seitan a la king

Why stop seitan-and-cream-sauce dishes at the Divan? Another American-born classic dish is Seitan a la King. This is a recipe of chopped seitan (in the olden days, chicken), with mushrooms and pimientos, in a creamy sauce, over pasta, rice, bread or puff pastry. I went all out and used puff pastry. There are vegan versions out there, and of the easiest to find is the most popular. Go look in your grocer's freezer section. Score!

You can get very elaborate with said puff pastry, but I just cut them into squares of about 4X4 inches, took half the squares and, using a 3.5 inch round lid, cut the middle out of them. Then I put the cut-out ones over a whole square ones and baked them. If you prick the inside of the square with a fork (so it doesn't rise along with the rest of the pastry), you will wind up with a bowl after the baking time (around 15 min.)

As for the a la King part, you can use chickpeas (I've heard of these being used many times), tofu (especially baked), seitan (first sauteed to get golden), or a mixture of vegetables (like for a pot pie). It all depends on what you have or how fancy you want to get. For the cream sauce I used homemade roasted almond cream, but regular vegan milk will do very well.

Verdict: It was amazing over the puff pastry. The filling was just as delicious, but in my opinion, anything thrown over puff pastry already has an advantage. Winner.

Cost Breakdown

seitan: $2
vegan milk, broth: $3
pimiento, flour, onion, mushroom, garlic: $4
puff pastry: $5
Total to make 4 servings:
$14.00

Seitan a la King Recipe

seitan divan

Seitan Divan is a classic American casserole consisting of bread, meat, broccoli or asparagus and then topped with Mornay Sauce.

Mornay Sauce sounds exotic, but it is actually just a cheese sauce made using a simple Bachamel Sauce (a white sauce of thickened milk) with cheese melted into it. Nothing complicated but the name there.

Toast is typically used for the Divan, but I used English Muffins. I sauteed the seitan cutlets until they turned golden brown and layered the casserole: English Muffin, seitan thinly sliced, cooked broccoli florets and Mornay Sauce.

While you could simply make the Mornay Sauce with the Bechamel and melt 1/2 cup of vegan cheese in it to create the sauce, I also made the Mornay using Bechamel with no commercial (or difficult to make) cheese.

We all loved it! It really was easy to make and not at all a conventional casserole.

The pragmatic in me thought this was a great dish not just because it was good and easy to assemble, but because I was able to clean up after the initial cooking while the casserole baked for the required twenty minutes. Had the baking required a longer time I might have left the kitchen, and the mess, behind. Bonus.

Cost Breakdown

broccoli: $2

seitan: $1

English Muffin: $2

tahini, nutritional yeast, flour, lemon, milk: $1.50

Total to make 4 servings:

$6.50

Seitan Divan Recipe