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This is the best steak texture I've ever achieved and it came out of several tests with varying ingredients and cooking methods. Though there are a couple unique ingredients, the good news is you should be able to source them online, and you'll get a lot of use out of them if you like to make a lot of beefy-style seitan!
1. Since this seitan is made with washed flour, you need to wash out the right amount of starch to achieve the correct texture. This can be tricky if you’re not experienced with washing. Learn how to wash flour here. In this case, you're looking for the water to be cloudy/hazy when you've finished washing. You should be able to see through it but it should not be completely clear. If you leave in too much starch your seitan may be doughy and not have enough flavor. Leave in too little and it can turn out rubbery.
2. Weighing your flour instead of using measuring cups helps because it ensures you’re beginning with the correct amount. When I start with 1kg of flour, I typically end up with about 430-450g of gluten after it has been well-rested and drained.
3. The two keys to this recipe's success came down to sticking with dry seasonings only, and steaming instead of simmering (even though simmering works great for "chicken" and lots of other recipes.) If you're unable to find the dry seasoning ingredients, you can use their more common liquid counterparts (I have provided the amounts below) but it will likely make your steak more soft. If that's the case, see my next point.
4. I wanted so much for the Methylcellulose (MC) I purchased to be the answer to my perfectly-grilled steak texture, but in this case it simply wasn’t. In my initial tests, when using some wet seasonings along with dry it did help absorb some of the excess liquid, but still not enough for the texture to be what I was after. (I have added a step in the recipe on how to use it in case you want to try this way.) Once I switched to dry seasonings only, the addition of the MC almost made it like a "well-done" steak instead of "medium" or "medium-rare." All the omnis agreed that the seitan without MC and dry-only seasonings came much closer to real steak texture than both versions with!
Ingredients
Directions
Start by adding about 2 cups of water and mix it into your flour. If it's not forming into a dough, add a little more. It's easier to wash if it's a little bit sticky as opposed to dry and crumbly, but too much water can make it fall apart when washing. Make sure the water is fully incorporated. You can either knead it into a ball or simply let it rest in the bowl like this for 15 minutes. Then cover it with cool water and let it rest again for about an hour.
Wash that flour! If you're new to flour-washing, check out this step-by-step tutorial here. For this I washed until the water was cloudy/hazy. You want to be able to see through it, but if it's perfectly clear your steak may end up rubbery/chewy.
Once washed, drain your ball of gluten for at least 20-30 minutes. While it's draining, you can either add all of the remaining seitan seasoning ingredients into the bowl of a food processor, or into a bowl and stir together by hand.
Don't forget to save that starch! So many things you can do with it, like make an awesome cheese sauce and turn this steak recipe into a cheesesteak!
If using a food processor, add the drained gluten to it with your seasonings and blitz. If you don't have a processor, mix the seasonings together in a bowl and use a knife or kitchen scissors to cut them into the gluten.
You can mix the seasonings into the gluten until they're fully incorporated, or leave it only partially mixed so you have some fatty-looking streaks. Place the seasoned gluten on a cutting board with grooves or wherever it can drain a little more and let it rest like this until it can be stretched and knotted. This may take at least 30 minutes to 1 hour or possibly longer depending on ambient humidity and how wet your dough was before seasoning.
Mix all your seasonings together along with the Methylcellulose (MC)* to form a paste, then mix the paste into your gluten, preferably with a blender or food processor if using the MC so it gets fully incorporated. Store the seasoned gluten in the refrigerator for a minimum of 30 mins, but closer to 1-2 hours is better to give the MC a chance to absorb extra liquid. After that you can remove it from the fridge and let it come to room temperature (I find it easier to stretch and knot the gluten at room temp.)
*NOTE: You don't have to use the MC at all, but it will help your end result achieve a slightly more firm and steak-like texture. If not using you can rest it at room temperature for 1-2 hours or longer until the gluten is strong enough to stretch.
The next step depends on if you want individual steaks or one large. If individual, cut the dough into as many even portions as you like (you should be able to get 4 small steaks) and stretch the dough of each enough to be able to tie it in a knot. (If it's still breaking easily, rest longer.) Twist each section of dough as you knot to develop more grain. Push each down to flatten into standard steak shapes.
If going for a single steak, cut three strips, leaving the end in tact. Then braid them together, twisting each section as you go. You will likely end up with a long and skinny steak, so fold it in half and push it down to flatten it out into more of a steak shape.
Heat the oil over medium heat in a large pan. I used enough to evenly coat the bottom. Once hot, add the seitan steak(s) and press down to flatten more if necessary as they cook. You're looking to just start to brown both sides, so if you're finishing on the grill you can still achieve those beautiful grill marks!
Once browned, set aside to cool and get your steamer ready. I use a large pot fitted with a couple steamer baskets, but you could also use an Instant Pot or similar device if you have one. For a more firm texture, I recommend wrapping the steak(s) in foil or cheesecloth/muslin tightly enough that they don't have too much room to expand. Steam the steaks for one hour total. I flip mine halfway through to make sure it's steaming evenly and to make sure I don't run out of water in the pot.
Once steamed, allow to come to room temperature then let rest in the fridge overnight. Finish however you like to finish your steaks, though I would recommend basting with a little oil on the grill so they don't dry out. My current favorite is to marinate in this Chimichurri sauce, then grill on medium/high, basting with more sauce as you go, until heated through and you've got some nice grill marks. Enjoy!
To make the cheesesteak: after steaming and resting, thinly-slice the steak, rip into smaller pieces, and fry with a little oil and steak seasonings. Fry up your favorite toppings like onions, peppers, and mushrooms, and load on this easy and amazing cheese sauce made with leftover starch water!
More Washed Flour Recipes
Ingredients
Directions
Start by adding about 2 cups of water and mix it into your flour. If it's not forming into a dough, add a little more. It's easier to wash if it's a little bit sticky as opposed to dry and crumbly, but too much water can make it fall apart when washing. Make sure the water is fully incorporated. You can either knead it into a ball or simply let it rest in the bowl like this for 15 minutes. Then cover it with cool water and let it rest again for about an hour.
Wash that flour! If you're new to flour-washing, check out this step-by-step tutorial here. For this I washed until the water was cloudy/hazy. You want to be able to see through it, but if it's perfectly clear your steak may end up rubbery/chewy.
Once washed, drain your ball of gluten for at least 20-30 minutes. While it's draining, you can either add all of the remaining seitan seasoning ingredients into the bowl of a food processor, or into a bowl and stir together by hand.
Don't forget to save that starch! So many things you can do with it, like make an awesome cheese sauce and turn this steak recipe into a cheesesteak!
If using a food processor, add the drained gluten to it with your seasonings and blitz. If you don't have a processor, mix the seasonings together in a bowl and use a knife or kitchen scissors to cut them into the gluten.
You can mix the seasonings into the gluten until they're fully incorporated, or leave it only partially mixed so you have some fatty-looking streaks. Place the seasoned gluten on a cutting board with grooves or wherever it can drain a little more and let it rest like this until it can be stretched and knotted. This may take at least 30 minutes to 1 hour or possibly longer depending on ambient humidity and how wet your dough was before seasoning.
Mix all your seasonings together along with the Methylcellulose (MC)* to form a paste, then mix the paste into your gluten, preferably with a blender or food processor if using the MC so it gets fully incorporated. Store the seasoned gluten in the refrigerator for a minimum of 30 mins, but closer to 1-2 hours is better to give the MC a chance to absorb extra liquid. After that you can remove it from the fridge and let it come to room temperature (I find it easier to stretch and knot the gluten at room temp.)
*NOTE: You don't have to use the MC at all, but it will help your end result achieve a slightly more firm and steak-like texture. If not using you can rest it at room temperature for 1-2 hours or longer until the gluten is strong enough to stretch.
The next step depends on if you want individual steaks or one large. If individual, cut the dough into as many even portions as you like (you should be able to get 4 small steaks) and stretch the dough of each enough to be able to tie it in a knot. (If it's still breaking easily, rest longer.) Twist each section of dough as you knot to develop more grain. Push each down to flatten into standard steak shapes.
If going for a single steak, cut three strips, leaving the end in tact. Then braid them together, twisting each section as you go. You will likely end up with a long and skinny steak, so fold it in half and push it down to flatten it out into more of a steak shape.
Heat the oil over medium heat in a large pan. I used enough to evenly coat the bottom. Once hot, add the seitan steak(s) and press down to flatten more if necessary as they cook. You're looking to just start to brown both sides, so if you're finishing on the grill you can still achieve those beautiful grill marks!
Once browned, set aside to cool and get your steamer ready. I use a large pot fitted with a couple steamer baskets, but you could also use an Instant Pot or similar device if you have one. For a more firm texture, I recommend wrapping the steak(s) in foil or cheesecloth/muslin tightly enough that they don't have too much room to expand. Steam the steaks for one hour total. I flip mine halfway through to make sure it's steaming evenly and to make sure I don't run out of water in the pot.
Once steamed, allow to come to room temperature then let rest in the fridge overnight. Finish however you like to finish your steaks, though I would recommend basting with a little oil on the grill so they don't dry out. My current favorite is to marinate in this Chimichurri sauce, then grill on medium/high, basting with more sauce as you go, until heated through and you've got some nice grill marks. Enjoy!
Would it work the same to use liquid soy sauce rather than dry but reduce the added water by the volume of the soy sauce? Seems like the total liquid would be the issue for texture, but there may be some kind of chemical reaction it would miss if liquid rather than powders used?
I haven’t tried but it could work. I generally think it’s a liquid issue. Mixing the liquid seasonings with dry and forming a paste before adding to the gluten helps offset it, and in some of my washed flour recipes where a little more liquid flavor is crucial (like wine for example), I cook the ingredients down just the same. If you try it please let me know how it goes!
Fantastic recipe share, thanks. This does take a bit of time and definitely seems like a weekend thing, it makes me curious about stability and being stored in the freezer. Would the seitan hold up to being frozen and then thawed out? Would the seitan need to be fully cooked with seasoning or would it do better steamed, then cooled and frozen?
To break up the process I typically wash my flour whenever I have some spare time and keep that in the fridge. It holds up great and continues to lose moisture (added bonus) and it freezes great, too! But yes, you can absolutely freeze the seitan. I’d recommend after steaming and cooling, then defrost. You could even freeze it in a marinade at that point so it defrosts and absorbs more flavor at the same time. 🙂
Instead of soy sauce powder, I substituted the equivalent amount of sodium to 1 T soy sauce powder (1530mg) with 1 tsp black lava salt (1680 mg which may impart the color of soy and a bit of a charcoal flavor).
Porcine – I used portabella mushroom powder
Worcestershire powder – I used 1 T liquid homemade Worc. sauce + 1 T nutritional yeast
Washed 6 times.
All these changes worked well with great result. My son loved the black lava salt, some of which I sprinkled on top as it sauteed.
Thanks for sharing your substitutions and happy to hear you enjoyed!
Can you substitute Vital Wheat Gluten for the washed flour? Thanks!
Sorry, not for this recipe, but you can find lots of steak recipes using vital wheat gluten here: http://seitansociety.com/recipe-category/steak/ (just skip this one and the rest are made with VWG).
I don’t know what kind of witchcraft this is but OMG this recipe is amazing! We couldn’t believe how great it tasted not to mentioned the end result really looked like a flank steak. I will never buy seitan from a store ever again, the steak tasted like carne asada especially after basting with marinade and adding chimichurri. My only regret is not making it sooner and letting the WTF method intimidate me.
Yay!!! So happy to hear you enjoyed it! ☺️
This looks so good, I am in the making but I block at the steaming process..Do you steam it without foil or cheesecloth? I don’t want to go freestyle and mess the end results 😅
Hello! I always wrap mine with foil but you could also use cheese cloth if you prefer. I apologize—-I thought I wrote that but will definitely add that to the directions to make it more clear. Hope you enjoy!
I was also stumped about the foil. Am I not seeing the instructions or did you not correct it?
Hmmm… looks like I never did update the recipe, but I have now!
This came out super. Loved the chimichurri sauce marinade idea and used it.
So happy to hear this! Thanks for your message! ☺️
without having to switch out to dry spices (ive never heard of or seen dry soy sauce, etc. and i live in Montreal, big city) i would like to know if there is something other than Methylcellulose (MC) when using liquids to flavor the doughball?
i’m thinking like Besan flour (chickpea) or other to dry the seitan doughball before steaming
I haven’t tried chickpea flour with washed gluten, but I have used it to soften the texture with vital wheat gluten. While it may absorb some excess moisture, it may also soften the end results, though I couldn’t say for sure. If you do use it, please let me know how it turns out. As for Methylcellulose, unlike other gels, that firms when heating, so it will be difficult to find a substitute. You can always use minimal amounts of the liquid seasonings and make a paste before incorporating which I find works better than just adding them to the gluten. Then for extra flavor you can marinate your steak in those liquids after steaming and it should help impart those missing flavors. Finally, if you read through the comments, someone posted about a couple of substitutions which they found worked well.
Hi, Your steak recipe looks wonderful and I want to try it. Relatively new to WTF and still trying to perfect my technique…..
I notice you use bread flour in your recipe. Do you think using all purpose flour will yield a different texture? Thanks!
AP flour could definitely yield a different texture because the amount you wind up with after washing is less. It also takes me longer to wash (probably because of the extra starch.) I recently had a bag in my pantry that was going to expire from a brand I trust and I’m so used to how much gluten I get from bread flour and the time it takes to wash I decided I will never go back to that again. And I say a brand I trust, because not all brands are created equal. Some may say they have a high enough protein, but that could be from flours other than wheat (such as malted barley flour) and won’t yield any gluten. At the very least, I encourage you to try bread flour because of its more guaranteed result, and once you get used to washing (or after you perfect your technique) then go back to experimenting with AP. And thanks, hope you enjoy the recipe!
Thank you Jen for your reply! I have since found on this website the list of preferred or trusted flours and was able to find the King Aurthur bread flour locally. So, I’m gonna give this recipe a go!!!
That’s my go-to brand! Hope you enjoy the recipe. 🙂
This is an excellent plant based beef recipe. Made the wet recipe twice with a few substitutions, additions and no methylcellulose. I replaced the Worcester sauce with 1 tsp of marmite. I added 1Tblsp of Dijon Mustard to hopefully dissipate the gluten twang my wife complains about.
I did leave the seitan to drain for a few hrs at room temperature after adding the seasoning ingredients. I cut the Seitan into 4 steaks but I only did the initial steam so that I could be flexible with the final use. Made a kick-butt chili (pulled the Seitan apart and fed through a grinder, then sauteed as normal ground etc) . My second recipe was “beaf bites” stir fry in a Chinese black bean sauce. Texture is fantastic and wonderful taste too.
Thanks so much for the recipe. I can’t wait for BBQ season (Still snow on the ground up here in Canada)
I’m confused by a couple of things. Do I understand that Instructions Nos. 4 and 5 are the “dry” seasoning instructions and No. 6 is the “wet” seasoning instructions?
Second what are the ingredients for the “dry” seasoning and what are the ingredients for the “wet” seasoning? What makes the “dry” dry and the “wet” wet?
Does both the dry and wet include the 2-3 tablespoon neutral-tasting oil?
Lawrence
Hi Lawrence,
The recipe was written with the intention of using dry ingredients for optimal texture. That said, I am aware that Soy Sauce and Vegan Worcestershire sauce are much more readily-available as wet only and some people may not want to purchase their dry counterparts. Therefore, in the ingredients list, you’ll see the dry listed and under each a note on how much of the wet to substitute.
In the instructions, you’ll only follow steps 4 and 5 if you have not made the liquid substitutions, but skip those and follow step 6 if you have. Methylcellulose helps really only if you’ve used the liquid seasonings. The oil is used regardless, because that’s for frying the gluten to sear it and add fat prior to steaming.