Vegan Sausages

I’ve been a vegetarian for over 2 years now, and one thing I’ve never been able to perfect is the Veggie Sausage.

They end up tasteless, or fall apart, make a mess and are generally painful to behold. I found a recipe a while ago for vegan sausages using Wheat Gluten powder and Nutritional Yeast, but at the time couldn’t find either of these ingredients so gave it up as a bad job.

Now those of you who live on Joburg will know we’ve had a week of cold weather, and that, for me is time for comfort food. And what better than good old fashioned Bangers and Mash with Gravy??

So I went in search of my missing ingredients, and to my heartfelt and utter delight found Wheat Gluten (made by Natures Choice) at Health Shop in Rosebank Mall. It was just below Exclusive books, and a packet cost me R30. I also found nutritional yeast made by Health Connection at the Health Shop opposite Dischem at Fourways mall (about R30 for 1 batch of sausages  ...I know a little pricy, but I was desperate for some sausages.

The first batch I made was an eye opener :) I used Vegan Dads recipe Vegan Dads Homemade Sausages and the texture was awesome, and the base was tasty, and they were amazingly easy to make.

However, there was way too much fennel in here for my liking, and it overpowered what was a fairly good first attempt,

For my second attempt I Googled a bit more and found these Spicy Italian Sausages

I really liked the sound of these, but wasn’t ready to leave the beans out of the sausages as yet,  so I combined both recipes and this is what I came up with.

Vegan Sausages
1/2 cup cooked or canned beans (I used haricots) rinsed and drained.
1 c cold water
2 tsp Ina Paarmans chicken flavoured stock (it’s Vegan, I checked)
2 Tbs Soy Sauce
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 & 1/4 cups Wheat Gluten
1/4 cup Nutritional Yeast
2 tbsp granulated onion
1 to 2 tbsp fennel seed, optional
2 tsp coarsely ground pepper, preferably freshly ground
2 tsp ground paprika
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp Himalayan Rock Salt, Crushed
1/8 tsp ground allspice

Method
1) Get everything ready. These are really quick to make so get the water boiling and your steamers ready. I used bamboo steamers, but I’m sure any kind would work.
2) Get 6 sheets of tin foil ready, I made mine about 30 x 20 cm in size. In a large bowl, mash the beans until fairly well mashed. Add the rest of the ingredients in the order they are listed, and mix with a fork

3) Divide dough into 6 or 8 pieces, depending on how big you want the sausages to be. Place one portion in a piece of tin foil, shape it more or less like a log, and then roll up in the foil. Twist the ends like a Christmas cracker and that’s it. Repeat with other sausages.
4) Steam for 30 mins.

These were fantastic. I served them with my Vegan Gravy, which is superb, and Potato Mash. It was comfort food at its best :)