Vegan Chicken Wings (Seitan Wings)
These vegan chicken wings are meaty and delicious bites of seitan smothered in your favorite sauce, like buffalo, BBQ, sweet chili sauce, or vegan honey garlic sauce. These finger-licking vegan wings are perfect for game day, movie night, or just any old time.
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Why make this recipe
These wings will satisfy your cravings for chicken wings and not leave you disappointed! Smothered in your favorite sauces, these wings are meaty, protein-packed, and bursting with flavor!
I love to make vegan buffalo wings and serve them with my vegan ranch dressing or vegan blue cheese dip with celery sticks on the side. Unlike cauliflower wings, these meaty seitan wings taste like the real thing and even meat-eaters will love them.
If you love seitan recipes be sure to check out my recipes for vegan steak, vegan ribs, and seitan kebabs!
Ingredients and substitutions
- Tofu – or chickpeas and white beans if you wish. I usually use 1/2 block of extra firm tofu (7 ounces) that has been drained and pressed or one 15.5 oz can of drained chickpeas or white beans.
- Broth – I like to use the Not Chick’n Broth or Better Than Bouillon No Chicken brands for a chicken flavor. You can also use vegetable broth.
- Oil – any neutral-flavored oil will work well. You can also leave it out completely, but it helps to give your chicken the proper moisture and mouthfeel. Chicken breasts have a natural fat content of about 11%, so I add a little fat in order to replicate that.
- Nutritional Yeast – for an umami flavor. (optional, but recommended)
- Poultry Seasoning – for flavor. If you don’t have any premixed, you can use this homemade poultry seasoning to flavor the “chicken.”
- Salt – for flavor. Feel free to reduce the salt for a lower-sodium chicken.
- Garlic Powder – for flavor. (optional)
- Onion Powder – for flavor. (optional)
- Vital Wheat Gluten – this is a fine powdery flour that is high in wheat protein. You can’t swap this out for regular flour or any other flour. You can usually find it in the Bob’s Red Mill section or the specialty baking section of large grocery stores. I order a large bag from Amazon to make lots of seitan recipes.
- Sauce – drizzle your seitan wings with your choice of sauce like hot sauce, vegan buffalo sauce, vegan honey garlic sauce, sweet chili sauce, BBQ sauce, and more.
Helpful tools
- A blender or food processor – to blend the beans or tofu with the broth and spices.
- A steamer basket – if you don’t have one, you can use jelly jar rings or balls of aluminum foil to lift the chicken up out of the water at the bottom of a pot for steaming.
- A glass bowl – to mix the dough in. Gluten is very sticky and will stick even more to plastic.
- A silicon spatula – to stir the gluten into the flour. Don’t use any wooden utensils, or the gluten will stick to them.
- Heavy-Duty Aluminum Foil – to wrap the seitan dough in before steaming. You can wrap it in parchment paper first if you don’t want your seitan to come in contact with the foil.
How to make vegan chicken wings
Step 1 – Add 7 oz (1/2 block) of extra firm tofu to a food processor or blender along with broth, oil, poultry seasoning, garlic powder, and onion powder.
Step 2 – Blend until smooth, then transfer to a glass mixing bowl.
Step 3 – Stir in 1 cup of the vital wheat gluten, then add the remaining 1/2 cup of wheat gluten and knead with your hands for about 1 minute until a firm dough is formed. *don’t eat it until it has been cooked.
Step 4 – Divide the dough in half and flatten each half into round pieces about 3/4 of an inch thick and wrap them tightly in heavy-duty foil.
Cook the seitan
Step 5 – Place the 2 wrapped rounds of seitan in a steamer basket and steam for 45 minutes.
Step 6 – Turn off the heat, remove the lid, and allow to cool for about 10 minutes then remove the seitan from the steamer basket. Use tongs if necessary. (At this point you can cut and fry the seitan or store it in the fridge for up to 5 days.)
Step 7 – Cut the rounds into triangular wedges about the size of chicken wings.
Step 8 – Panfry the cut “wings” by sautéing them in a tablespoon of oil for 3-5 minutes on each side until golden brown.
Step 9 – Coat the wings in your favorite wing sauce.
Vegan chicken wing sauces
- Vegan Buffalo Sauce
- Dip your buffalo wings in my vegan ranch or vegan blue cheese dip
- Vegan Honey Garlic Sauce
- Maple Sweetened BBQ Sauce
- Sweet and Sour Sauce
- Sweet Chili Sauce
- Orange Sauce – to make vegan orange chicken.
- Teriyaki Sauce
Pro Tips
- You can swap out the tofu with any beans that you want.
- For denser “meat” allow the steamed seitan to rest overnight in the fridge before frying.
- Gluten needs to be cooked, don’t eat it raw. You know that it has cooked enough when it is firm and meat-like and no longer has a doughy texture.
Note – this is a quick and easy method of making chicken seitan using gluten flour, if you want to use the washed flour method, use my flour and water chicken recipe that makes vegan chicken by washing the starch out of regular all-purpose flour.
Working with wheat gluten
Wheat gluten is a very fine powder that can get messy. When pouring the flour into the bowl, hold it low in the bowl so it doesn’t splash out or make a cloud of dust. And be sure to use only a glass bowl and silicone spatula.
Wet gluten is very sticky and hard to clean. When you’re finished, wash your bowl and utensils in very hot water. This will help to reduce the stickiness of the gluten.
You may want to use an old rag that you can throw away after you clean up.
Frequently asked questions
Most vegan chicken wings are made of wheat gluten mixed with other forms of plant-based protein like tofu or beans. You can also make mock chicken wings from tofu or cauliflower nuggets. Seitan wings have the meatiest and most authentic flavor and texture.
Setian chicken wings are made from wheat gluten as the main ingredient, and there is nothing that you can use in its place to achieve the same results. If you want a gluten-free wing, you can make my tofu fried chicken, cauliflower nuggets, fried oyster mushrooms, or crispy fried tofu and coat them in one of the wing sauces.
How to store and reheat vegan chicken wings
Refrigerate: Seitan wings will keep well in the fridge for up to 5 days in an airtight container.
Freeze: These vegan chicken wings also freeze well and can be stored in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge before reheating.
Reheating: Reheat your wings by frying them in a little bit of oil until heated through.
More seitan recipes
We love seitan in our house and make a ton of mock meats of every type. Be sure to check out all of my seitan recipes.
Vegan chicken wings recipe
Vegan Chicken Wings
Ingredients
- 7 ounces tofu, (this is 1/4 a block of tofu) (or one 15.5 oz can of white beans drained)
- 1 cup not chick'n broth, (reconstituted) or other vegan chicken-style broth or veggie broth
- 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast, (optional)
- 2 tablespoons neutral-flavored oil
- 1 1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning
- 1 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 1/2 cup vital wheat gluten
- 1/2 cup vegan buffalo sauce, (or any sauce of choice)
Instructions
- Add 7 oz (1/2 block) of extra firm tofu to a food processor or blender along with broth, oil, poultry seasoning, garlic powder, and onion powder.
- Blend until smooth, then transfer to a glass mixing bowl.
- Stir in 1 cup of the vital wheat gluten, then add the remaining 1/2 cup of wheat gluten and knead with your hands for about 1 minute until a firm dough is formed. *don’t eat it until it has been cooked.
- Divide the dough in half and flatten each half into round pieces about 3/4 of an inch thick and wrap them tightly in heavy-duty foil.
Cook the seitan
- Place the 2 wrapped rounds of seitan in a steamer basket and steam for 45 minutes.
- Turn off the heat and remove the lid and allow to cool for about 10 minutes then remove the seitan from the steamer basket. Use tongs if necessary. (At this point you can cut and fry the seitan or store it in the fridge for up to 5 days.)
- Cut the rounds into triangular wedges about the size of chicken wings.
- Panfry the cut “wings” by sautéing them in a tablespoon of oil for 3-5 minutes on each side until golden brown.
- Coat the wings in your favorite wing sauce like buffalo, BBQ, vegan honey garlic, sweet and sour, or sweet chili sauce.
Notes
- You can swap out the tofu with any beans that you want.
- For a denser “meat” allow the steamed seitan to rest overnight in the fridge before frying.
- Gluten needs to be cooked, don’t eat it raw. You know that it has cooked enough when it is firm and meat-like and no longer has a doughy texture.
- Wheat gluten is a very fine powder that can get messy. When pouring the flour into the bowl, hold it low in the bowl so it doesn’t splash out or make a cloud of dust.
- Use only a glass bowl and silicone spatula. Wet gluten is very sticky and hard to clean.
- Wash your bowl and utensils in very hot water. This will help to reduce the stickiness of the gluten. You may want to use an old rag that you can throw away after you clean up.
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This is such a shame… I’m gluten intolerant and can’t obviously use the vital wheat gluten. Is there anything else I can use as a substitute please? I do occasionally use wheat starch; would that do?