Making seitan may seem intimidating but it's super easy! It's really hard to mess up, even if your ingredient ratios are slightly off. Obviously, this is not for gluten-free folks!

I'd say this recipe feeds 4-6, depending on if it's a main dish or if it will just be a sandwich filler. I've been making this recipe (doubled) for an annual group meal for 8-12 people for the last 3 years. It pairs wonderfully with greek salad, tzatzik (yogurt) sauce, hummus, pita bread, or even mixed in with a curry sauce.

In this recipe, we will make a wet ingredients mixture and a dry ingredients mixture. When we've got our two mixtures (wet & dry), we will blend them together and knead them up with our hands. Once that's done, we will bake our loaf in the oven and then chop it up into pieces and pan fry it until brown.

Step 1: Ingredients

Dry Ingredients

*1 tsp Rosemary
1 tsp Basil
1 tsp Oregano
1/2 tsp Pepper
1/4 tsp Salt
1 1/4 cup Wheat Gluten - A 1lb bag of Bob's Red Mill is pricey but will last you quite a while
1/4 cup Nutritional Yeast

Wet Ingredients

1/2 cup Pinto Beans
1 tbsp Soy Sauce
2 tbsp Ketchup
1 tsp Liquid Smoke
1 tbsp Tahini
3/4 cup Broth (I made 8oz of "Better than Bullion")
*1/2 tsp crushed garlic
*1/4 cup pan fried red or white onion, cut into ~1/4" pieces

Other

Hand Blender or mixer (a Magic Bullet would work, too)
Nonstick spray
Mixing bowls/measuring cups
Aluminum foil
Bread/loaf pan

*Optional, but highly recommended

Step 2: Mix Your Ingredients

Set oven for 350
Measure out your dry ingredients into one bowl and blend with a fork.
Make vegetable broth if you need to. Since you only need a small amount, I recommend using a buillon/broth concentrate.
Blend wet ingredients together in another bowl. I like to use the blender cup that came with my hand mixer. You could also just throw all the wet ingredients directly into a cuisinart or other blender.
Use a mixer or hand blender to smooth the beans and tahini into the other wet ingredients. You want to have a thin sauce mixture without any apparent lumps
Wash your hands and take off any rings or anything that might give or get stickiness.
Mix both wet and dry ingredients together and stir for 5 seconds with a fork or spoon.
Use your hands to fold everything together. You want to knead it together a little to get some texture but not too much. 3-4 pulls/pushes after everything is incorporated seems to work. See the last picture

Step 3: Make Your Loaf!

Spray a large piece of foil with nonstick/oil spray.
Place the gluten blob in the foil and wrap it up so it's in a packet. I folded mine like a burrito.
Place the gluten blob packet in the bread pan.
Cook for 45 minutes and test at the end of the hour for done-ness.
Doubling the recipe will require more time: check after 1 hour. You want a toothpick or knife to come out clean but you don't want it to turn into a dry hunk of bread; a little stickiness is OK, especially since it will cook a bit more in the pan.

OK! At this point you can move on and continue OR let your loaf cool a bit and stick it in the fridge or freezer indefinitely! I typically whip this up, freeze it, and throw it in our camping cooler. You decide!