I’ve had a few people request this vegan meatball recipe since I made it for the June London Vegan Potluck and two months later I’ve finally got around to making it again, snapping a pic, and typing it up.
It’s a pretty simple deal, although you need to give yourself time for the gluten to cool in order to obtain the best texture. I’m fairly sure extra firm (and extra pressed) tofu would work in place of the okara (if anyone tries it, please confirm). I’ve also successfully used almond pulp from homemade almond milk (though not the full 200 grams).
I like to have this sort of thing as part of a picnic or potluck spread because it’s fun finger food, but a light and simple salad (olive oil + lemon dressing) is a suitable accompaniment as well. Serve hot or cold.
Pomegranate BBQ Okara Meatballs
- Directions/Method
- Blend the onion, garlic, yeast extract, ketchup, and worcestershire to a paste in a spice mill or small food processor. Tip it into a large bowl with the okara and the spices. Mix well. Knead the vital wheat gluten into the wet ingredients for a minute or two, or until it begins to look stringy.
- Form the dough into approximate tablespoon sized meatballs and don’t worry if they look like they’re falling apart a little- the gluten will bind better after steaming.
- Steam the meatballs for 30 minutes (my preferred method is in 3 tiers of bamboo steamers, but it doesn’t matter how you do it). Once finished steaming, allow them to cool and then refrigerate for at least a few hours (until properly cold).
- Prepare the pomegranate BBQ sauce in the meanwhile by frying the garlic in the olive oil for 30 seconds before adding the remaining sauce ingredients.
- To put everything together, heat some oil (a tablespoon or two) in a large frying pan to medium or medium high heat. Fry the meatballs until evenly(ish) browned and then stir in the BBQ sauce just to heat through before serving.
Thanks for this vegan meatball recipe! The photo is so tempting…it made me want to try it now! 🙂
This recipe looks great! I always have tons of okara and am always looking for new things to do with it. I also recently got pomegranate molasses for the first time, so I’m excited to try it out too. I have three questions though that maybe you can help me with:
1. For those of us in the US who work with cup measures rather than weight, do you have any idea approximately how much 135 g chopped onion, 200g fresh okara, or 160g vital wheat gluten would be?
2. Would using nutritional yeast (flakes) be an ok substitute for yeast extract?
3. If I leave out the liquid smoke, would it seriously affect the flavor? If so, is there something else I can substitute for it?
I usually provide both weight and cup measures but the liquid content in okara can be so fiddly that I tend to only work in weights with recipes using it. To avoid error I think I’m going to start using dried okara for recipes just for simplicity’s sake!
Nutritional yeast is completely different to yeast extract – the latter provides a beefy taste so it will change the way the recipe tastes if you don’t use it… but I don’t think it will taste bad, just different.
I really like the smoke but I think you could get away without it if you so desire. Smoked paprika would work I think, but it’ll add a bit of a spicier flavour.
Ok, I tried it with a few modifications: used a couple tablespoons of nutritional yeast, garam masala plus some cinnamon in place of mixed spice (also used garam masala in place of coriander and cumin in the sauce), tomato paste in place of ketchup, left out the parsley, used about 2 Tbs fresh mint, left out the liquid smoke in the sauce. In terms of amounts, in case this helps other people, I used just over a cup of okara (pressed through cheesecloth, so pretty dry and compact), and 1 1/4 cup vital wheat gluten.
SO YUMMY!
However, the meatballs didn’t really taste entirely cooked. Perhaps next time I will try covering them with foil and baking them after steaming.
Please don’t change recipes to dried okara — one of the things that excited me about finding your site is that the recipes didn’t require me to dry it! Personally, I’d much rather use the wet stuff and just fiddle with the amounts to account for possible differences. Also, I will think about getting yeast extract, but the last time I had a jar of Marmite, it was still nearly full after 2 years and I ended up giving it to an Aussie friend. On the other hand, if I now have recipes that call for it, maybe I’ll use it more! In any case, thanks for the awesome recipe, as well as the advice!
wow, thanks for letting me know what you did! I think this is a fairly forgiving recipe in terms of exact ingredients – more a case of how firm you want them to be (ie how much vwg to add) I suppose. It’s a good jumping off point for making your own burgers too!
I’d recommend the yeast extract for making any faux meat type thing – I always put it in seitan too, and it takes a gravy from passable to positively sublime!
This looks really tasty. Where do you buy vital wheat gluten from in England? I always hear sites talking about it, but I can never find it! I will try these with tofu instead, but it would be nice to be able to make the proper recipe.
Tofu doesn’t do the same thing as gluten so I don’t think it would work out in this recipe. I order it online. Places like low carb megastore, among others, sell it in the UK!
I can’t wait to try this. I think it will be amazing with a fattoush salad.
oooh! Good idea to eat it with fattoush.
Cant wait to try this. Looks so delicious