Buddha’s Delight — a Chinese Menu Copycat Recipe

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

Inspired by a traditional dish favored by Buddhist monks, this has become a Chinese restaurant vegetarian classic.

A bit about seitan

This dish is enhanced with protein-packed seitan and a plethora of veggies, enveloped in 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.

If you’re a DIY kind of person, try this site’s Easy Homemade Seitan recipe. See our Guide to Seitan featuring lots more hearty seitan recipes.

Swap-ins to use in Buddha’s Delight

• For the vegetables: Feel free to substitute other vegetables for the ones listed here — cauliflower for broccoli, green beans or snap peas for snow peas, for example.
• For the plant protein: 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.

What to serve with Buddha’s Delight

 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.

Photos by Hannah Kaminsky, BittersweetBlog.com.

Explore more …

• Super-Easy Seitan and Broccoli Stir-Fry
• Colorful & Tasty Stir-Fry recipes.
• Vegan Broccoli Recipes
• Cremini Mushroom Recipes

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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.
3. Turn the heat up to high and add the broth, baby corn with its liquid, and ginger. Bring to a slow boil.
4. Add the seitan, broccoli, carrots, and mushrooms. Cook for just a couple of minutes, or until the broccoli is bright green and not quite tender-crisp.
5. 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.
6. Cook briefly, just until the all the vegetables are tender-crisp. Err on the side of less cooking, as they’ll continue to soften as the dish stands.
7. Serve at once over cooked rice noodles or rice.

Notes

See some of the substitution ideas above the recipe box.