Crispy Sweet and Sour Seitan
Grasshopper Restaurant’s most popular dish seems to be the No Name, and for good reason. The seitan is crunchy-crispy and coated with a delicious sweet and sour sauce. I was really craving it today, so I decided to try my hand at making it. I was pretty surprised how close I got to the real deal. This definitely satisfies my cravings for the No Name, and it’s not hard to make either!
Crispy Sweet and Sour Seitan
Serves two
8 oz Seitan, chopped into strips (a loose 2 cups after chopping)
1 tsp Ener-g Egg Replacer
1/4 Cup Cornstarch
1/4 Cup Peanut Oil
Steamed Broccoli
Sesame Seeds for garnish
Sauce***
3 1/2 Tbs Seasoned Rice Vinegar (you can eyeball the 1/2 Tbs)
1/4 Cup Water
2 Tbs + 2 tsp Sugar
1 Tbs Tamari
1 Tbs Ketchup
1 tsp Molasses
1/4 tsp Ginger Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
1 1/2 Tbs Cornstarch + 2 Tbs water
This recipe is not nearly as complicated as it seems. I’m just feeling verbose tonight!
Add all the sauce ingredients except for the cornstarch and water into a small saucepan and heat on low until sugar dissolves. Mix cornstarch with 2 Tbs water and add to sauce. Turn up heat to medium-high and whisk until sauce thickens. Sauce should be moderately thick, but not so thick it’s gel like. If you scrape a spoon down the middle of the pan, it should take a second for it to fill in the groove you made, but it should fill back in. Does that makes sense? Add more cornstarch to make it thicker if needed, or add water (or seitan juice) to thin it out if it gets too thick. Take off heat and set aside.
Heat 1/4 cup of peanut oil on HIGH in a large skillet, non-stick if you have it. Place chopped seitan in a large bowl. Sprinkle with egg replacer powder and mix well. It should dissolve from the moisture of the seitan. Add cornstartch and toss seitan until it’s completely coated.
Test oil with a piece of seitan. If the oil bubbles up immediately when you drop a piece in, you’re good to go. Add seitan to oil in one layer – you might need to do batches depening on how big your pan is. Fry on high for 5-7 minutes, stirring and turning the pieces often, until crispy and golden. Drain oil out of pan (it’s safer to remove the seitan with a slotted spoon and pour the oil out of the pan, but I take the whole thing over to the sink and use the pan lid as a barrier. This way the seitan stays in while I pour the oil out. If you get severe burns doing this, don’t blame me. I shouldn’t do it, but I do.)
Put the pan back on the stove with the seitan in it, but NOT over heat. Wait a sec for the pan to cool down, then add sauce. Use a rubber spatual to get out every last bit, as the recipe makes just enough to coat. Toss to coat seitan and serve immediately.
If your pan is too hot when you do this, your sauce might get CRAZY thick CRAZY fast, as cornstarch is wont to do around heat. It’s not a big deal, but you’ll be happier waiting for the pan to cool a bit.
Serve with steamed broccoli and top with sesame seeds.
Additional (Untested) Ideas:
Lemon Ginger: Omit ketchup and add 1 tsp more vinegar and 1 tsp more sugar. Add more ginger to sauce, fresh if you got it, and stir in 1 Tbs of organic lemon zest to the sauce.
Orange Sesame: Add 1 Tbs of organic orange zest while dissolving sugar. Stir in 2 tsp of toasted sesame oil before tossing with the seitan.
Spicy Garlic: Add 1-2 cloves of minced garlic to the sauce along with 1/4 tsp of red pepper flakes. Alternatively, mix ground cayenne pepper with the cornstarch before tossing the seitan in it.
***This is the updated sauce recipe. If you want to use the old recipe, click the link below!
Old Sweet and Sour SauceÂ
1/3 Cup Seasoned Rice Vinegar
4 Tbs Sugar
1 Tbs Tamari
1 Tbs Ketchup
1 tsp Non-Blackstrap Molasses
1/4 tsp Ginger Powder
1/4 tsp Salt
1 1/2 Tbs Cornstarch + 2 Tbs water
I am on it! What type of seitan do you suggest? Have you made the baked ppk cutlet seitan yet? I am leaning towards that..
Yay! I would say anything fairly soft, i.e. not white wave chicken style. I find it dry and kinda gross, but maybe that’s just me? The original white wave in the blue box, or The Bridge tofu in a tub works.
I haven’t made the seitan cutlet yet, but i think any chewy seitan would be great, so use your judgment. I can’t wait to see what you think!
thanks girl!
I am forever grateful to you for this! I’ve been working on perfecting their cheesecake recipe. I almost had it! I will have to test another one to get the consistency right.
I will have to make this very VERY soon!
Hey, I’m interested in how you coat the seitan with egg replacer. I’ve never seen it used like that before. Does it help it get crispier? This looks so great.
That picture is so great. It looks delicious. I’d like to try it sometime, but I’m a lazy bum and I can’t be assed to make my own seitan (and I have yet to see it in any store here in Sweden).
Thanks Nikki, let me know how it goes!
Krista – I think it does make it crispier! There is a popular recipe on veg web for general tso’s tofu that dips tofu in prepared ener-g “egg”, so I modified the idea a bit to just sprinkle some on. Dipping it in might make it even crispier, but it’s an extra step and I’m lazy. Hehe.
Emmie – I think tofu would be mighty tasty, too. The restaurant serves a tofu version, so I don’t see why you can’t make one! I’d just press the tofu really well and cut it into small squares or triangles, they’ll hold up better than strips. :)
you are my hero
dang!
That looks really great!
Made this for dinner, actually. The molasses is THE touch! So smart.
I doubled the sauce and made one batch tofu (for me) and one batch chicken seitan, for my boyfriend. Doubling the sauce it seems was a bad idea, we both thought it was overpoweringly sweet. I think we’d cut the molasses and the sugar next time. I know tzippy said it was too sour, I think, so hmm. But still! So much in the right direction.
I did an energ slurry before rolling in cornstarch, and the texture was perrrrrfect.
Thanks for testing it Jess!
I wonder if my seasoned rice vinegar is sweeter/saltier than yours and tzippy’s? I updated the recipe so hopefully people will have better results, but it’s too bad all I can say is, “taste and add salt/sugar more if needed!” I wish I could come up with the perfect balance that would work every time!
What vinegar are you using?
Clearly I need to test this one out more! I appreciate your help. :)
Hi, I was checking out the VWAV porn site and when I saw this I felt that I had to make it. So I did. It is excellent!
I didn’t have cornstarch so I used what I had which was corn meal. It came out pretty good, the sauce was a little on the watery side at first but after cooling down it thicken up quite a bit. Thanks!
Ooh, that does look good–but why non-blackstrap molasses? The blackstrap has the iron.
I also make my own seitan, so doubling the recipe should be easy.
I used Trader Joe’s seaoned rice vinegar..I think it’s brown rice vinegar, to boot. I would definitely recommend an ene-r-g slurry first, I can’t get over how spot on that effect is! Plus, I finally restockd on that stuff after a couple years and want to actually use it.
Oh how you read my mind. I’ve been searching for a sweet and sour recipe for so long…
Why not fry in Rice Bran Oil-it has a better fatty acid profile than peanut oil plus, it has gamma-oryzanol which is a more powerful anti-oxidant than vitamin E. Your recipe looks good-I will be making it tonight!!!!
This was fantastic!! I added chopped carrots and red onion to the seitan and coated all of it in egg replacer then cornstarch. The onion carmelized and the carrots became super-sweet. We have a great vegan Chinese restaurant not far from us but I think this dish was probably better than theirs. Thanks.
I followed a link from vegweb (in a thread about vegan blogs) and was delighted to see this recipe here. I always get cravings for No Name, so I’ll have to get myself some seitan and make some. Thanks a bunch!
Awesome recipe! I did use blackstrap molasses since it was all I had, and it came out just fine. Maybe it was a little darker than it would have been otherwise? I still think it was pretty and more importantly, it tasted great. Only bad news is the blister I got from recklessly throwing the seitan into the hot oil.
This was delicious! We gobbled it right up. Thanks so much!
I made this the other night for dinner, and it was EXCELLENT! I have to say that I completely enjoy your blog and look forward to every post!
do you think this would work with tempeh?
I made this tonight with the Vegan with a Vengeance seitan recipe and it was great. I did burn an entire batch of the sauce when I foolishly left it unattended after adding the cornstarch, but that was entirely my fault!
I made this last night. It was easy and delicious!
I’ve tried seitan a few times, and I’m not quite sold on it. Do you think this recipe could be made with extra firm tofu instead?
I had to make this after seeing the pix in ppk food porn forum! Even my tofu-skeptical omni bf had to admit it was delicious! Thank you so much!
This is amazing. I’ve made it twice since discovering it about 2 weeks ago, unbelievably yummy. I make my own seitan and even my omni husband who usually can’t stand seitan loves this. I anticipate making this 2 or 3 times a month, it’s my new favorite dinner!
Hi,
Just a note: Pouring oil down the drain will clog it and can even cause sewage blockage and overflow.
WOW I have to try this!!! I actually prefer the Ray’s Seitan over White Wave.
Maybe I will make it this week! MMMMMMmmmm!!
I made this today, but coated the seitan with flour and didn’t use any egg replacer. Still DELICIOUS!
I agree that it would also be delcious with crispy-fried tofu! I will cut the tofu into thin sticks to fry it when I make it.
This looks amazing! Can I use the packaged seitan from Wild Oats or does this recipe require making your own? Thanks for the wonderful recipes!
Just tried this tonight and it was very yummy! I will be making this again. :)
My meat-eating housemate cast jealous eyes on the glossy, saucy, sesame-bedecked morsels in the pan when I made this. Even if you’re a bit on the fence about seitan (I still am, and I make my own and eat it a couple times a month!), the strong flavors of the sauce and the crispy fried texture should make this dish appealing. As a side note, some last-minute pantry substitutions worked out fine for me: tomato paste + additional smidge rice vinegar for the ketchup; tapioca starch for the cornstarch. Thanks for this recipe!
We used nutritional yeast instead of Ener-G because it is hard to come by ’round these parts and quite expensive. It worked just famously! Delicious!
OMFG!!! i have been trying to find a recipe that could come close to replicating the buddha beef found at a single pebble restaurant in burlington, vermont. for months i searched, and had all but given up until i found a blog posting (from just a couple weeks ago) linking to this recipe. let me just say triple w00t, people!!! this recipe is OUTSTANDING. i try to not eat sugar, so i omitted the sugar from the recipe (but kept the molasses), and it was still fantastic (albeit sour, which i love. if you want to try this, taste the sauce before adding it to the seitan, and sweeten as needed. try agave!). i can’t say enough good things about this recipe, i’ve already made it twice in a week, and both times for company to rave reviews. i used companion brand chow pai yu style seitan, which worked great. and it’s packed in oil, which makes it extra delicous and extra crispy! thank you vegan yum yum! i heart ye!
I made this the other night and it was fabulous!
I used blackstrap molasses, and I shaved the essence of one organic orange into the sauce.
It made a wonderful orange sauce, and with the Ener-g battered seitan (White Wave blue box) it was definitely restaurant quality!
I would recommend less sugar if using the orange peel, though.. as it is kind of sweet.
Thank you so much!
I just made this and it was the BEST. Even my omnivore (and chef) boyfriend found it better than meat, like it would be used in babi pangang. Absolute success like all of your recipes, and I’m definitely making it the next time my parents come over for dinner at our place. YUM!
I added in cubed tofu with the seitan and have to say it was fantastic. Thank you so much for this recipe!
I made this tonight and it was pretty good, but I found the sauce to be a little too vinegary and it wasn’t quite sweet enough. Next time I am going to add more sugar and less vinegar. I used the new sauce recipe, not the old one.
I used blackstrap molasses, and Wan Jah Shin rice vinegar, if that means anything.
The crispiness of the seitan was perfect. I added the sliced almonds, which also turned out well.
Thanks for all the recipes! I love trying them out!
I made my own seitan and added some peanut butter to the “dough” then fried the seitan in a mix of sesame oil and vegetable oil… perfect! If you aren’t a fan of seitan’s ‘wheaty’ flavor this sauce masks it nicely! We also toasted our sesame seeds before adding them to the dish and used lots and lots of them :) LOVE this one, will make again!!!
OH! and it IS easier to make than it looks! :D
I made this for the first time tonight and it was a huge hit. I had never made seitan before either so I wasn’t quite sure how it would turn out. My uber carnivore boyfriend loved it and my roommate did too. Yayyy! It was a little too crispy but I blame the bad lighting in my kitchen.
Hey I want to know if I can substitute the blackstrap molasses with agave. If not what can I substitute it with?
Well I just made it tonight and it was awesome! I just bought the molasses and WOW.