I have to admit that I’ve always had a soft spot for store-bought meatless vegan meatballs. The kind that are made of isolated-soy-something-or-other, but have the most amazing chewy texture and savory flavor. I reserve those for an occasional treat, but honestly, I crave them a lot more often than that. Unfortunately, my experience with homemade vegan meatballs in the past has been that they taste nice on their own, but disintegrate in sauce. Even worse is if you end up with meatless meatballs that are mushy inside. Meh.
Thankfully, after a lot of tinkering around in the kitchen, I’ve come up with a vegan meatball recipe that is worthy of sauce, and completely rivals those vegetarian meatballs in the freezer aisle. Plus, instead of paying $5 for like 3 servings of meatballs, this recipe makes several dozen for only a couple dollars’ worth of ingredients.
The first thing I wanted to achieve in these vegan meatballs is a chewy texture with structural integrity. You should be able to use them anywhere non-vegan meatballs are used, which means that they have to stay together in a sauce. For both chewiness and binding power, I turned to vital wheat gluten. Vital wheat gluten is a flour made by washing away the starches from wheat until only the protein is left.
Sometimes gluten-based vegan meat alternatives get a little too bread-like in texture. But if this vegan meatball was going to behave like a classic meatball, I needed the gluten structure to give away to a moist, tender interior. For that reason, I decided to add chickpeas to the mixture. The already-cooked chickpeas don’t absorb any further moisture during baking, so they help the inside of the vegan meatballs stay moist.
The second thing I set out to accomplish in making these vegan meatballs resemble the real thing is an ever-so-slightly chunky interior, to mimic the behavior of cooked ground meat. There are two features of the recipe that make this happen: the first is the use of ground nuts, which have a bite to them, but soften just enough after cooking that they’re still tender. The second thing is the way that the vegan meatball mixture is combined. The other dry ingredients are pulsed together, but not completely pureed, and the gluten is mixed in in two stages. This allows the gluten to form around little pockets of the other ingredients, so that instead of having a uniform texture throughout the inside of the meatball, there’s some textural variation.
Serve with marinara sauce, teriyaki sauce, or anything else you like!
I’ve gotta say, I’m completely in love with this recipe. These vegan meatballs have been fantastic simmered in classic red sauce, teriyaki sauce, or just eaten on their own with a little ketchup for a lazy dinner. I don’t monitor my protein intake, but for those of you who do, these things are packed with protein thanks to the gluten (which is pretty much pure protein), chickpeas, and nuts. They are also whole foods, plant-based compatible due to being completely oil- and sugar-free. Take your meatless meatballs to the next level and give this recipe a try!
Vegan Meatballs
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas (rinsed and drained; equal to 1 15-oz can)
- 1/2 cup raw almonds
- 1/4 cup raw walnuts
- 1/4 cup raw cashews (feel free to mix and match the three types of nuts)
- 1 medium onion diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 tsp prepared mustard
- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast (optional but recommended)
- 1 tsp paprika (or smoked paprika)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
- 1 and 1/2 cups vital wheat gluten flour divided
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 1 and 1/2 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
Instructions
To prepare the vegan meatballs:
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Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
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In a food processor, add all of the ingredients from chickpeas through black pepper. Pulse until the nuts are broken into very small pieces (but do NOT puree completely). Transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl.
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Add 1/2 cup of the gluten flour, and use a fork to stir it into the dry mixture. It's fine if there are small lumps.
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Add the other 1 cup of gluten flour and stir again (doing this in batches helps the mixture to retain texture during cooking). Pour the vegetable broth and soy sauce into the bowl and stir until no pockets of dry flour remain.
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Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat liner, and spray it or lightly grease it with oil. Use a round shaped half tablespoon measure to scoop heaping half tablespoons of the mixture onto the baking sheet. The batter is fairly wet and spongy, so it will probably not be possible to roll the mixture into a ball, which is why I use a round-shaped scoop and let the bottom of the vegan meatballs be flat.
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Bake for 20 minutes, or until firm enough to flip over. Flip over all of the meatballs and turn around the baking tray for even cooking, then return to the oven.
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Bake for about 15 more minutes, or until the outside is very browned and quite crunchy (the insides of the meatballs should still have a little give to them when you press down).
For cooking the vegan meatballs in a sauce:
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Bring your sauce up to a simmer, and then add the meatless meatballs directly to the sauce. These are quite absorbent, so adjust your seasoning accordingly if using a classically salty/reduced sauce (such as teriyaki).
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Simmer for just 1-2 minutes for more intense sauces (such as teriyaki), or longer for other sauces like marinara; you can always test one to see if it's absorbed the sauce to your liking! The crunchy outsides will soften when cooked with liquid but the balls will hold their shape.
Recipe Notes
Unfortunately, there is no way to make this recipe gluten-free, since the gluten flour is so important to the structure and texture.
Bob's Red Mill brand (linked in the ingredients list and blog post) is by FAR my most recommended brand of vital wheat gluten flour. In my opinion the combination of price and quality is the best; however, other brands such as Arrowhead Mills should still work for the recipe.
The reason I call for raw nuts is that toasted nuts can have an overpowering flavor. If you can only find toasted nuts then I recommend mixing and matching (as opposed to using only 1 type) so that no 1 flavor overpowers the others. In addition to almonds, walnuts, and cashews, sunflower seeds, hemp seeds (mix in after pulsing the rest of the mixture in the blender), and brazil nuts (roughly chop before measuring) can also make nice additions to these vegan meatballs.
These vegan (non)meatballs from Sparkpeople served as a starting point for my recipe.
I'm Shannon, the writer and photographer of Yup, it's Vegan! I'm a morning person based in Baltimore, USA. My mission is to create healthy plant-based recipes that anyone would enjoy, using seasonal produce with inspiration from global flavors.
So, do you think these meatballs would hold up if put into a soup?
Yes, I do think that they would! However, since they’ll already be cooked I would recommend adding them just a few minutes before you’re done cooking the soup.
Wow. These are really delicious. They taste better than the Trader Joe’s variety… and these are actually healthy. Great work devising this recipe! And thank you. These will certainly go into my cooking rotation.
I am going to make these today – this recipe looks awesome (and I scoured the internet for an hour until I found the one I liked). One question tho (similar to the “soup” question that someone else asked)….. Will these hold up if I drop them in my home made marinara sauce? Back in “the day”, I’d always cook my meatballs in the simmering sauce for a couple hours. I’m guessing that would be too long for seitan meatballs. Any recommendations? Thanks!!
Hi Jason, I often have these with marinara sauce! But I bake them until fully cooked, at which point they can be simmered in the sauce and will hold their shape. I haven’t tried simmering them in the sauce as the means of directly cooking them. Would be interested to see if that turns out well for you, but I really don’t know what would happen!
Ckickpea flour doesn’t behave exactly like vital gluten flour, but it’s close. If someone wished to do this gluten free, it might be worth a shot.
Thanks, Kevin. I do think the amount of liquid, and cooking temperature and time may need to be significantly adjusted to make these GF with chickpea flour. I’m not really sure what would happen. If anyone does test it out I’d be eager to hear about the results.
Wondering if you have tried with something other than vegetable broth. I’m going to make to serve with marinara and wondering if a different liquid might be more appropriate, like tomato based?
I haven’t tried them with something other than vegetable broth. For what it’s worth, the recipe as printed with veggie broth shouldn’t be in conflict with any savory flavors, including marinara. If you don’t have veggie broth it should be fine to use water as long as you season them well.
Thank you for this great meatball recipe. I really enjoyed the recipe and especially the texture of the meatballs.
I baked the first batch and taste tested them and thought they needed a little more flavor so I added some Italian seasoning and a bit of liquid aminos to the second batch and thought they were then perfect for me.
One piece of advice, I didn’t dice my onions small enough so next time I would make them a little smaller so they aren’t as noticble in the completed product.
What would your advice be on sautéing the onions until translucent before adding to the recipe?
Trying them tonight, I’m excited. It’s so worth a little extra effort for some fresh healthy home made food.
I’ve been making seitan for the last year or so. my recipe is basically 1 can lower fat coconut milk, vital wheat gluten 2 parts 1 part chickpea flour and a half a cup of nutritional yeast as the part that never varies (I say one part two part because the amount of flour seems to vary) depending on if I want a “chicken style” or meat style, I also use the following ( for the chicken style I leave out the fennel and all things red. )
I’ll add onion powder garlic powder italian seasoning and fennel some thing smoked like paprika or chipotle powder about half a cup of salsa.
If I think I”m going to using the seitan in sauces or soupy things I make the batter a bit stiffer. If I think I want to put it on sandwiches or the like I make the batter a little less stiffer. it holds up really well in sauces.
but basically add flour until it holds and springs back a bit. then I oil a pan and bake covered for an hour and a half at 360. you can also roll it in aluminum foil for sausage form factor. just make sure it’s loosely rolled as it will expand.
I came across this blog because i’m thinking of making an indian meatball with paneer cheese added (not vegan) and I’m not sure if I should steam boil or bake. but I thought since you already had the chickpea thing that you might be interested in this variation. it’s meat eater approved. I took it to some family gatherings in a lasagna and everyone LOVED it. it’s not overly chewy like a lot of standard seitan tends to be. I had to experiment a lot to get it. the coconut milk and chickpea flour add the tenderness it needs. I like the idea of whole chickpeas for texture I’m definitely going to try your recipe above too.
Hello from France! I just tried your recipe and it was a huge success for my half vegan, half omnivorous family! I did it with a mushroom broth, and served it with pasta and a nice tomato sauce, yummy! Thank you!
Really good, I substituted chick pea flour for the chick peas. Omitted the salt and put the onions in the blender with the veggie broth. Used a tablespoon to form. Otherwise, love em. Thanks so much.
Hey, so I lily have no experience with gluten flour or recipes if that sort. Do you know if sweet rice flour would work as a substitute? I have trouble finding gluten flour. Thanks in advance 🙂
Hi Jana, gluten flour is a key ingredient in this recipe – so I haven’t tried it without. However, I did have one reader comment on my Facebook page that she successfully substituted a mixture of bread flour and peanut butter for the gluten flour, so maybe give that a try? using sweet rice flour seems interesting but I have not tried it yet, not sure what other changes would be needed.
Where can you find the gluten flour mentioned in the recipe?
Some supermarkets (but not all) will have vital wheat gluten available in the baking aisle. Common brands are Bob’s Red Mill or Arrowhead. I usually order it in bulk off of Amazon, Bob’s Red Mill brand. Natural markets (Whole Foods etc.) almost always have it, sometimes even in the bulk section. Hope this helps!