Pineapple on pizza is a touchy subject. Pineapple on tacos al pastor: no brainer. For the record, I don’t mind having pineapple on pizza because I’m an adult and I pay taxes and have bigger issues. If you like what you see, follow along on instagram — @draggedthroughthegarden.

Tacos al pastor. But with seitan. Smoky, tangy, dense with flavor and textures. Hold onto your guajillos.

SEITAN TACOS
AL PASTOR

prep time: 50 minutes
cook time: 20 minutes

First order of business, constructing a marinade.

What you’ll need:

onion (white or red)
dried guajillo peppers
achiote powder
garlic
cumin
oregano
salt
pineapple
lime
apple cider vinegar
a blender

The marinade is going to eventually make its way into the blender so you don’t have to mince your garlic down or chop the onions super fine.

Take four or five of your dried guajillo peppers and cut the stems off. Scissors work fine. Remove all the seeds from the inside. You can butterfly the pepper open, that way works fairly easily.

Grab a pot and toss some oil in there. Add your onion and garlic chunks in there and let them do their thing for a minute. Put your deseeded guajillos in there and a fistful of pineapple chunks. I bought them pre-cut because time. Add lime juice and a splash of vinegar into the pot. Once it starts to cook a little bit, add about a half cup of water and turn the flame up. Add achiote powder (or paste) as well as a tablespoon of oregano and cumin. Salt to taste.

Once everything in your pot is soft and your kitchen smells like garlic, onion and peppers, turn off your flame and transfer your mixture into a blender. Pulse until smooth and add a little more water if it’s too thick.

Here is a pot full of soft, smelly ingredients. The achiote will give it that orangey red color.

Get a load of that consistency! It looks hot but it’s pretty mild.

Let your mixture sit for a second and you can get your seitan ready. You’re only gonna add salt and lime directly to the seitan because the marinade will carry all of the flavor anywho.

What you’ll need:

seitan
salt
lime
a ziplock bag

This is the brand I used. You can use whatever you like.

Drain and rinse your seitan off. Get It as dry as humanly possible so it soaks up all of the marinade when its marinading time. Then toss some salt and lime on there.

Cut down all the obnoxious chunks if need be. You can do that later too if you want.

Now that your seitan is dry, throw it in a ziplock and pour the marinade directly in there too. You’re going to let it sit in the fridge for an hour. You can marinade it longer if you want, I did it for two while I ran errands.

Now that your seitan is marinaded…..prep your garnishes.

What you’ll need:

more pineapple
cilantro
onion (whatever you started with)
lime
salt

Oil a pan and add pineapple. I cooked them as rings and cut them down afterwards. Whatever you wanna do is fine. Give them a nice char on each side and then remove them from the pan and set aside.

Dice up some onion into finer chunks than you did for the marinade. Rinse and dice up some cilantro as fine as you can too. Cut up some limes.

Put each of your garnishes aside for now. You can put them in the fridge if you’d like.

Now to cook the seitan and bring it all home.

What you’ll need:

your marinaded seitan
salt
oil
tortillas
an appetite

Using the same pan you cooked the pineapple in, add some more oil and then slowly add your seitan into the pan on a medium high flame. The sauce will reduce down a little bit as you continue to sear. Stir it around and cook evenly.

After your seitan looks like al pastor, set it aside on a plate to rest. Or a cutting board from earlier. Less dishes the better.

Cook your tortillas with oil in the same pan. This recipe yields five tacos. Hearty tacos. There’s only four in the picture because I got hungry.

Now put your seitan in a tortilla with the garnishes from earlier and sulk in the fruits of your labor.