Looking for a solid vegan main dish? This Instant Pot Seitan is an ideal replacement for any kind of meat.
It's full of protein and has a great taste (when cooked correctly!) It even kind of looks like meat!
Its neutral taste allows it to take on the flavors of the ingredients it’s cooked in, and its texture makes you feel like you're eating a nutritious main course. When seitan is cooked correctly, it has a meaty texture, similar to portobello mushroom in this Instant Pot Portobello Pot Roast recipe.
Sure, you can buy premade seitan… but it often has a rubbery unpleasant texture, so making your own is definitely the way to go. Especially when it’s this easy using your pressure cooker!
Table of Contents
What is Seitan Anyway?
Seitan is a vegetarian protein alternative made from rehydrated vital wheat gluten.
It’s prized among vegetarians for its chewy, meat-like texture and appearance, and also its neutral taste and ability to absorb flavors well, making it extremely adaptable.
This is a homemade seitan recipe, means we make it from scratch. If you want to make store bought seitan you can check the instructions below.
How to cook store bought seitan in the Instant Pot?
In order to cook store bought seitan, press saute on high, and saute on each side until browned.
Is Seitan Good For You?
Seitan tends to be a bit healthier than tofu in terms of fat percentage and amount of protein. It’s relatively low calorie, cholesterol-free, and a good source of calcium, iron, potassium and B vitamins.
Does Seitan Contain Soy?
Unlike many popular vegetarian protein options like tofu and tempeh, seitan is completely soy free! However, since seitan is made of vital wheat gluten, those who are gluten intolerant should avoid eating seitan.
How the serve?
Here I'm serving it with Instant Pot bok choy and Instant Pot rice a roni.
But it’s extremely versatile and can be prepared hundreds of different ways! Try using it in place of a meat protein in any of your favorite dishes.
Instant Pot Vegan Recipes
Instant Pot Portobello Pot Roast
Instant Pot Seitan
Ingredients
- 1 cup wheat gluten
- ¾ cup water
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon poultry spice
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
- 1 cup vegetable broth
- 1 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- In a bowl mix wheat gluten, paprika, poultry spice, garlic powder, nutritional yeast and salt.
- Add water and keep mixing and kneading for about 3 minutes, or until the mix is smooth.
- Cut the mixture to small equal pieces.
- Put the pieces into the Instant Pot and pour in the vegetable broth.
- Cook at high pressure for 15 minutes.
- When cooking time ends, do a quick pressure release.
- Serve and enjoy!
Nutrition
fastest seitan ive ever made. Pulsed it together in my blender,took seconds to blend together. Steamed for 15 min as it instructed then I let sit in fridge overnight,as Ive read helps to improve the texture and Ive done with other recipes. Sliced it up and heated it up in fry pan with a little oil and made a great sandwich with vegan cheese slice, lettuce ,tomato and mayo. Thanks Corrie for a great recipe,enjoyed it.
Did you use a steamer basket or just place it right into the broth in the instant pot?
I'm not sure if she did or not but I'd say no due to the short cooking time, most pressure cooker recipes say 30 to 40 mins.
This was by far the BEST & easiest seitan, make it exactly as the instructions said, when finished I used a kitchen towel to remove most of the water from the seitan then put it in my food processor to turn it into a ground beef look and then used it like ground beef in a recipe. My beef eating friends didn’t even know it wasn’t beef! Beef doesn’t taste good with out seasonings too. I do not use salt, I use nutritional yeast instead. Thank you so much for this perfect recipe and the easy IP way to cook it.
Thank you for the lovely review! I'm so glad you enjoyed the recipe 🙂
Love it - I used miso instead of vegetable stock. Tasty!!
Great idea, I love the flavor of miso! Glad it worked out for you
How many servings does this make?
It should make about 4 servings.
I just used this recipe to make seitan for the first time. I always heard that seitan is really onerous to prepare, but the instant pot made it simple. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, but it was super salty. Next time, if I'm using a pre-made broth, I'll leave out the teaspoon of salt.
I'm so glad you liked it and found the recipe simple. That's a great idea about reducing the salt or buying an unsalted broth-- pre-made broth can be super salty.
Double stock and double time! Better textur
Thanks for your feedback, Francesca 🙂
Great flavour! Mine was rubbery too so It put it back in for another 10 mins with more stock and came out great. Next time I will cook for 25 mins with double stock.
Thanks for your advice! Glad you like it eventually ^_^
Tastes nice but soo rubbery