Vegan "Hot Dogs"

After many, many iterations of these, I've finally come up with a recipe for vegan hot dogs that everyone in our house likes the taste and texture of! They look like hot dogs, and even hold up to grilling like hot dogs. The best part is, they don't have all the weird stuff the frozen store-bought ones have. The recipe below results in approximately 16 grams of protein per vegan "hot dog." Aside from the long list of ingredients, these are actually pretty straightforward to make and scale up or down. If you need ideas for substitutions, please leave a comment. For example, you can substitute nutritional yeast or mushroom powder with other “umami” type ingredients like miso, Parmesan, or dried shiitake mushrooms.

Ingredients- Spices

1 tbsp onion powder (or 3 tbsp dried minced onions)

1.5 tsp garlic powder

1/3 cup nutritional yeast

2 tsp sugar

3 tbsp paprika (I use a smoked Spanish paprika)

1 tbsp mushroom powder (I use the Trader Joe’s Umami seasoning)

1 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp dried oregano

2 tsp mustard powder (I use Coleman’s dry yellow mustard)

½ tsp caraway seeds

1 tsp fennel seeds

½ tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp dill seeds

1.5 tsp kosher salt

Ingredients- Wet flavorings

2 tbsp neutral oil (I used MCT oil, but avocado, vegetable, or corn oil is fine)

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 tbsp soy sauce

Other ingredients

1.5 cups water

2 cups vital wheat gluten

Directions

1. Put all the spices, wet flavorings, and 1 cup of water into a high power blender. Blend until it’s a smooth paste.  Transfer the blended spices into a medium size bowl.

2.  Put the remaining 1/2 cup of water and blend again so that you get as much of the spice paste out as you can.  Add this to the medium size bowl and mix with a spatula or wooden spoon until the mixture is uniform.

3.  Gently mix in 1 cup of the vital wheat gluten. When it is mostly incorporated, add the remaining 1 cup of vital wheat gluten.  Continue to gently mix in all the vital wheat gluten until there is no more dry powder.  Stop as soon as it is mixed it (Photo 1).  Unlike making seitan, you don't want to overwork the dough because it will make the final vegan "hot dogs" tough.  Use a 1/4 cup measure to divide the dough into 12 pieces.

4.  Cut 12 pieces of foil that are about 6 inches x 7 inches to wrap the vegan "hot dogs" in prior to steaming.  At this point, fill your steamer pot with 2-3 inches of water (it should not touch the bottom of the steamer basket).  Bring this to a boil over medium-high heat.  While this is coming to a boil, you can wrap the vegan "hot dogs."

5.  To wrap: Take one piece of foil and place a piece of dough at the edge of one of the long ends (Photo 2). Shape it into a log about 5 inches long (Photo 3). Leave about 1 inch on either side.  Starting with the edge that the dough is on, roll it up fairly tightly- there should be enough foil to wrap around the dough at least twice (Photo 4). Twist both ends of the foil like a candy wrapper. Repeat this for the remaining 11 pieces of dough.

6.  Arrange the 12 foil-wrapped dough logs in a steamer basket (Photo 5).  Once the water in the steamer pot is boiling, place the steamer basked in.  Turn the heat down to medium to maintain a simmer.  Cover and steam for 45 minutes.

7.  After 45 minutes, the vegan "hot dogs" should look like they want to burst out of the foil.  Carefully remove them from the heat and leave them wrapped in foil until ready to eat.  You can enjoy them fresh (Photo 6), or give them some color by heating them on a grill or skillet.  Store uneaten vegan "hot dogs" in the fridge for about a week.