HIGH PROTEIN VEGAN “MEATBALLS” RECIPE!!

Experimenting with ingredients is what I’ve learned to be the best way to develop new recipes! It just so happened that on the second attempt of making this recipe on a Facebook Live session on Every Day Vegan Gourmet’s Facebook page, I did it, and it worked out really well! So today, I’m going to share with you that exact recipe and how you can make it too!   

Once you have all of your ingredients out, measured, and ready to go, you could really mix it all together and form your meatballs in less than 5 minutes! Then, you pretty much just need to let your steamer do the rest of the work for you while you do something else around your house!   

This recipe makes 16 entirely plant-based meatballs, at 29 grams of protein per serving! Each serving is just 4 meatballs! That means that there are 4 servings of 29 grams of protein EACH as a result of this recipe!!   

Also, not to mention, as long as you have your ingredients in your kitchen ahead of time, you can make these in about an hour before its time for dinner and have a really excellent meat substitute to go along with your linguine! 😃  

The only “expensive” part of our ingredients is vital wheat gluten, where we get the bulk of our protein. However, we are only using a cup of it, so all in all, if you do the math, and if you buy your gluten in bulk like I do HERE, it will only cost around $1 for the amount of gluten used in this recipe!  

 In total, for all ingredients used in this recipe, it will cost you around $2-$3 to make this entire recipe totaling about 116 grams of protein for the whole thing! However, give or take the total price, depending on if you buy the name or store brands for the rest of your ingredients!  

 For me, I tend to stick to store brands if they are the cheapest and don’t contain animal products. So, just read the ingredients labels when you buy things from the grocery store because chances are you can get away with buying items that are cheap and affordable like you usually do, without needing to purchase something specifically marketed as “vegan”!     

The main bulk of the cost for this recipe is:  

• about $1 or less for the amount of gluten that we use

• About $0.30 for the amount of tomato sauce that we use

• About $0.30 or less for the amount of canned beans used, give or take, depending on what brand you buy, it could be even less for you!

• Basically, the rest are small amounts of spices that you already most likely have in your pantry, plus small amounts of fresh garlic and onion!

Okay, so enough reasons why you’ll enjoy the cost and protein content of this recipe! Time to show you how to make it! 😎🥳✨  

Equipment you will need:  

• A large mixing bowl

• A blender, preferably high speed

• A large steamer pot, or large pot with a lid and steamer insert

• 3-4 large leaves of green cabbage to line the steamer insert

• Rubber spatula

Step 1 ingredients that you will need:  

• 1 TBSP onion powder

• 2 TBSP garlic powder

• ¼ cup of nutritional yeast

• ½ TBSP ground cumin

• 1 tsp chili powder

• 1 tsp Cajun seasoning

• ½ tsp salt

• 1 cup low sodium or no sodium added canned black beans, rinsed and drained

• ½ cup of jarred tomato sauce

• ¾ cup of cold water

Step 2 ingredients that you will need:  

• 1 cup of vital wheat gluten

• 1/3 cup of fresh chopped or diced onions

• 3-4 cloves of fresh garlic, diced

• 2 TBSP Italian seasoning

• 1 TBSP of dried basil

Directions:  

• Place all of the ingredients from step 1 into your highspeed blender. Blend for about 10 seconds, or until all combined. You are looking for a texture that is pretty smooth and not chunky!

• After blending together, place the blended contents into a large mixing bowl with the ingredients from step 2. Start stirring with a rubber spatula. Once everything becomes harder to mix together, take your clean hands, or wear disposable kitchen gloves, and start to squish and knead it all together for 2-3 minutes or until there are no more loose ingredients remaining in your bowl. Instead, you just want a solid ball of dough.

• Line your cabbage into your steamer, making sure that you can’t see any metal from your steamer. (You want to make sure that your meatballs don’t stick to your steamer insert and at the same time make sure that they aren’t getting too wet from the steam below, so that is why we are using cabbage.)

• Form 16 similar sized balls from your dough ball and place them into your steamer insert, doing your best not to let them touch; however, it's okay if they do. That just means that you’ll have to cook them a little longer so that they cook all the way through.

• In your boiling pot of water, place your vegan meatball filled steamer insert lined with cabbage and cover the pot with leaving only a slight crack.

• Let steam for 35 minutes. Flip over, and steam again for another 25 minutes, or until fully cooked. You will know when they are cooked when they are no longer mushy when you press down on them and are instead firm to the touch. If you need or want to, pan fry your meatballs to get a crispier exterior before topping with tomato sauce and serving with fresh linguine! SERVE HOT! Enjoy!

Makes 16 Vegan Meatballs: 4 servings of 4 Meatballs  

>Each serving has approximately 29 grams of protein!   

How I calculated this:  

• 1 cup of black beans=14 grams protein

• 1 cup vital wheat gluten= 92 grams protein

• ½ cup tomato sauce=2 grams protein

• ¼ cup of nutritional yeast=8 grams protein

>>In total, this equals to 116 grams of protein, then divided by 4 servings  

= 29 grams of protein for each serving!  

Until next time, have fun making every day a little more vegan gourmet!

XOXO, JulieRannaSaurus <3