Vegan Schnitzel with Chanterelles & Spaetzle
For me, schnitzel with chanterelles and spaetzle is a traditional German classic. Whether you're sitting in the beer garden in beautiful, sunny weather or it's gray, rainy, and cold all day: this dish suits every season! The chanterelles may be foiling us, but luckily we can easily swap them out with any other mushrooms for this recipe. Here's how to prepare this dish in a vegan version.
Let's start directly with the perhaps most difficult part of the dish: the vegan schnitzel. In our first attempt, we used a seitan mixture. Unfortunately, the mixture became quite tough and could hardly be pulled apart or pounded out thinly. Even after cooking, the consistency didn't improve. Therefore, we tried it with wheat gluten. Correct, a seitan mix package also contains nothing but wheat gluten. Still, it made a big difference, strangely enough. Maybe it was the quality of the wheat gluten? We're at a loss. However, the second version pulled apart beautifully, and we ended up with great, paper-thin vegan schnitzel. Even our meat-eating friends were positively surprised by the consistency and taste. Since seitan or wheat gluten have no flavor of their own, seasoning is the key. So don't be shy and season generously.
If you have a meat tenderizer at home and are already jumping up to get it: as nice as the idea is, it, unfortunately, didn't work out in reality. For the breading, we used regular breadcrumbs, but it's also possible to use panko breadcrumbs. However, since panko is much coarser, we would recommend crumbling it a bit beforehand.
We chose the quick version with store-bought spaetzle for this recipe, but if you have more time, you can make your own spaetzle. For this, we've already publish a recipe on the blog. Otherwise, you can also buy ready-made vegan spaetzle at organic markets, for example. Just make sure that they don't contain eggs.
We have many more classic comfort food recipes besides this one. If you may have already cooked too many spaetzle with this recipe, we have vegan Swabian lentils with spaetzle for you. Otherwise, how about vegan cabbage rolls, vegan koettbullar with cream sauce or vegan potato dumplings with mushroom goulash and red cabbage?
Vegan Schnitzel with Chanterelles & Spaetzle
Ingredients
For the vegan cutlet:
- 80 g (2.75 oz) wheat gluten
- 10 g (2 tbsp) nutritional yeast
- 15 g (0.25 cup) chickpea flour
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 110 ml (0.5 cup) water
- soy sauce
- salt
For the chanterelle sauce:
- 250 g (9 oz) chanterelles
- 1 onion
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 dash of soy sauce
- 50 ml (0.25 cup) vegan white wine
- 100 ml (0.5 cup) vegetable broth
- 100 ml (0.5 cup) plant-based heavy cream
- 0.25 lemon (juice)
- salt
- pepper
For the breading:
- 50 g (0.5 cup) flour
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- 60 g (0.5 cup) breadcrumbs
- 1 tsp sweet paprika
- 2 tbsp cornstarch
- 6 tbsp water
- 3 tbsp mustard
- salt
- pepper
Also:
- 300 g (10.5 oz) vegan spaetzle
- 15 g (0.5 oz) fresh parsley
- 1 lemon
- vegetable oil for frying
Instructions
Add wheat gluten, nutritional yeast, chickpea flour, garlic powder, and onion powder to a large bowl and mix well. Add water and stir to combine with a wooden spoon, then knead the mix for approx. 5 minutes. Divide the mixture in half and roll out or stretch each half into a thin schnitzel. Bring a pot of water to a boil, add soy sauce and salt, and let the vegan schnitzel simmer for approx. 30 minutes.
In the meantime, clean the chanterelles and peel and finely dice the onion. Heat vegetable oil in a large frying pan and sauté the onions over medium-low heat for approx. 5 minutes. Add chanterelles, increase the heat, and sauté for approx. 5 more minutes. Then add tomato paste and deglaze with soy sauce, vegan white wine, vegetable broth, and plant-based heavy cream. Cover the pan with a lid and let the sauce simmer over medium heat for approx. 10-15 minutes. Season with lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste. If the sauce gets too thick, add a bit more vegetable broth or plant-based cream.
For the breading, prepare three shallow plates. On the first plate, mix flour with onion powder, garlic powder, and ground nutmeg. On the second plate, mix breadcrumbs with sweet paprika, salt, and pepper, and on the third, mix cornstarch and water to create an egg-like mixture.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook vegan spaetzle according to package directions.
Remove the schnitzel from the simmering water and squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Rub them with mustard from both sides. Then first coat them in the flour mixture, then dredge through the starch mixture and toss in the breadcrumb mix until they are breaded from all sides.
Add a generous amount of vegetable oil to a frying pan so that the bottom is covered. Once the oil is hot, add one of the vegan schnitzel and fry for approx. 3-4 minute per side, until they're golden brown. Once that's done, transfer it to some paper towels to dry and fry the other vegan schnitzel.
Wash and finely chop the parsley. Cut the lemon into thin slices or wedges. Serve the vegan schnitzel with spaetzle, chanterelle sauce, and lemon slices on a large plate and sprinkle with parsley.
