Gluten Free Vegan Oaty Bean and Lentil Sausage Rolls

Sometimes I get ridiculous orders from my wheat-avoiding other half for veganised gluten-defying favourites. He’s a total sucker for spicy ‘(fake) meaty’ sausage rolls. I, on the other hand, have never been a massive fan of sosmix or meaty-textured foods. It’s not that I don’t like them now and again; I can just take or leave them. Linda McCartney’s are a good freezer food to have around for non-cooky days!

However, I do love a challenge!  Unfortunately, most vegetarian sausage packet mixes either have egg or wheat rusk so I couldn’t use those. I wanted to create something spicy with a sort of ‘meaty’ texture so I turned to a combination of oats, beans and lentils.

For the pastry, I used a tried and tested recipe, which, unlike many other recipes for gluten-free pastry I’ve experimented with, can be rolled out and manipulated without just falling to pieces! The secret? Chickpea flour (besan)! Is there anything this lovely little chickpea cannot do? The pastry was really lovely. Not puff pastry as I would have preferred, but nice and crumbly and moist!

Ingredients:

(For pastry)

• 200g gluten free plain flour mix (i used Doves)
• 100g besan (chickpea flour)
• 150g vegetable shortening (I used Crisp N Dry)
• pinch salt
• around 2/3 cup water

(For sausage mix)

• 1 cup oats
• 1 cup cooked lentils (I used a mixture of red and yellow), strained
• 1 large onion, chopped finely
• 1 tin pinto beans (Keep the bean juice from the can! Aquafaba will be used!)
• 2 tbsp aquafaba (bean water – see above)
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast (optional)
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• pinch salt and pepper to season
• pinch xanthan gum (optional but creates a firmer texture)
• handful fresh herbs (I used rosemary and thyme, but oregano would be nice!)

1. Make the pastry by combining the flours in a mixer. Rub in (or use stand mixer to combine) the fat until fine breadcrumb texture is achieved. Pour in as much cold water as it takes to form a smooth dough, sticky but not wet. Chill dough in fridge.
2. Fry the onion in a little olive oil along with the cumin, paprika and salt.
3. When onions are soft, add the pinto beans and mash slightly with the back of the spatula, frying for a further 2 minutes.
4. Put the bean mixture and cooked lentils in a food processor and blitz until quite smooth.
5. Decant the mixture to a large mixing bowl and add the oats, nutritional yeast, herbs, aquafaba, xanthan gum and seasoning (if required) and combine until a malleable dough is achieved.
6. Roll out the pastry into a long rectangle and cut into 4 smaller rectangles.
7. With wet hands, take a quarter of the sausage dough at a time and lay down in the middle of the pastry, rolling up and placing join-down on a lined backing tray. Repeat for the rest of the sausage rolls.
8. You could use the remaining aquafaba as an ‘egg-wash glaze’ here, I did and it worked quite well!
9. Bake sausage rolls at 200°C for around 22 minutes.

Voila! Meaty textured spicy vegan sausage rolls without a whiff of wheat! I thank you!

Please let me know how you got on with this recipe if you have a go! I’d love to know about any adaptations/improvements you make!

Franca x

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