How To Make Vegan Deli Meat at Home

How's it going everyone? I'm Chris. I'm Jasmine. We're Street Symbol Vegan. And welcome back. Welcome back. Today we are going to be making some homemade vegan deli meat. Deli slices, sandwich slices, DIY Tofurky, basically. So that was actually what inspired this recipe. Tofurky and just vegan deli slices and deli meats, I don't know what to call it. Deli meats in general is one of this guy's favorite things in the whole world. Sandwiches are near and dear to my heart. So I thought it might be better if we make our own from home and it'd probably be cheaper that way too. Less packaging. Blah, blah, blah, blah. All that good stuff. So we got some, yeah. So we got into testing and we tested this so many times. We have had some interesting experiences with it to say the least. We got it right though I think. The other night I was testing it and we were upstairs and I had the timer and I was like oh I'll just go get it once it's done baking. I think that was the first one we made, right? So we were still in the testing phase, how long should we bake it and stuff. And we just hear this big boom, like explosion from downstairs. I was like oh my god. Jasmine thought someone broke in. Yeah, so I immediately shot up, I closed the door, I locked it and I was like oh my god, what do we do? There's someone in the house. But it turns out the seitan exploded in the oven. Hide your kids, hide your wife. How? I think this thing was too tight. So today we're going to make it, it's going to be perfect for you guys. Turns out it's pretty easy if you do it right. Yeah, it actually is really easy. The hardest part, the longest part is just waiting for it to bake and waiting for it to steam and other than that you just blend, mix and you're done. So let's start off with our wet ingredients. You're going to need a high speed blender for this. I guess you could technically use a food processor but I would recommend using half the recipe because it might pour out of your food processor and it might not be as smooth. I bet you'd have to combine it, right? Do half and half. Or just do half, yeah, or just half the recipe. So in a high speed blender I'm adding in some vegan chicken broth. You can also use just regular vegetable broth but this is really good because it gives it that chicken-y flavor and we're actually doing tofurkey, not tofurkey, we're doing turkey vegan turkey slices today so that gives it that poultry taste. It kind of looks like Gatorade, doesn't it? Yeah, it's kind of really yellow and a little scary. Like dehydrated urine-y, kind of. Ew. Sorry. Dehydrated. Oh. Like when you're dehydrated. Ew, babe, that's disgusting. Next up I will add the tofu. So we actually have to weigh this. We're going to be doing... Let's get the scale out. 12 ounces. I tested this with 16 ounces but it turns out it became a little too spongy for my taste. Too spongy. And I didn't press the tofu, we actually... We let it sit and some of the water released naturally but we didn't actually press the tofu. And that's fine because we're going to need the moisture. Gosh, 12 ounces, come on. Boom. Oh, 12.05. There you go. Boom. 12 ounces of tofu. So 12 ounces of some tofu. Actually, I forgot to mention, this is firm, right? Firm tofu. Not pressed. We get the large box from Costco. Highly recommended if you eat a lot of tofu. Alright, next up, we got our spices and I want Chris to tell you guys what spices these are. Alright, let's see if I can guess. I think you'll get it. Salt, pepper, turmeric, paprika, parsley. Yes. Wow. Got it right after the 30th time. And then... And then we have nutritional yeast, onion powder, garlic powder, poultry seasoning. Yes. And again, poultry seasoning will help give it that chicken-y or turkey-y flavor. I'm adding in some tamari or soy sauce, whichever you have, whichever you prefer. You can also use liquid aminos. I guess it doesn't really matter to use tamari because this recipe is full of gluten-free. Oh, true. But I mean, if you have tamari at home, you can use it. And then we also have some hickory liquid... Oh! ...smoke. I lost a little, but that's okay. Liquid smoke, I think, is necessary because it adds that smoky flavor and it just makes it so good. And then lastly, I have some tomato paste, which I'm gonna scoop in. Scoop it. So next step is just to blend until smooth. To put a lid on it. Blend it up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This requires some skill, you guys. Not everybody can do this. Not everyone can do this. So you have to press the button or pull it. Pull it. And then turn it up to high. Very careful. You might burn yourself. And now, we have a savory smoothie to enjoy. Try it. I mean, you could drink it. It's just tofu and vegetable broth. Savory protein smoothie. Is it good? You made a face. It's pretty good. Oh, I don't need to mix it. We're good. Okay. I start my morning every morning with a large glass of this. Yeah. We're bringing a pot of water to a boil and then lowering it to a simmer. And that's gonna be our steamer pot because we're going to pop this in there. But first, I gotta finish making it. I just wanted to say that because we're having that get ready while we finish this. Also, I want to mention this method was learned by the website. It's called Vegan Dad. If you guys want to check him out, he has a lot of recipes. And he made vegan cold cuts. And he was how I figured out the method of this seitan. So, shout out Vegan Dad. Ingredients are different. Method is the same. Similar. All right. So, into a large bowl, I have our dry ingredients. So, first, I'm adding some vital wheat gluten. Gluten-free vital wheat gluten. Yeah. You can't make this recipe gluten-free, unfortunately. I mean, I don't know what you would do. I'm getting a lot of flour on my hands. But that's probably not good. But it's okay. And then I'm adding in some chickpea flour, garbanzo bean flour. All right. So, I'm going to just mix this up. And then I'm adding in our wet ingredients. Wet mixture. Tofu. I'm going to make sure we get as much of that as we can. My wrist hurts. That's pretty good. Ooh, ooh, ooh. You want to mix? Mm-hmm. We have to make sure we get all, we scrape all the gluten from the sides and the bottom. And make sure it's well mixed in. Because it will tend to stick. Yeah, if you have a large bowl, a wider bowl. Ooh. So, I wanted to mention earlier, we based this off of tofurkey. Tofurkey is a mixture of seitan or wheat gluten and tofu. Sorry. And so, we knew that we wanted to include both of those in this. We have made just seitan before. And it didn't have the right texture that we wanted. And so, we tested this with the tofu. It was perfect. And the seasonings, there are quite a few seasonings in this. But the good thing is that you can customize it. You can add other herbs and spices as you wish. And the seasonings are necessary without them. This wouldn't really taste like much. It would be bread, basically. Yeah, I mean, it could be, if you make it bland and then you cook it into other recipes, like a vegan beef broccoli, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, that would be really good. But for this recipe in particular, we're making vegan deli meat. So, we added all the flavorings into it already. And we're going to serve it on a sandwich like you would. Turkey slices, keep it really simple. So, you want it really flavorful. How's it going? Getting tired. You have flour all over you. I have flour all over my legs. Alright, so, we're going to shift that to the side. I'm going to wash my hands. And then I have a cutting board. You can also do it on your counter. But I think it's easier, cleanup-wise, to do it like this. I'm just going to put a little bit of chickpea flour on here. Just so that it doesn't stick too much. It's going to stick a little bit. But it's not going to be too bad. And let's just bathe ourselves in flour today. I have it all over my pants. That's a great idea. My new pants. Covered in flour. Alright, so I'm going to pour this out. Should fall out pretty easily. And now, I'm just going to knead the dough. Again, it's going to stick a little. You need to knead it to activate the gluten. You do. It is going to stick a little. But if it gets too dry, it's not ideal. So, don't mind the slight stickiness. Can you hold the cutting board? We should have put a towel. Maybe go on the other side of me. Teamwork makes the dream work. The deli meat that's going to be... Yeah. We are kneading this. So, we made this recipe because back to school season is on its way. And it's going to be here sooner than... It's going to be here before we know it. Yeah, before we know it. I can't think of the saying. Sandwiches were my number one for recipes that I had for lunch. Especially in high school because I made my own food in high school. In elementary school, my mom made me stuff and packed me stuff. But in high school, I was on my own. Wow. So, sandwiches were bae. My mom packed me turkey sandwiches every day. I had ham. My brother was the turkey guy. You'll know that you're done kneading it when the dough feels softer. It comes together much easier. It's more springy. It's not as sticky. It looks really fun. It's hard to explain but you'll really feel the difference when you are kneading it. So, that was like 3-ish minutes or so. You don't need to knead it that much. And then another thing is if you have a standing mixer, you can totally put this in there. We have one but we decided to do this all with our hands and in a bowl. Because it's easier to show you guys that process in the video. And not everyone has a standing mixer. So, we wanted to show you this option. But if you do have a standing mixer, you can totally do it there. It's not as messy. I have stuff. My hands are very glutinous. Foil and parchment paper. So, we're going to take a large piece of foil. Let me wipe this down. Lay that down. Trying to keep the kitchen clean. I know. Number 1 tip. Clean as you go. Mom always knows best. And then parchment paper. I'm going to put that here too. So, we're going to have our seitan in. We're going to like bunch it up. And I want to make a thick log. Because you're going to want large slices of... Or large deli slices. So, I kind of like have it in a ball. And I'm going to place it onto the parchment paper. Kind of press this together. We want this to be a thick and tall log. Not a long one. Just because, again, it's easier to slice it into large slices. That way for sandwiches. And it will fit in the foil better that way actually. So, we're going to take the parchment first. And roll it over the dough. Like so. Again, keeping it a nice thick log. Next, I'm going to roll up the foil. And you don't want to roll up the parchment paper separately. Because it will make it way too tight for the seitan. And keep in mind that the seitan is going to expand as it cooks. That's why ours exploded. It was way too tight in there. So, I'm going to take the foil. Roll that over. Again, I'm trying to keep it a thick and tall log. And lastly, just squeeze the ends together. Like so. And we're just going to roll them up. And I'm not making it super tight. So that it has room to expand. And we're left with this. Tender looking thing. All that's left to do is pop this into our steamer basket. Not all that's left. But this part. For now. Perfect fit. We're going to steam this for one hour. And then after it steams, we're going to bake it. So, we'll check in with you in an hour. Cooking lunch in the background. But the seitan finished. So, I'm going to remove it from the pot. It's going to be a little tight. Because it expanded. I'm popping it onto a baking sheet. And I'm going to place it into the oven at 350 degrees. For, I would say, 30 minutes to start. 30 to 40 minutes should be good. But I will tell you the final time. Once I pull it out at the end. But basically, the next step is to pop it in the oven. Moment of truth. Seitan's out of the oven. It's cooled. It's ready to go. We thought it almost exploded. It was scary. I have PTSD. So, we're going to peel the parchment off. And it got a little stuck here. A little paper never hurt anybody. It's vegan. It has the perfect skin on the outside. You know, like how... My question. Is this what a tofurkey looks like before it's sliced? Maybe, you know. We have to go to the factory. To get to the bottom of it. It looks like a tootsie roll. It has a little pimple on it. That's from where it was laid down. The heat is trapped there. Are you going to pop it? I kind of want to. Yeah, look. So, you can use a mandolin to slice this. But, we tried it the other day. And it was getting a little uneven. So, we found out a knife works better. Well, it depends on how large your log is. How wide. And how big your mandolin is. If you have a large one, you can definitely cut it. Ours is too small for this. If you have a deli slicer, my dream. You can totally use that. So, I got a sandwich station going. I got some of the deli slices that we cut. We don't need to put all of these. We should. We should make a nice club sandow. Two thin ones here. Let's make a sandow. I got some toasted bread. You know what we don't have is mayo. You read my mind. I'm on a roll. Keeping it simple. Got some bread. Got some lettuce. Keeping it sweet. Got some strawberries. I'm just kidding. It was just a joke. I'm going to grab a butter knife. This is a true test. I'm going to eat it as is. It's really good. So, now we're going to slather our vegan mayo on top. Our Vegenaise. Extra. We'll put lettuce next. You got to cover every nook and cranny. Lettuce. So, this will act as the glue. For the lettuce. Is that good? Vegan cheese. We got some vegan Gouda going on right here. What do you want next? Tomato. Let's do the meat. How many slices do you want? Three? That looks perfect. Tomatoes. Sorry, I took over your sandwich. I'm just so excited. When your avocado is perfectly ripe and you can peel the skin off. For one thing, it's really satisfying. Another thing is that's when it's so easy to cut slices, to cut avocado roses, make the swirl, all that crazy stuff you see on Instagram. Avocado rose. Imagine that. There's an idea. I don't know about that. Like wine with avocado. I mean, it sounds very hip. Very millennial. The dreams are made of. This way or this way? Right down the middle, baby. Let's show. I got to take a photo. Beautiful. Do you want to go take your photo first? This is the test. All my dreams have become realized. Oh, wow. That is bomb. I mean, it's great on its own, but mmm. Gotta have it on the sandwich. The perfect back-to-school lunch. A freaking sandwich. Always, no matter what. Yeah, brings me back. Except I didn't get avocado on mine. Me either. That would have been expensive. Are you as impressed as I am? I'm so impressed right now. And that outer. You have to make this. You're not going to believe us until you make it for yourself. It's so easy. And you saw the huge log that we got that we had made from it. You can make like 30 sandwiches with that. I don't know how many slices it yields, but honestly, probably a ---- ton. It does depend on the thickness, too. Yeah, but if you have a really thin slicer, you can probably get like 50 slices at least out of there. At least? Yeah. Alright, guys. Well, we ate our sandwiches. We are This is great. Let me grab the log. We cut a lot of it because we had to take photos, but here is our beautiful log. If you guys want to learn how to make this, the recipe is linked down below as it is in all our videos. And if you make this, please tag us on Instagram. Sweet Symbol Vegan. Conscious Chris. Most importantly, tag Conscious Chris because dude's a sandwich cook. So here's what you have to do. Take the sandwich, cut it in half, hold it like this, stand like so, wear some cute socks, wear some cute shoes. Do your nails. Maybe wear no shoes. Do whatever you gotta do. Snap that photo. Get good lighting. Boom. Done. That's how it's done. Yeah. Secrets out. If you guys like this video, please give it a thumbs up. Leave us a comment down below saying hey, saying what you're gonna make, what kind of sandwich you're gonna make with our deli slices. What your favorite sandwich is. I don't know what else you can comment below. Just comment below. And subscribe if you haven't already. We post videos every Wednesday and every Friday. Yeah. So I think that's all we gotta say for today. Hope you guys have a great Friday and we will see you next week. Bye.