Seitan Satay with Southeast Asian-style Peanut Sauce

Crunchy Snacks: Whether headed to the beach, or headed back to school, or ready for football – we’re craving crunchy snacks. Show us your favorite healthy snack recipe with crackle and crunch.

Remember how I mentioned culinary medicine a couple weeks ago? Guess who’s finally sharing the first of those recipes!?

We went to Elijah’s Promise, a soup kitchen/culinary school (have I mentioned that I want to go to culinary school?!–specifically this one), where we learned more about a plant-based diet and food as medicine. I’m a big believer that food affects a huge huge part of your help and should be the first type of “medicine” as far as preventive health goes.

I did a nutrition elective while I was a med student and actually recently got an email from a colorectal surgeon who saw a patient I’d seen telling me he was impressed by the level of detail I went into in regards to dietary counseling because so few physicians do that (:O!). He also shared an article with me about how nuts and seeds are actually not really contraindicated in low-residue diets anymore (it’s good to try to stay current).

One of the dishes we made was a vegan take on the traditional chicken satay! We used Upton’s Naturals seitan to make em’ and I think they actually turned out really well! (I’d opt for the not-ground-seitan next time for better results, since we did have some that crumbled and met their rather untimely demise on the grill. :\ (P.S. Not a sponsored post–just sharing what we used! It comes in a whole bunch of different flavors, but we used Traditional and Italian!)

Also, don’t forget to soak the skewers in water or you’ll also end up like we did and burn a bunch of skewers. #cookingfails

Seitan Satay with Southeast Asian-style Peanut Sauce

Print Recipe

Seitan Satay with Southeast Asian-style Peanut Sauce

A delicious savory vegan appetizer!

Course: Appetizer

Cuisine: Asian

Keyword: healthy, vegan, vegetarian

Servings: 25 skewers

Equipment

• 25 wooden skewers

Ingredients

• Peanut Sauce*
• 1 tsp garlic chopped
• 6 oz small onion diced
• 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• 4 lime leaves
• 2 tsp curry powder
• 1 oz. minced lemongrass
• 1 oz. vegetable oil
• 8 oz. coconut milk
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 4 bay leaves
• 4 oz. rice wine vinegar
• 10 oz. vegetable stock
• 10 oz. peanut butter
• 8 oz Upton's Naturals Italian Seitan cut into bite-sized pieces
• 8 oz Upton's Naturals Traditional Seitan cut into bite-sized pieces

Instructions

• Preheat the grill.

Sauce

• Saute the garlic, onion, red pepper flakes, lime leaves, curry powder, and lemongrass for ~5 minutes, then add the remaining ingredients and let simmer for 30 minutes. Stir to prevent the sauce from sticking, then remove the cinnamon sticks/bay leaves to serve.

Satay

• Soak wooden skewers in water and add pieces of seitan onto the skewers. Grill for ~5 minutes on each side, then coat each with peanut sauce and grill for 3-4 more minutes on each side. Serve hot!

Notes

*The ingredients to make the sauce yields roughly 1 1/4 pints!