Seitan Meatloaf – The “Meatiest” Vegan Meatloaf

Making a vegan meatloaf is a real possibility even if it does sound impossible. A combination of seitan and textured vegetable protein is perfect for recreating the texture and with a few herbs, spices and flavourings we can easily recreate the flavour of a perfect meatloaf and it is completely plant-based.

The texture is one of the most important things to get right when trying to make an authentic substitute meatloaf.

I have made vegan versions of meatloaf with beans, lentils, mushrooms and all kinds of other ingredients but when you use these kinds of legumes you are really making a bean loaf or lentil loaf. There is nothing wrong with this and you can pack in the flavours but it is not really the same as meatloaf.

This is where we introduce seitan.

What Is Seitan?

Seitan is a plant-based protein that really has the texture of meat. If you haven’t heard of seitan before it really is perfect for creating vegan meat substitutes.

It is made from wheat and you can actually make it yourself from a bag of white bread flour. In essence, seitan is made by removing a lot of the starch and carbohydrates from wheat flour leaving mostly just the protein behind. This process is called washing the flour and simply uses water so no hidden chemicals or intensive processes.

The great thing about seitan though is you can buy flour that has already had the starch removed and this is called vital wheat gluten.

Vital wheat gluten looks just like plain flour and can be made into a dough in just the same way. This means we can add stock, herbs, spices and mix it with the gluten flour to create a meat textured as well as flavoured protein.

Creating Texture In Our Seitan Meatloaf

On its own seitan is going to be far too dense and meaty to create a meatloaf that is made from ground meat. There is a certain crumbly texture to meatloaf that we need to try and replicate.

To create this texture we can use a ready-made product called textured vegetable protein.

Textured vegetable protein or TVP is a protein typically made from soya beans and is often used as a minced meat replacement.

The texture of TVP is perfect for breaking up the dense texture of seitan and creating a crumbly texture that you would expect on meatloaf.

Flavouring The Meatloaf

To get the right flavour for our seitan meatloaf we want to first introduce the savoury and umami character of meat and then we can add seasonings and flavours that you would add to a normal meatloaf.

To get a meaty flavour we want to add really savoury flavours to the seitan that are high in glutamates or umami character. There are quite a few plant-based and vegan ingredients that have these qualities and a combination of these can work together to achieve a really complex flavour with lots of depth.

• Soy sauce
• Tomato puree
• Onion powder
• Garlic powder
• Yeast extract/mushroom powder
• Miso paste

All these ingredients are really savoury, salty and are high in glutamates which will give us a meaty flavour for our meatloaf.

Next, we want to include some flavours that you might typically expect in a meatloaf:

• Tomato ketchup
• Mustard
• Parsley
• Thyme
• Cayenne pepper

You can always customise the flavours you want to add. Use whatever herbs and spices you like, I have made a Mediterranean inspired meatloaf with sundried tomatoes and basil which worked really well.