Spicy VEGAN Italian Sausage

Tonight I am making a favorite dinner of ours: our vegan version of Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana.  This soup is so good, it's creamy and rich and spicy!!  Check back tomorrow and I will share the full recipe for the soup.  Today I'm sharing the KEY ingredient in pulling this soup together.  Spicy Sausage!

SPICY Italian sausage is one of those things that we LOVED before we went vegan... and the store bought vegan replacements (Tofurky, Field Roast, etc...) have been passable but quite expensive and just didn't have the same spicy taste that we love.

I looked at couple different people's versions of  homemade sausages and sort of pulled from them what I liked and mixed and matched to make my version.  I really liked the idea of wrapping them in foil to maintain a uniform sausage shape, as anyone who has made seitan knows it just kinda does what it wants shape wise when you boil it.  The same person whose blog I got the idea about wrapping in foil also steamed them which I think really lended to the correct DENSE texture.

These are VERY easy to make, you can turn the heat on them up or down by adjusting the amount of pepper, they are CHEAP and most importantly they are DELISH and have a fabulous texture.

You will need:

Equipment:

• Large mixing bowl
• Small mixing bowl
• Measuring cups and spoons
• Fork or whisk
• Something to steam in pot/steamer/rice cooker.... whatever you use for steaming
• 8 pieces of foil that are about 8-10 inches long *hint* tear these off and set them aside before your hands get dirty ;)

Dry Ingredients:

• About 2 cups of gluten and 1/3 cup chickpea flour sifted together
• 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
• 2 tbsp vegan chicken or beef flavor (I used chicken)
• 2 tbsp dried onion flakes
• 2 tbsp fennel seeds
• 2 1/2 tsp paprika
• 2 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 - 2 tsp red pepper flakes (more or less depending on how hot you want them)
• scant tsp oregano
• pinch of all spice

Wet Ingredients:

• 10 minced garlic cloves (I like a LOT of garlic, you can scale this back if you don't)
• 2 tbsp oil (I used olive)
• 2 tbsp tamari
• 1/8 - 1/4 tsp liquid smoke (a little goes a LONG way with this so use sparingly!)
• 2 - 2 1/4 cups COLD water (MUST BE COLD!)

So mix all your dry together in a large bowl.  Then whisk all the wet together in a separate small bowl and add into your dry.  Combine this gently you do not need to over process this, do not knead it like you would for regular seitan.  You want it to come together easily and have a nice spongy texture, it should not be overly wet and should not be crumbly dry... you can add more gluten or water a pinch or two at a time to adjust if you need to.


Start your water boiling if you are using a double boiler type steamer like me. Lay out your foil and divide your sausages up into 8 pieces.


Then roll the foil around them tightly and twist the ends.  Don't worry about making them perfect sausage logs as they expand from the steam they will turn out perfect!


Place them in your steamer, cover and let steam for 30 mins.


After 30 mins take them off the heat and let them cool or you can be impatient like me and burn your fingers opening them up too soon because you are just so excited you can't wait to see and taste them lol!
Finished Spicy Italian Sausage

You can slice them and add to soups and sauces, serve whole over pastas, eat them as links on buns, or just be like me and sit there and revel in how delish they are until you look down and they are all gone haha
mmmm.... these taste better and cost WAY less than Field Roast!!

If your kids don't like spicy heat you can leave the red pepper flakes as the very last ingredient.  Once you have everything else mixed in separate out your sausages into spicy and non spicy, and then mix the red pepper flakes into the spicy ones.  Make sure you mark the foil on the ones without the spice!  You little ones will thank you :)  Be sure to check back tomorrow for our vegan version of Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana using these spicy sausages.