Make Your Own Vegan Nuggets With Chickpeas Or Tofu

Chicken nuggets are the classic ultra-processed, comfortable and tasty product that children and adults love too. But if you read the list of ingredients you will see that in many cases they include a large number of additives and unknown substances. The vegetable and healthy alternative that we propose is made with seitan, okara (the soy pulp that is left over when milk is made), chickpeas and tofu.

Vegan chickpea nuggets

These nuggets contain okara, the pulp that is left over when soy milk is produced (you can make it at home with a Chufamix or a blender) and it is a way to take advantage of it, but if you do not have this ingredient, you can increase the amount of chickpeas.

Ingredients (for a full cookie sheet):

• 100 g of cooked chickpeas
• 200 g of okara (if you don’t have osara, you can use 300 g of chickpeas)
• 100 g of organic wheat gluten
• 30 ml of extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons cashew or almond butter (optional for extra juiciness)
• 1-2 tablespoons brewer’s yeast
• Salt and pepper

For the breading:

• 50 g breadcrumbs
• 20 g of soy flour or cornstarch
• 70-80 ml of vegetable milk
• 1 teaspoon of paprika
• 2 teaspoons onion granules or onion powder
• ½ teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon oregano

Elaboration:

1. Mix the gluten with the yeast, salt and pepper. Crush the chickpeas and add them to the gluten along with the osara, oil and almond butter if you have decided to use it. Knead everything vigorously until a uniform dough forms.
2. Divide the dough into small pieces. The best way to do this is to form relatively uneven balls of dough and then flatten them one after the other between the palms of your hands.
3. Prepare three bowls with the soy flour or cornstarch, the vegetable milk and breadcrumbs, which you will have previously mixed with the spices. First pass the nuggets one after another through the flour, then dip them in the non-dairy milk and finally cover them on all sides with the seasoned breadcrumbs.
4. Place the breaded nuggets in a greased baking dish and bake in the preheated 200 ° C oven, on top and bottom heat, for 30 to 35 minutes. Halfway through the cooking time, flip all the nuggets once and coat them with a little vegetable oil with a brush if desired. The oil makes the nuggets even crunchier.

The nuggets can be consumed immediately. They go well with unsweetened barbecue sauce or hot sauce. At the same time you can prepare potatoes and other vegetables in the same oven. which will turn vegan nuggets into a complete meal.

If you want to make nuggets in large quantities, you can bread the nuggets and then freeze them in a tupper. To prevent them from sticking together, freeze them a little, for example, on a plate with some distance between them and then put them in the tupper. When you need them, just take them out of the freezer and put them in the oven, but increase the baking time by ten minutes.

Tofu nuggets

For the homemade tofu nuggets, you need 500 g tofu, dice it and follow the same recipe as the chickpea nuggets from step 3.

It is important that the tofu is very firm. To squeeze excess water out of tofu:

• Freeze a block of tofu for at least six hours.
• Thaw the tofu and let the water drain.
• If the tofu is still not firm enough, you can wrap it in a cloth and put a weight on it for example (a cast iron skillet) for 10 to 20 minutes. Then you can cut it into cubes and bread it.

Regardless of whether you want to make vegan gluten-free chickpea nuggets or tofu, the breaded pieces can also be deep-fried in olive oil in the skillet or deep fryer. Make sure the oil is very hot when you add the nuggets, otherwise the breading will absorb too much oil.