a moist towel over it or even wrap it in plastic and keep it in the fridge overnight.
Looking forward to making this! Could I coat the seitan after cooking and fry/bake for a crispy coated “chicken”?
Yes, you can bread it after, but I actually find it easier to bread it before and then bake it so the coating cooks along with the seitan. You can use this washed flour method to make the seitan and then use either my vegan chicken nugget recipe or vegan chicken patty recipe for the coating. Enjoy! 🙂
I had such a time-warp moment when I started seeing this method recently - I forgot I'd made scratch seitan in the 90s before I knew anything about veganism & it was fun, but a colossally tasteless loaf LOL How much I've learned since then! Now for my question: I love the ease of seitan but I'm also intrigued by the great flavor of the WTF method I keep hearing about - is there a quicker way to replicate this with my vital wheat gluten? Maybe add a bit of flour to a typical vwg recipe? Thanks as always! You're amazing!!
I used to use a method that was 1/2 regular flour and 1/2 vital wheat gluten, but I didn't see a lot of difference. It didn't seem to cut down on the amount of washing that I needed to do. I have a vegan chicken recipe that just uses wheat gluten that is very quick and easy without the need for washing. Here is the link to that method... https://thehiddenveggies.com/vegan-chicken/
Hi! Could I use vital wheat gluten flour instead?
You can follow my basic vegan chicken recipe to make it that way. If you use wheat gluten instead of flour, you don't have to wash the starch out of it, so it uses a different method.
I did this with normal flour and it's very good thank you so much for the recipe 😊👌.
I'm so happy that it turned out well for you! 🙂
WoW! This sounds really cool! I was worried about this recipe being carb-heavy, but I guess washing all the starch from the flour is a magickal process! I can't wait try this and see how it turns out. I've cut back on all meat except chicken, but lately, boneless skinless breasts have been grossing me out as well, so, taking the plunge and ditching the fowl! Thank you Monica, you offer the BEST recipes that even my semi-carnivore hubby likes (although I don't volunteer any info when it's a vegan recipe, I just let him eat it...) 🙂
Thanks, Janeth! Yeah, your washing out most of the carbs. This is a fun recipe to make and kind of like a science experiment. I think you'll have fun making it and your husband will like it. 🙂
This sounds like fun! Will it work with white whole wheat flour? Thanks
It will work, but the texture is not as good. Since you are mostly left with the protein from the flour in the end and you will wash out a lot of the fiber and nutrients in the whole wheat anyway, so it's cheaper and easier to use all-purpose flour. Enjoy! 🙂
Thanks! I’ll put ap flour on my list.
Thanks, Monica, for another creative way to fix Vegan Food Subs. I love your posts!
Thanks so much, Judi! I'm so happy that you like them! 🙂
I've seen a lot of WTF seitan but I've never given it a try. I've made it with the Vital wheat gluten flour but never tried it WTF way. The wash the flour way does look like you get a much better texture and looks really delicious. I am going to bite the bullet and give this method a try 🙂
Have fun, Sara. I think that you will like the result.
I will try this soon. I stopped eating poultry when I was 12, but sometimes you need other than tofu cubes in a recipe. I am lucky to live across the street from a Vietnamese restaurant that starts writing down "Mock Duck Salad" when I walk through the door 🙂
Zib
That "mock duck salad" sounds delicious! I hope that you give this a try. I think that you'll like it! 🙂
How nice to see this recipe. I’ve made it for years with my mom from the time I was very young. She called it “home made Choplets.” It is fun to make and good to eat!
Only suggestion I would make would be to not run all that starchy water down your drain! Just empty into something you can put outside. (Remember you can made homemade glue with flour, water. In the olden days we used to make wallpaper paste by using the same ingredients.
Monica, I adore your site!
Thanks so much, Gloria! It's so cool that you used to make this as a kid! I like to save the first wash of starch water to make starch water bacon, but I've never tried homemade glue. I'll have to look that up! 🙂
Oops! Well I guess I’m dating myself a bit! Yes especially wallpaper paste and glue for art projects.
It works quite well. But when good old “Elmers” came a long we started using it in school.
I’ve not tried your recipe for bacon yet - maybe I’ll make both on the same day!
Thanks!!
Starch water bacon? This sounds amazing!! Do you have a recipe?
I don't have a recipe for it on my site, but if you click the red link that says "starch water bacon" it will bring you to someone else's recipe.
Sounds interesting — would gluten-free all purpose flour work okay?
No, unfortunately, there is no way to make this gluten-free since gluten is what makes the protein in the "chicken." If you want a gluten-free vegan chicken option, try my vegan popcorn chicken recipe. https://thehiddenveggies.com/fried-chicken/