Vegan Sausages (No Added Fat)

I somehow wandered onto Vegan Dad's blog and saw this recipe for homemade sausages. After reading all the positive comments, seeing how simple these were to make and having all the ingredients on hand in my kitchen, I decided to give it a shot. Follow the link for Vegan Dad's recipe. Mine is similar but I cut it in half, mainly because I like to limit my intake of "processed" foods. Hubby and I find that we like these so much that if I made more at a time, we'd eat more. So for us, it's an occasional treat.

The photo above shows what they look like just after steaming. We will be lightly grilling them this afternoon for our hubby's birthday BBQ. We like these with an organic yellow mustard and full sour kosher pickles. Yum.

The original recipe called for a Tbsp of olive oil which I confess I did include the first time I made these. This time I omitted the oil and although I won't be sampling the sans oil version until this afternoon, I'm expecting that there will be no noticeable difference.

1/4 cup beans, rinsed and drained (I used white kidney beans)
1/2 cup cold water
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 garlic clove, finely minced
1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp gluten flour (Vital Wheat Gluten)
2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp fennel seed, crushed
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp basil
1/4 tsp rosemary
freshly ground black pepper

Before mixing your ingredients, have your steaming equipments ready. Bring water to a full boil. This recipe comes together very quickly.

Have ready 2 or 4 sheets of tin foil, depending on whether you want to make 2 or 4 sausages. In a large bowl, mash the beans with a fork until there are no whole ones left. Toss together all the other ingredients in the order listed and mix. Divide dough in (2 or 4) equal parts. Place one part of the dough into tin foil and mold into about a 5 inch log. Wrap dough in tin foil (like a tootsie roll). Don't worry too much about shaping it as it will snap into shape while it's steaming.

Place wrapped sausages in a steamer and steam for 40 minutes.

If you want to make more sausages at a time, just double the recipe. Also I think it's very worthwhile to read the comments on Vegan Dad's blog for additional info.