These made-from-scratch vegan seitan buffalo wings are crispy and satisfying, dipped in homemade plant-based blue cheese dip. Start by baking your own breaded seasoned seitan, add vegan buffalo sauce, fry, and dip away!
Buffalo wings are a classic bar food, but going plant-based doesn’t mean you have to give up your favorite two-bite snack. Seitan wings are just as tasty and satisfying as the real thing. This recipe includes a crisp breadcrumb coating made with chickpeas flour, onion, and garlic powders. After frying, the wings become golden and crisp on the outside.
Give them a toss in your homemade buffalo sauce and even your non-vegetarian friends won’t be able to put them down!
How to Make Crispy Seitan Buffalo Wings with a Kick
There are a few steps to making this recipe, and the results are well worth it. Here are the step-by-step instructions to make vegan buffalo wings:
First, prepare the homemade seitan with vital wheat gluten, seasonings, tahini, and vegetable broth. You should have a sticky dough. If it’s too wet or dry, add more vital wheat gluten or vegetable broth, 1 tablespoon at a time.
Once you have a firm dough, you can shape the seitan into 2-inch “wings”. Of course, you can make whatever shape you like here, so have some fun with it. It’s best not to make your wings bigger than 2 inches, however, as the seitan does expand during cooking.
Next, it’s time to simmer the seitan wings until they’re cooked through. You’ll need a large pot of boiling water. The homemade seitan takes about 45 minutes to cook. It should be firm, with a little give.
Making Spicy Vegan Buffalo Sauce
Meanwhile, make the plant-based buffalo sauce. You’ll need hot sauce, soy sauce, vinegar, garlic powder, cayenne, agave, and unsalted plant-based butter.
Together these ingredients will melt down quickly and become a silky-smooth, flavorful vegan buffalo sauce with a kick.
How to Make The Creamiest Vegan Blue Cheese Dressing Dip
You can also make the vegan blue cheese dip for serving your wings. To make the dip, you’ll start by crumbling firm tofu into a mixing bowl. This will give the crumb-like texture of blue cheese. Add vegan mayo, vinegar, lemon juice, onion and garlic powder, and a sprinkle of dried basil leaves for color. Fold everything together and voila: creamy, chunky blue cheese dip that looks just like the real thing!
Breading & Frying Seitan Wings For Crunch & Flavor
Once the seitan is finished cooking, it’s time to bread and cook your wings.
First, to make the breading, whisk together chickpea flour with a bit of water to moisten. This is like the egg wash you might use for regular wings. In a second bowl, combine regular all-purpose flour, onion and garlic powders.
Dip each wing in the chickpea flour mixture, then in the seasoned flour to cover in an even coating.
After all of your wings are fully breaded, it’s time to fry. Heat about two inches of oil in a large skillet. The best temperature for frying anything is 375°F.
Fry your breaded seitan wings in the oil until golden brown, turning them regularly for even cooking.
Now comes the fun part: toss your beautiful, golden seitan wings in your bright red buffalo sauce.
There you have it: just-spicy-enough, 100% plant-based buffalo wings ready to dip in your crumbled blue cheese sauce!
Can I Bake Seitan Wings?
If you want to go for a healthier wing recipe, you can try baking them. For baked seitan buffalo wings, follow the recipe as written up until the frying step. Then arrange the breaded wings on a wire rack set over a baking sheet and roast in a 400°F oven until crispy and golden. Turn the wings halfway through cooking.
Ingredient Notes, Swaps & Subs
There are a few helpful ingredient substitutions if you don’t have everything on hand for this recipe.
While cthe chieckpea flour in the crispy breading adds a tasty nutty note and is very absorbent for een more crunchy, you can subtitute it with regular all-purpose flour.
For the vegan buffalo sauce, another liquid sweetener like maple syrup will also work in place of agave.
Wondering about where to find vital wheat gluten? It’s actually fairly common in most well-stocked grocery stores. Look in the baking aisle. Bob’s Red Mill, for example, makes and easy-to-find product perfect for this recipe.
Serving Crispy Vegan Buffalo Wings Two Ways
For the full wing experience, I like to serve my wings with crunchy celery stalks on the side. It completes the look and adds a refreshing crunch between bites of hot wings.
If you want another layer of heat, you can even serve the wings with 5-Ingredient Sriracha Mayo.
More of the Best Game-Day Recipes
If you agree that this is the best seitan buffalo wings recipe and want to try more like it, add these to your menu:
- Crispy Black Bean Tacos with Avocado-Lime Sauce
- Juicy Seasoned Turkey Burgers
- Football Deviled Eggs
- Vegan Seitan Steak
I’d love to see your masterpieces! If you make this or any of my recipes be sure to tag @foodlovecooks on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest!
Vegan Buffalo Seitan Wings
Equipment
Ingredients
Seitan wings
- 1 cup vital wheat gluten
- 2 teaspoons garlic powder
- 1 ½ teaspoons onion powder
- ½ teaspoon paprika
- ½ teaspoon poultry seasoning powder
- 1 cup vegetable broth
- 1 tablespoon tahini – 1 tablespoon
- 5 cups water
Vegan buffalo sauce
- ¾ cup hot sauce
- 1 teaspoon soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons white vinegar
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper*
- ½ cup vegan unsalted butter
- 1 tablespoon agave syrup
Vegan blue cheese dip
- 1 cup vegan mayonnaise
- ¼ cup firm tofu
- 1 teaspoon white vinegar
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon dried basil leaves
- Salt to taste
Breading
- ½ cup chickpea flour**
- ½-1 cup water
- ½ cup flour
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together the vital wheat gluten, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, and poultry seasoning powder using.
- Add the tahini and vegetable broth to the dry ingredient mix and combine with a rubber spatula to form a dough. Knead the dough with your hands. If the dough is too wet, add more vital wheat gluten, 1 tablespoon at a time. If the dough seems too dry, add more vegetable broth, 1 tablespoon at a time.
- Roll the dough into 2-inch cylinders or nugget shapes. It will double in size when cooked, so don’t exceed 2 inches.
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the shaped dough and reduce the heat to medium. Cook for 45 minutes.
- Meanwhile, add all of the buffalo sauce ingredients to a saucepan over medium heat and heat until the butter melts. Stir until well combined, then remove from the heat.
- To make the blue cheese dipping sauce, crumble the tofu into small pieces in a bowl. Add the remaining buffalo sauce ingredients and whisk to combine well.
- Once the seitan wings are cooked, remove them from the pot and let them drain on paper towels to remove excess water.
- In a bowl, combine the chickpea flour, salt and water with a whisk. In a second bowl, combine the flour, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and mix with a fork
- Dip each seitan wing first in the chickpea mixture, then in the dry flour mixture, turning to coat all sides of the wing. Repeat for all cooked seitan wings.
- Heat the vegetable oil in a deep skillet. When hot, fry the prepared seitan wings until golden yellow color. Then drain it on a paper towel.
- Add the fried seitan wings to a large mixing bowl. Pour enough vegan buffalo sauce over the seitan wings to coat.
- Mix gently to coat the seitan wings with vegan buffalo sauce.
- Serve the vegan seitan buffalo wings with prepared vegan blue cheese dip and celery.
Notes
**You may substitute all-purpose flour for chickpea flour. (Chickpea flour is rich in protein).
Nutrition
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Gabby says
Hi!
We are making this recipe tonight. It is unclear how much water we put in the batter? From the way the ingredients are listed it seems as if it’s 5 cups but that seems like an awful plenty. Thanks!
Food Love says
Hi Gabby – you should add 1 cup of vegetable broth to the seitan dough. The 5 cups of water listed are for boiling it. I hope you enjoy, and let me know how it comes out!