Vegan fried chicken drumsticks

Hello, comfort food.

Entrees don’t get more indulgent, satisfying, and just plain fun than vegan fried chicken drumsticks.

Crispy seasoned breading encases meaty seitan with the flavors of thyme, marjoram, herbs de Provence, and sage. It even has a layer of “skin” and a bamboo drumstick to kick up the kitsch factor.

Serve it with home-style comfort foods like collard greens and mashed potatoes, and you’ve got a seriously cozy dinner ahead of you.

This dish could even be used as a holiday main course as the vegan’s answer to a turkey drumstick. After all, it is equally not turkey as it is not chicken. (Although, the breading puts me more to the mind of the latter.)

In this post:

The base of this dish is seitan. It’s made with vital wheat gluten, chickpea flour, nutritional yeast flakes, water, and seasonings.

It’s basically a savory dough that’s steamed, breaded, and fried. It’s a high protein main course that is incredibly filling.

You can find vital wheat gluten, chickpea flour, and nutritional yeast flakes in natural grocery stores or online.

(If you’d prefer a chicken-style seitan that isn’t breaded and fried, check out this seitan chicken recipe instead.)

One of the really fun textural elements of this vegan fried chicken drumstick is the “skin” surrounding it. Spring roll wrappers made of rice paper hold the breading well. And they get wonderfully crisp around the exterior.

After all, even vegans sometimes want a main course that they can hold onto with a stick, and tear into with their teeth.

The first time I ever tried rice paper wraps used in this way was back in 2015 when I cooked with Chef Roberto Martin. He used it for one of his recipes along with Gardein. I thought it was genius.

I told him that I wished I could hail a time machine, and take the idea back to when I first went vegan. In those days, there were a lot fewer plant-based meat options. As a new vegan especially, I missed eating things with chewy textures.

For his method of using them, he wrapped the spring roll wrappers around the vegan chicken like a very taut burrito. But I’ve found a simpler way to attach it, as you’ll see in the description below.

You can find spring roll wrappers next to the soy sauce in most grocery stores or in Asian markets. It’s in shelf stable packaging, not refrigerated.

The main ingredient is rice flour. The kind I buy also includes tapioca flour, which helps with the structure.

For best results, round spring roll wraps work best. However, square will also work in a pinch. You just may need to break off any excess at the bottom.

A thick, dense cashew cream helps the flour breading to stick. It’s made with an equal 50/50 portion of raw cashews to water.

It’s easiest to make cashew cream with a high-speed blender, because you don’t have to soften the raw cashews first. You can just put them straight into the blender.

But if you don’t have a high-speed blender, use one of the workarounds listed in the notes section of the recipe box.

Depending on the blender, the cashew mixture may fall under the blade while it’s blending. That makes it harder to fully break up the cashews. So you’ll need to make more cashew cream than you’ll actually need for this recipe.

That’s fine, though! Even if you’ve dipped vegan chicken in it, it’s still safe to use in other recipes.

Add leftover cashew cream to the following recipes:

• Sliced roasted potatoes with cashew cream
• Vegan polenta stacks with barbecued squash & cashew cream
• Vegan baked potato soup
• Creamy gnocchi soup with sausage & kale
• Creamy vegan mushroom soup with lentils
• Creamy vegan tomato soup
• Vegan risotto with mushrooms & sausage
• Vegan pot pie

(The leftover cashew cream will replace the cashew cream or non-dairy milk that’s already there in the recipe. Depending on the recipe, you may need to add more water to thin it out and/or add additional seasonings.)

As any fairgoer will tell you, everything is more fun on a stick. Here bamboo skewers turn regular vegan fried chicken into a drumstick.

You can use any 6-inch bamboo skewers you have.

Or if you only have 12-inch skewers like I use for my Thanksgiving kebabs or grilled vegetable skewers, break them in half.

They can splinter if you just break them by hand. So I recommend using a sturdy pair of sharp scissors to cut into them in the middle to score them. Once they are partially cut, you can neatly break them in half with your hands.

For this recipe, you’ll need:

• Mixing bowl
• Aluminum foil, torn into roughly 8 x 8 or 10 x 10 squares
• Several dinner plates
• Wide shallow soup bowl
• Large non-stick frying pan
• Steamer pot with lid and basket
• Blender (preferably high-speed)
• Bamboo skewers (Two 12-inch skewers that are broken in half or four 6-inch skewers)
• Long metal tongs

Start by making the seitan that is the main component of this dish.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the following:

• Vital wheat gluten
• Nutritional yeast flakes
• Chickpea flour
• Granulated onion
• Marjoram
• Rubbed sage
• Dried thyme
• Herbs de Provence
• Salt
• Pepper

Stir to combine.

Then create a well in the center and add:

• Tamari
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Water

Stir everything together. As it gets sticky, knead with your hands to create a dough.

Add more water, a Tablespoon at a time, until there’s no dry flour at the bottom. You want to have a soft moist dough that isn’t floury at all. Break the dough into four equal portions.

Tear four squares of aluminum foil, and oil them. Form each dough section into a ball. Then pull it into a point, like a teardrop.

Put the drop-shaped seitan in the center of the oiled foil. Then roll it up like a Tootsie Roll. Continue with the remaining dough.

Put the foil-wrapped seitan into a steamer basket. Steam covered for 25 minutes.

Carefully remove it from the steamer basket, and unwrap it to cool. When the seitan is done, it will be firm & bouncy to the touch.

Once the seitan is cool enough to touch, you can move on to wrapping it in rice paper “skin.”

Put one of the seitan balls smack dab in the middle, as if it were dressing as a Halloween ghost, and the rice paper is its sheet. Pull the wrapper down over the seitan ball, and squeeze it with both of your damp hands.

At first, it will seem like it might be too dry or break. But keep squeezing for 20 seconds. The spring roll wrap will soften and form around the seitan.

Move it to a dry plate. Continue with the remaining seitan until all of them are covered.

Now it’s time to make the binder and breading station.

In a high-speed blender, combine an equal portion of raw cashews with water to make a cashew cream.

(Don’t have a high-speed blender? Check out the workarounds in the notes section of the recipe box.)

Move the cashew cream to a wide, shallow soup bowl.

To make the flour breading, combine the following on a plate:

• All-purpose flour
• Dried thyme
• Granulated onion
• Salt
• Pepper
• Cayenne

You can make this vegan fried chicken your own by adjusting the seasonings or breading.

If you don’t have any one of the seasonings for the seitan (marjoram, thyme, herbs de Provence, or rubbed sage), you can replace it with an equal amount of dried rosemary. Crumble it in your hands to break it up.

Or replace all of the dried herbs with one teaspoon of poultry seasoning instead.

For the flour breading seasonings, you can add a generous dash of your favorite Cajun seasoning salt instead of the cayenne, salt, and pepper.

Instead of flour breading, you can use seasoned breadcrumbs. Leave off the spring roll wrappers. Then dip the seitan in cashew cream, and dredge it in panko breadcrumbs seasoned with a pinch of thyme, granulated onion, salt, and pepper.

You can leave off the stick, and enjoy this as a breaded and fried standalone entree instead. Or use a sprig of rosemary as the stick instead for something a little more elegant. (Add the rosemary after the seitan has been fried.)

Vegan fried chicken is a hearty, indulgent entrée that is best served hot with your favorite side dishes. But it can also be eaten cold as a protein-rich option for a vegan picnic.

Serve it with:

• Vegan potato salad
• Easy vegan gravy
• Plain mashed potatoes or mustard mashed potatoes
• Easy collard greens or sautéed kale
• Vegan pasta salad
• Roasted cabbage
• Vegan coleslaw
• Buffalo grilled corn
• Vegan waffles & maple syrup
• Vegan grits