Buddha’s Delight — a Chinese Menu Copycat Recipe

Featuring seitan, vegetables, baby corn, and mushrooms, this Buddha’s Delight recipe replicates a  Chinese restaurant menu favorite. It’s an easy and delicious vegan dish to copycat at home!

Inspired by a Chinese restaurant vegetarian classic, this dish is enhanced with protein-packed seitan with a plethora of veggies and a richly flavored sauce.

Made from cooked wheat gluten, seitan is sometimes called “wheat meat,” as it resembles beef chunks. Dense and chewy, seitan is low in fat, high in protein, yet its earthy flavor won’t put off those who don’t care for meat. Seitan is available in most natural food stores, packed in a tasty broth in the same type of sealed tubs in which tofu  is often sold.

Substitutions: Feel free to substitute other vegetables for the ones listed here — cauliflower for broccoli, green beans or snap peas for snow peas, for example. You can substitute plant-based beefy protein strips or tofu for the seitan.

If you’d like to use tofu, blot well, cut into dice, and stir-fry until golden and starting to turn crispy before starting the rest of the dish. Remove and set aside, then proceed with the recipe. Add the tofu back in in step 3.

Complete the meal: This could be a meal in itself, but I always like something fresh and raw on the side. A platter of tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, and radishes (the ordinary type, or watermelon radish or daikon) would do nicely. To make the meal extra-special, add vegetable spring rolls, which you may find in your supermarket or natural foods freezer section.

Recipe adapted from Vegan Soups and Hearty Stews for All Seasons by Nava Atlas. Photos by Hannah Kaminsky, BittersweetBlog.com.

Yield: 4 to 6

Buddha's Delight

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Featuring seitan, vegetables, baby corn, and mushrooms Buddha’s Delight is something you’ll find on Chinese restaurant menus. It’s an easy and delicious dish to copycat at home!

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 25 minutes

Ingredients

Seitan and vegetables

• 16 ounces seitan, cut into bite-size chunks
• 1 large bunch broccoli, cut into bite-size pieces
• 3 large carrots, peeled and sliced diagonally
• 6 to 8 ounce cremini or other mushrooms, or a combination of varieties, cleaned and sliced
• 2 cups or so snow peas, trimmed

The rest

• 1 tablespoon neutral vegetable oil or dark sesame oil
• 2 to 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 cups prepared vegetable broth
• 15-ounce can baby corn with liquid
• 2 teaspoons grated fresh or squeeze-bottle ginger
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch or arrowroot
• 1/3 cup teriyaki sauce, or to taste
• 2 scallions, thinly sliced
• 4 ounces hot cooked fine Asian rice noodles or rice as desired

Instructions

1. Prepare the seitan, broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, and snow peas as directed and set aside, as it all goes fast from the next step on.
2. Heat the oil in a stir-fry pan. Add the garlic and sauté over low heat for a minute or so. Add the broth, baby corn and liquid, and ginger. 
3. Turn the heat up to high and bring to a slow boil. Add the seitan, broccoli, carrots, broth, baby corn with liquid, and mushrooms. Cook for just a couple of minutes, or until the broccoli is bright green and not quite tender-crisp yet.
4. Dissolve the cornstarch in just enough water or more broth to make it a smooth, flowing liquid. Stir into the pan along with the teriyaki sauce, snow peas, and scallions. Cook briefly, just until the veggies are tender-crisp. Err on the side of less cooking, as they’ll continue to soften as the dish stands.
5. Serve at once over cooked rice noodles or rice.

Notes

See some of the substitution ideas above the recipe box.

If you like this Asian-style seitan dish, you might also enjoy …

Super-Easy Seitan and Broccoli Stir-Fry

See lots more easy vegan stir-fries.