Seitan Chicken (Vegan Chicken Breasts)
This easy vegan seitan chicken recipe will amaze you! You can make your own homemade plant-based chicken breasts, nuggets, and chicken strips in just minutes of your time. Fry it, bake it, or toss it into stir-fries or soups.
Use it in any recipe as you would boneless chicken! Seitan chicken is surprisingly easy to make and can be used in place of chicken in almost any recipe.

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This vegan chicken breast recipe is made from wheat gluten, sometimes also referred to as wheat meat or seitan. It may sound difficult, but I promise that you will be pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to make.
Once you start making this homemade chicken seitan, you will never want to buy store-bought chicken products again. It’s moist, meaty, and delicious!
You can use it in any recipe as a replacement for chicken breast, chicken strips, or even shredded chicken. It’s delicious in stir-fries, pasta dishes, vegetarian fajitas, vegan chicken noodle soup, tossed on salads, and even grilled.
❤️ Why you’ll love this recipe
- You can use it to replace chicken in most dishes.
- It’s high in protein and makes a hearty meal.
- Both vegans and omnivores will love it!
- Satisfies your cravings for meaty meals.
- It freezes well, so you can always have it on hand to toss into soups or stir-fries.
🧾 Ingredients and substitutions
- Chickpeas or White Beans – or you can use tofu or any type of bean that you wish. I usually use one 15.5 oz can of drained chickpeas or white beans, or one 14 oz block of extra firm tofu that has been drained and pressed.
- 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.
🔪 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.

🥄 How to make vegan chicken breasts
Step 1 – Add a can of drained chickpeas 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 – You can now cook your seitan, or for “chicken” with a stringier texture, let it rest in the fridge covered for at least 1 hour or up to 24 hours.

🔥 How to cook the seitan
Step 5 – Flatten the kneaded gluten into a large circle about 1.5 inches thick and cut it into 4 – 6 equal sections depending on the size of “chicken” breasts that you want.
Step 6 – Form the pieces into the shape that you desire and wrap the individual “chicken breast” tightly in foil.

Step 7 – Steam the vegan chicken breasts in the foil packets for 45 minutes and remove them from the steamer with tongs.
Step 8 – At this point, you can eat it, slice it into chicken strips to toss into stir-fries, put it on salads, grill it, or panfry it as you would chicken breast.
Step 9 – To panfry, sauté it in a tablespoon of oil for 3-5 minutes on each side until golden brown.
You can serve your vegan chicken with some vegan buffalo sauce, BBQ sauce, vegan Chick Fil A sauce, vegan honey mustard, garlic cilantro sauce, and more.
👩🏻🍳 Pro Tips
- You can use any type of bean or tofu, blended with the broth to make vegan chicken.
- For a stringier chicken texture, allow your dough to rest for at least an hour in the fridge before cooking.
- 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.
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 flour.
🌟 How to make vegan chicken strips
Cut the steamed vegan chicken into strips and store them in the fridge for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months. Toss it into soups, stir-fries, or simply pan-fry the strips for about 5 minutes and then add them to salads.

📖 Variations of vegan chicken
Vegan Chicken Made with Tofu – You can use a 14 oz block of firm or extra firm tofu instead of chickpeas or beans. To do so, simply drain the tofu and squeeze or press it until all excess liquid drains off. Then follow the rest of the recipe the same except you may need to add 2-3 extra tablespoons of wheat gluten until the dough is no longer sticky. Chicken made with tofu is a little softer and moister, yet equally delicious.
Extra Stringy Seitan Chicken – If you want to achieve a very stringy chicken, you can place the dough in the fridge to rest for 24 hours before cooking. If you don’t want to wait this long, you can also add 1/2 cup of canned jackfruit shredded into small pieces. Simply toss this in while you are kneading the dough. You can also use my vegan shredded chicken recipe for a stringy texture.

🥘 Cooking methods
You have 3 cooking methods to choose from when you make this vegan chicken, steaming (as described above) boiling, and baking. Since seitan expands when it cooks, I like to wrap it and then steam it to produce the densest meat-like “chicken.” However, boiling and baking are also great methods, but just produce a little different result in texture.
Boiled Seitan – Instead of steaming the chicken seitan, you can boil it in chicken broth as well. I like this method when I’m using “chicken” in a soup because you can just rip off tiny pieces of the dough and throw them directly into the soup pot. The seitan needs to simmer in the broth for at least 30 minutes to cook all the way before eating. I use this method in my quick and easy seitan and my shredded chicken seitan recipes.
Baked Vegan Chicken – You can also bake your wheat meat. When I use this method, I like to make a breading or batter to coat the “chicken” and then bake it on an oiled cookie sheet. You can see more details about this method in my vegan chicken patty recipe and vegan chicken nuggets recipe.

🥡 Storage and reheating
Refrigerator: The vegan 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: Vegan chicken 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.
❓ Frequently asked questions?
Unfortunately, there is no way to make seitan gluten-free, but check out my recipes for gluten-free vegan popcorn chicken, tofu fried chicken, fried oyster mushroom chicken, or vegan buffalo chicken sandwiches made with Butler soy curls, for a gluten-free vegan chicken recipe.
The primary ingredient in seitan chicken is vital wheat gluten, the protein found in wheat. When mixed with spices, kneaded into a dough, and then cooked the wheat protein imitates the taste and texture of chicken.

🍲 How to use it in other recipes
Once the “chicken” has been steamed, you can use it in any recipe that calls for cooked boneless chicken. Here are some of my favorite ways to use it.
🌟 More meaty vegan recipes

📌 Be sure to follow me on Pinterest for new vegan recipes!
📋 Vegan chicken recipe

Seitan Chicken (Vegan Chicken)
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups chickpeas , (15.5 oz can) drained or white beans or 14 oz. firm pressed tofu
- 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
Instructions
Make the dough
- Add a can of drained chickpeas to a food processor or blender along with broth, nutritional yeast, oil, poultry seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder, and salt.
- 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.
- You can now cook your seitan, or for “chicken” with a stringier texture, let it rest in the fridge covered for at least 1 hour or up to 24 hours.
Cook the seitan
- Flatten the kneaded gluten into a large circle about 1.5 inches thick and cut it into 4- 6 equal sections depending on the size "chicken" breasts that you want.
- Form the pieces into the shape that you desire and wrap the individual "chicken breast" tightly in foil.
- Steam the vegan chicken breasts in the foil packets for 45 minutes and remove them from the steamer with tongs. (At this point, you can eat it, slice it into chicken strips to toss into stir-fries, put it on salads, grill it, or panfry it as you would chicken breast.)
- To panfry, sauté it in a tablespoon of oil for 3-5 minutes on each side until golden brown.
Notes
- You can use any type of bean or tofu, blended with the broth to make the vegan chicken.
- For a stringier chicken texture, allow your dough to rest for at least an hour in the fridge before cooking.
- 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.
This has been my go to seitan recipe for years! I wish I would’ve left a review sooner. Thanks so much for the recipe!
I’m so happy that you like the recipe! Thanks for leaving a review!
Excellent seitan recipe. So different than other ones I make. Totally love it!
I’m so happy that you like it, Deborah!
This is so good. Its the closest thing I’ve had to chicken since going vegan two years ago. I’m excited to incorporate it into recipes. I just bought a huge bag of Vital Wheat Gluten and can’t wait to try more of your recipes.
I’m so happy that you liked it. There are so many great ways to use this faux chicken! Enjoy!
Can I freeze some of the “chicken” before I steam it? And if I do, how will I cook it the next time? Thanks xx
I have never tested it that way. I always steam it first then freeze it. I works well that way.
Awesome recipe! I substituted soy pulp(okara) for the garbanzo beans. I make my own tofu and I am always looking for a way to use up the pulp. This and your other meat substitutes have become staples in my house. Most people I know ask what store carries this meat substitute. It’s definitely better than anything else out there!
I’m so happy that you like it! 🙂
Is the pan-fry method meant to be steamed first? Or is the 3-5 mins per side without steaming first.
You must steam it first. You only pan fry it for a little extra taste and texture after it is steamed. The internal temperature of seitan needs to get up to 160°F before you can eat it. If it is rubbery or chewy, then it is not cooked enough.
If I’m steaming in instant pot is it still 45 minutes?
If you are using an IP, you can set the timer for 35 minutes and then let the steam release naturally. This will keep it steaming for about 45 minutes total. Enjoy!
This recipe is so easy and so good. I loved it as my dinner main and I can’t wait to use it for other meals in different ways.Thanks for sharing it!
You’re welcome, Thalia! I’m so happy that you liked it!
A solid, go-to seitan recipe. Very tasty. Thorough and clear directions. I used half the recipe for a huge stir fry and froze the other half (glad you pointed out how easily it freezes). I am looking forward to cooking up the rest. THANK YOU!
I’m so happy that you like this recipe, Donna! 🙂
Thank you Monika
You’re welcome! Enjoy! 🙂
I can’t believe how easy this vegan chicken was! I was scared it was going to take all day, but it was really quick. I fried it up and tossed it into a broccoli stir fry after I seemed it. So good! Thanks!
So happy that you enjoyed the recipe, Sue! 🙂
Tried this and it was fabulous! I was vegetarian for 29 years and then ate everything for 5 years. Now I’m vegan and loving it. Have been collecting as many vegan recipes as I can. Thanks for sharing.
You’re welcome! I’m so happy that you liked it, Betty! 🙂
Made this tonight. So good! I didn’t have time to.refrigerate it, so I headed out for a longer time to really activate the gluten. It was a perfect texture and flavor.
Thanks for drawing that to my attention. You put the oil in with the broth and spices before you blend it all with the chickpeas. If you hit refresh it should be fixed now. Enjoy! 🙂
Txh for the answer 🙂
Dan
Can’t wait to make!
Monica, Thank you for creating and providing FREE recipes to us! I will happily scroll through a few ads to support you. I know you have no control over the ads that are on your page and actually, they are based on user’s own preferences so maybe if you are getting turkey ads then you have been looking at turkey-related things. Funny how technology works. 🙃 I’ve been vegan for years and still get steak ads mixed in. Just no way around it if you look up food-related things.
Much love to your and your fabulous vegan recipes,
Julia
I wish that I could control the ads! I’m sorry about that, I hate when they do that too! I hope that you enjoy the recipe! 🙂
I made the “chicken breasts” this morning using steaming method. Recipe came together so quickly and effortlessly and end result very delicious!!!! Tgsnk you!
I’m so happy that you liked it, Mandy. It’s surprisingly easy to make! 🙂
So does it absolutely have to rest for an hour or more? Or, immediately after kneading can you shape and cook?
Excited to try it!
It helps the texture be slightly more chicken-like if you let it rest, but not hugely significant. If I have time, I let it rest a while, if not, I cook it immediately.
Can the seitan be wrapped in parchment paper inside the foil? I don’t like aluminum floil touching my food.
Yes, you can definitely wrap it in parchment first, Dorothy. You can also use my baked chicken patty recipe that doesn’t need to be wrapped. 🙂
There’s a Hillshire Farms Roasted Turkey Breast ad playing on this webpage. YUCK!
Monica, I love your recipes, and appreciate that you are able to make some money from ads, but there are so many, they make my computer jump around.
Just made this recipe, but haven’t tried it yet. I’ll leave a comment when it’s finished.