Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 45 minutes

Vegan pepperoni can be made at home with just a few ingredients, most of which are in your cupboard already! Not only is vegan pepperoni much healthier than the meat kind, making it at home allows you to chose the spices you like and create a custom masterpiece-eroni.

There are several ways to make seitan- the most popular method is with vital wheat gluten. In the past I have used this rather expensive flour to make my seitan and then decided to try making it the traditional Asian way with regular wheat flour. The flavour is so much better and I am so happy that I discovered it. Vital wheat gluten has a cheesy flavour which can work in some recipes but not all of them. Wheat flour has very little taste and works in every recipe, therefore wheat flour wins!

Seitan takes quite a long time to prepare so set aside several hours for this recipe.

Basic Seitan

8 cups all purpose flour

2 cups water

Cold running water

Cheese cloth

Pepperoni Flavouring

2 tablespoons tomato paste

5 sun dried tomatoes, chopped

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon thyme

1/2 teaspoon dried fennel seeds

Salt and pepper to taste

5 cups tomato or vegetable broth

In a large bowl mix the flour and water together to form a firm ball of dough. Knead for five to ten minutes until the dough is smooth, turning it on a floured surface if it helps. Place a colander under cold running water and place the ball of dough in there. Continue to knead the dough in the water until the water runs clear. This should take between 15 - 20 minutes. As the starch washes away from the dough, the ball becomes smaller. When you are done, you should have a stretchy dough ball which measures approximately 1 to 1 1/2 cups of dough.

Flavouring

In a small bowl add the pepperoni flavouring to the seitan dough. Knead the flavouring in until it is well mixed, making sure not to break the dough and that it remains in one piece.

Boiling

Cut a long piece of cheesecloth and roll the seitan into a log shape, placing it in the middle. Gently roll the cheesecloth closed so the seitan is fully wrapped. Tie off the ends with cotton string, and if you wish you can tie segments off throughout the body of the seitan to give it a more realistic salami look. Add the seitan to a pot of COLD tomato soup and gently simmer for 40 minutes. This solidifies the dough and also flavours it. Remove from the soup (you can still eat this soup so don't through it out!) and allow the pepperoni to cool. Once cooled, cut the cheese cloth away and slice the pepperoni to your liking.

*Image from flickr.com