Serves 6 to 8
Active time: 1 hour || Total time: 2 hours
I know. I’m posting a roast recipe on the Tuesday evening before Thanksgiving. I’m sure everyone already has their menus planned and I’m late to the party. But this roast almost drove me to the brink of madness Call of Cthulu style, so I had to defeat it! And defeat it I did.
After about 20 years and twice as many tries I’ve got a fabulous centerpiece stuffed roast that I’m proud to show off to the neighbors. Succulent seitan stuffed with herbed meaty shiitakes and leeks. The seitan is mixed with pureed pinto beans to give it great, juicy texture and even a hint of pink color. It’s really similar to my sausage recipes which I used as a base recipe. The stuffing is coated with bread crumbs, which keep it perfectly packed into the roast when you slice it, instead of falling out all over the place. It all comes together when baked in a familiar tinfoil wrapping.
I don’t know what took me so long to get it right. Maybe someday I’ll be ready to talk about it. But right now, let’s get roasting!
There are a few recipe notes before you begin:
~For best results, use a salty homemade vegetable broth. Salt is integral to the flavor of the seitan, so if your broth isn’t seasoned then add a teaspoon or so of salt to it.
~You’ll also want to spoon broth over the roast before serving, to keep it from being dry. Of course you’re going to be coating it in gravy, too. But the broth is a nice touch. If you’re slicing and serving, ladle on spoonfuls of broth on each individual slice, too. You can’t have too much juice, here!
~This roast reheats perfectly. Refrigerate in its wrapper for up to 3 days before hand. When ready to serve, preheat an oven to 350 F and cook for 20 minutes. This will dry it out a bit, so use the broth hints above for sure!
~Use a steak knife for the easiest slicing.
~I used storebought breadcrumbs but if you use homemade, use 3/4 cup.
~This makes enough for 6 hungry people. If it’s not Thanksgiving or another holiday, and people are not totally stuffing their faces, it serves at least 8.
For the filling:
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 oz shiitake mushrooms, thinly sliced (rough ends removed)
2 leeks, white and light green parts only, cut into thin half moons
1/2 teaspoon salt
Fresh black pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons fresh chopped thyme
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
1/4 cup vegetable broth
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
For the roast
3 cloves garlic
3/4 cup cooked pinto beans, rinsed and drained (fresh or canned)
1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups vital wheat gluten
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon fennel seeds, crushed or finely chopped
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed between your fingers
1 teaspoon dried sage, crushed between your fingers
Several dashes fresh black pepper
First prepare the filling:
Preheat a large pan, preferably cast iron, over medium heat. Saute the mushrooms and leeks in oil until soft, about 10 minutes. Add salt, pepper, garlic and thyme. Cook for about 2 more minutes, stirring often.
Sprinkle in the breadcrumbs and toss to coat. Cook the mixture, stirring very often, until the breadcrumbs are toasty and the mixture is relatively dry. This should take about 5 minutes, and the breadcrumbs should turn a few shades darker.
Drizzle in the broth and lemon juice and toss to coat until moist. If it still seems dry drizzle in a little extra olive oil. Set aside until ready to use.
Prepare the roast:
Preheat oven to 350 F. In a food processor, pulse the garlic until well chopped. Add the beans, broth, olive oil and soy sauce and puree until mostly smooth (a few pieces of bean are okay, but they should be no bigger than a pea.)
In a large mixing bowl, mix together the wheat gluten, nutritional yeast, herbs and spices. Make a well in the center and add the bean mixture. Stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture starts coming together to form a ball of dough. Knead until everything is well incorporated.
Now we’re going to roll out the seitan and form the roast. Place two pieces of tin foil (about 18 inches long) horizontally in front of you. The sheet further from you should overlap the closer sheet by about 6 inches. This way you have enough foil to wrap around the whole roast.
On a separate surface, use your hands or a rolling pin to flatten the seitan into a roughly 12 x 10 rectangle. If any pieces rip, don’t worry about it, just use a pinch of dough from the ends to repair any holes.
Place the filling in the lower 1/3 of the seitan rectangle, leaving about 2 inches of space at both ends. Make sure the filling is compact, use your hands to form it into a nice, tight bundle.
Now roll! Roll the bottom part of the seitan up and over the filling. Keep rolling until in it’s in a log shape. Now pinch together the seam and pinch together the sides to seal. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it will snap into shape when baking.
Place the roll in the center of the tinfoil and roll up like a tootsie roll, making sure the ends are tightly wrapped. Transfer to a baking sheet and bake for an hour*. Rotate the roll every 20 minutes for even cooking.
* I may update the time in this recipe because I’ve gotten a few comments that said it took up to 90 minutes to cook completely! So for now I would say just do a test my poking the roll with tongs. It should feel very very firm. If it doesn’t, then bake further.
Remove from oven and let cool. Unwrap, slice and serve! (See recipe notes for keeping moist and reheating.)
really anxious about the upcoming xmas dinner i’m making for 7 people who probably don’t even know they will be getting all vegan food. AND i’m in a place where gluten flour simply does not exist. so i decided to be courageous (read: crazy) and make the seitan from scratch from whole wheat flour. O.M.G! so many variables i did not take into account when starting the ordeal! like how to get the flavor into the gluten once it’s all rinced out. or how to roll it into a nice rectangle without it contracting back into the little rubbery ball i started out with. or will it get cooked properly in the oven like instructed above or should i have boiled it beforehand? which of course would have made the whole part of stuffing totally impossible. it’s been in the oven for an hour now. i really hope it will somehow work out! eek! :/
Please keep us updated…from scratch seitan can be so tricky.
Thank you so much!!! I made this loaf yesterday to take to my Mum’s for Xmas dinner [the rest of the family is having turkey]. I was prepared for it to taste sort of ‘ok” but I just had a slice and it is absolutely delicious. I am going to freeze part of it for after Xmas — but am definitely bringing extras for my family to try
I’m sooooo excited!! And nervous!!! I’m making this right now…..the mushrooms and leeks (from my garden…yeah!) are in the saute pan.
Well…even though I really messed up (I put 1 1/4 c of veggie broth in the stuffing mix…what a bonehead), I had to bake it a tad longer due to my own inablilty to read….it smells heavenly and looks great. It’s for tomorrow night’s Christmad Eve dinner! I’m so excited to share this wonderful food with my family!
Thank you, Isa, for your fabulous way with food and then your generosity to share it with us. You are a real treat! I and thousands of others appreciate what you do.
Just finished rolling my roast – just need to roast it for Christmas eve dinner – fingers crossed!
ditto, Jeremy (France), but it’s going to be perfect! This is my 2nd go round. This roast ROCKS!
I just rolled it up and put it in the over for Christmas Eve dinner! With roasted veggies (me and DH) and peas (for the kids).
Isa you just saved my Xmas dinner 🙂 Thank you, the omni’s didn’t even realise they were eating faux-meat mwhahahaha
I made this yesterday, and, yowza, it was so good! I loved the stuffing. I wanted to eat it straight from the pan. I can’t believe how easy this is (only my third time making seitan). When I rolled it out, it was so lumpy and fugly, I wasn’t sure how it would come out. But it bakes up perfectly! Thanks for sharing this wonderful recipe!
Made this roast today for Christmas dinner AMAZING!!
Thank-you so much for this recipe! Was the best Christmas lunch (and dinner!) in years – Seitan roast with roast parsnips, purple potatoes and salad. Brilliant! 😀
I’m definitely going to be making this soon, but I have a quick question. Can you cook a smaller portion of it, and freeze the rest ’til you’re ready to cook it? Or should it all be cooked at one time?
I’m not sure how it would react to being frozen before baked. I’d bake it all at once and then freeze a portion to reheat.
Isa, got a question. What if I halved the roast, wrapped it in the foil like the tootsie roll, and steamed the two roasts? Did you try that…your sausage recipes are soooo divine, I just wonder…………
I haven’t tried that. I think it would work but you’d have to change the dimensions to fit the stuffing, obviously.
I just used this recipe as a guide for christmas dinner… I added a little more sage and diced apple to the “meat” and stuffed with a traditional stuffing instead…. It was amazing!!! I did not have to add broth to the foil, the apple released juice as it cooked…
This was made by family yesterday for our Christmas dinner and it was AMAZING!! Her husband doesn’t like mushrooms so they used a blend of zucchini and other veggies instead. Right now I’m an omnivore that eats 98% vegan/veg/raw and I have never experienced eating a Holiday dinner with family (these were extended) where the entire meal was all vegetarian and mostly vegan. It was awesome and I was, for once, not the ‘odd woman out’. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. 🙂
I made this for Chanukah for my husband’s family and for Christmas for my family, and it was delicious! You are a genius and I heart you!
By the way, my neighbor has gone soy free, dairy free and egg free, so I made her some cookies from your cookie book (the new york black and whites – making sure to use soy free chocolate chips, of course!) and gave her my old copy of the cookie book since I now have my awesome autographed copy of it from the kitty cat fundraiser; she came over the other day (to gift us some vegan cupcakes for Christmas, no less ;-)) and she said she has been practicing making cookies from your book! I just thought I would share that because you might like to hear that you’re reaching the omni’s too! 🙂
Happy Chanukah, Isa!
Ooooh, and I almost forgot! My mom (total omni if there ever was one… ;-)) Couldn’t find a recipe for chocolate crinkle cookies for Christmas and so I shared your recipe and she loved it! (I had to lend her some flax seed, but isn’t that what daughters are for?)
So you’ve been reaching all kinds of omnis this holiday season!
I made this for Christmas and served it to myself, three veg-curious, and two professed “carnivores” (ha!) and everyone LOVED IT! Such a fantastic recipe, it came out perfect – thank you so much for sharing!
We made this for our Christmas dinner and LOVED it! Used extra wild mushrooms and changed up the spices for the filling. We made it on the 24th and saved the wrapped and cooled roast in the fridge overnight. Unwrapped the roast and ‘soaked’ it in more broth before re-warming for dinner. Just perfect! Used the Navy Bean gravy from Vegan Brunch. such a yummy meal, Thanks so much for sharing the recipe!
I made this for my Christmas dinner an loved it. The best seitan I have made an the stuffing was great. Better than the Tofurkey I had at Thanksiving. My nonnvegan Husband said he liked it better than his Turkey he was having. Also enjoyed it the next day, I made a Ruben with it, s
o good. Thank you for the recipe I will make be making this again.
Just made this for New Years Eve dinner – seriously delicious!
Trying it tonight for the first time! Looks amazing! I would love to see a video, too. Wasn’t sure if I start rolling from the 10″ side or 12″ side…. I’d assume 10″… but that’s a lot of stuffing, sooooo…. ?? LOL
My mouth is watering just from looking at the pictures. Looks so delicious…
I’m really sorry to be a Moaning Myrtle, but I made this for Christmas Dinner as the vegetarian centrepiece and it turned out having the texture and taste of rubber. Really springy and tough with a bitter aftertaste. I’d found the seitan dough really tough to handle (could I have under-kneaded?) and work with and it kept springing about.
I’ve had mock duck and gluten based vegetarian burgers before and loved it so I was dissapointed and surprised with this recipe.
I normally love your recipes, and regularly wax hysterical about this site, so I’m guessing I must have done something wrong. Any input welcome!
Hey, sometimes things don’t come out right, no need to apologize! I’d be pissed, too, if I spent all that time and it didn’t work. It’s hard to troubleshoot a recipe like this when I’m not standing over your shoulder watching every move, but some people needed to bake longer, although I suppose it could have been overbaked, too. Although I don’t know why it would be bitter, that makes me wonder what kind of vital wheat gluten you used? Also, the fact that the seitan was hard to work with makes me wonder about the brand because it should roll out really easily.
Just wanted to say I made this for Christmas and it saved my day.
Imagine my surprise when the first course at my family Christmas gathering was seafood, and nothing but. And the main was chicken, turkey, more chicken, and one salad.
If I hadn’t taken the time on Christmas Eve to make this sublime roll, I would’ve had ONE SALAD for Christmas lunch. Instead I got this, plus loads of leftovers which went ridiculously well in a ‘cold meat’ sandwich the next day.
THANK YOU PPK!
made it yesterday, it was very good! especially love the filling. Thanks for yet another great recipe!
http://veganotic.blogspot.com/2012/01/plnena-sekacka.html
Hiya, I know this is really lame of me but I’m from the uk and I’ve tried translating all the ingrediants into metric but I think i must have got them wrong as it came out very odd and didn’t ‘snap’ togeather at all. I was really gutted as I sat for ages converting the us cups to grams then making.. then cooking. Would it be really rude to ask if someone could convert it for me? I found it hard as someone said to me if something weighs more than something else (flour and n.yeast for example) they aren’t measured in the same cup as obv they weigh different ? TOTALLY CONFUSED.COM !!! Please help, i really wanna make this good.
Loads of love and many thanks in advance.
Bluebird
Bluebird – don’t translate the amounts, Tesco and Morrison’s both have cup measures, so much easier :o)
Isa – Roast is in the oven as we speak, I’m really looking forward to this as I’ve been waiting for ages to try it.
Sam (UK)
If you break this loaf into 8 slices, each slice is 44.6 g protein! I had to share 🙂
Whoa.
I don’t think you need any more comments, but I had to tell you how WONDERFUL this roast is! It is definitely one I will treasure. Thank you!
Hey, I always appreciate the comments. Thank you!
This was my first foray into making seitan. The directions were great and it came out perfectly! The stuffing was amazing. I am actually an omni and made it for my omni parents as our new year’s eve meal before running back out to participate in Boston 1st night. They were good sports and gave it a try and raved over the mushroom stuffing, but were unsure about the seitan. I made it with hottie black eyed-peas and they thought they were great too. Thank you for making it so easy to explore vegan cooking! I love your recipes! I own 3 of your cookbooks and use this site all the time to make dishes.
WOW! Your recipes never disappoint. I love, love, love this roast! I tried zucchini, as suggested by another reader, since my husband can’t stand mushrooms. It turned out to be a very nice replacement. Dinner last night, lunch today. Dare I admit? I had it for dinner again tonight and am already planning to make it again as soon as I have the time. Your directions are always so clear, thank you for another keeper!
Mmm, I stayed home today to make this and it was worth it. It’s hard to find a no-fail faux roast recipe, but here it is!
Almost perfect, the only thing that I would recommend is to glaze the roast log with chutney jam or something sweet with complementing flavours. This is to counter balance the high salt content which is definitely needed. The thing about meat is that it has a very salty yet subtly sweet taste to it, and this can be reproduced with something like a small amount of honey, jam, chutney, agave, brown sugar or applesauce. I added the chutney after I took it out of the oven and unwrapped it, so that it would melt nicely over the finished roast.
I made this recipe after my local grocery store being sold out of Tofurky. I used a different stuffing mind you because the fiance does not like mushrooms, but it turned out so amazing. It was way better than Tofurky and cheaper, and more aesthetically pleasing. It also made a huge portion! Loved it so much, thank you!
Comments will keep coming because this food is so delicious. This was some of the best seitan I have ever made. Thank so very much for the recipe.