Chipotle Breakfast Sausages

The magic of vegan cooking is you can now enter the world of making so many delicious goodies at home from start to finish.

I know vegan sausages are sold everywhere these days, and I certainly love their convenience, but when I serve these sausages to people and tell them I make the sausages in my very own kitchen, something really cool happens. Their eyes do this weird thing that says "wait...really?". It's that moment of noticing that first, they've never slowed down to think of how one actually begins to make a sausage (whether vegan or not), and then, they start wondering what the actual "meat" component is (the answer in this case: seitan!).

Today I'll teach you how to make this version of my homemade sausages, which uses chipotle chilies in adobo, and lots of delicious spices to make these extra flavorful. I recommend making a ton, freezing them, and taking them out as you wish to eat them, sautéing them right before serving. You can make these for brunch, but also for lunch or dinner. They're so hearty and satisfying, perfect as a high protein vegan meal, and full of flavor. 

Don’t be intimidated by making your own seitan at home into these scrumptious sausages, making seitan is kind of like making a cake, we mix dry ingredients, we mix wet ingredients, we put them together and in this case, we roll the dough between our hands, into tootsie roll-like sausages with some parchment paper, and into a steamer basket they go. Then the stove takes care of the rest and you can relax for a bit or make the rest of your meal.

These are also perfect for freezing, so make a big batch and take them out of the freezer as you wish to use them.

I hope you love these! Watch me making them in the video below, and find the recipe and printable down there as well.

Ingredients

For the dry mix: 

• 2 cups vital wheat gluten
• 1/2  cup nutritional yeast
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• 3 teaspoons paprika
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2  teaspoon pepper

For the wet mix:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil (plus a bit extra for sautéing the sausages before serving)
• 1 onion, finely diced
• A pinch of salt and pepper
• 250 gr (8.8 oz) extra firm or super firm tofu 
• 3 teaspoons liquid smoke
• 1 & 1/2  teaspoons maple syrup
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• 3 chipotle chilies in adobo

For rolling the sausages:

• Parchment paper

Directions

1. In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients until well combined.

2. Add the oil to a pan and sauté the onions with a pinch of salt and pepper until lightly golden brown.

3. Add the tofu, the sautéed onions, liquid smoke, maple syrup, broth and chipotle chilies to a blender. Blend until creamy.

4. Add the creamy mixture into the bowl with your dry ingredients and mix with a rubber spatula, then continue kneading with your hand until no loose gluten flour remains. 

5. Cut the parchment paper into rectangles a bit larger than the size you want the sausages to have. Take a bit of the dough, shape it into a small sausage and roll it in the parchment paper like a tootsie roll, pressing firmly against the dough and twisting the ends of the parchment paper to have a very compact sausage.

6. Continue until you’ve used up all your dough.

7. Place them in a steamer basket over a large pot with ample boiling water. Cover with a lid and let the sausages steam for 40 minutes, checking from time to time to make sure there is still water in the pot.

8. Remove the sausages from the paper, and you can either grill or sauté them right away in a bit of oil before serving them, or freeze them and thaw and sauté or grill as you wish to use them.