Tortas are like the unsung heroes of the sandwich world. Milanesa is traditionally breaded steak or chicken but we don’t fuck with those in this house. In this recipe, you’ll make your own seitan milanesa and it’s not hard. I promise. If you don’t wanna do that, you can use Gardein cutlets but they won’t be nearly as good. But that’s on you.

As always, if you dig this recipe, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram and we can discuss tortas!

Vegan Torta De Milanesa. You can hollow the bread out if you want, but I’m a garbage disposal for carbs.

VEGAN TORTAS DE MILANESA

prep time: 30 minutes
cook time: 60 minutes

As a self-proclaimed sandwich enthusiast, I award the torta with the highest of sandwich honors.

This recipe will require you to make your own seitan. And it’s not terribly difficult. You’ll also need to scope out a handful of condiments and telera bread. You can make the bread if you want but making bread is out of my wheelhouse (for now.)

To start, SEITAN!

What you’ll need:

chickpeas
vital wheat gluten
nutritional yeast
vegetable broth
tomato paste
onion powder
salt
pepper
cayenne pepper
ground mustard (optional)
paprika
liquid smoke
vegan worcestershire

Pictured above will be your wet ingredients for your seitan. Your dry ingredients are vital wheat gluten and nutritional yeast. Your wet ingredients will also make up most your marinade for later! So resourceful!

If you have vegetable broth you’re going to use that, if you have bouillon, boil some water and add it and use that.

Drain your chickpeas and add them into a food processor. Add around a tablespoon of all of the aforementioned seasonings. Adjust to your liking. I’m always very liberal with the garlic powder. Take your vegetable broth and add it to your food processor as well. Pulse until liquid, you don’t want it to be smooth/chunky/anything but liquid.

Next, take two and a half cups of vital wheat gluten and put it in a bowl. Add about a cup of nutritional yeast too.

Wow what a lovely shot of this nondescript powder!

Next order of business, you gotta mix your dry and wet ingredients. Add your broth mixture into your big bowl of powder and stir it up with a fork/spoon. It’s gonna turn all doughy and spongy and take on a nice brown color. Once it’s all mixed up, slap that thing onto your counter and knead it for like two and a half minutes.

After a proper kneading, separate your big doughy mess into much smaller doughy slabs of dough. You want them to be as thin as possible.

I made some extras in case I fucked them up!

Once your counter is a mess and you have a bunch of doughy slabs, you’re going to wrap them each in foil and steam them for 20 minutes. Get out a pot with the neat steamer attachment (or whatever you have that will steam these babies up) and bring your water to a boil.

Reiterating how flat you want these things to be.

Add your foil-wrapped dough things into the steamer and put a lid on it for 20 minutes. After that, you can get your marinade together. If you used all of your liquid in the seitan mix, that’s fine - you can make more. First, clean up that counter a little bit. You have time.

What you’ll need:

vegetable broth
salt
pepper
paprika
garlic powder
onion powder
liquid smoke
vegan worcestershire
cayenne
red pepper flakes
garlic
lime
red onion

In an appropriate sized dish, add your vegetable broth and all of the aforementioned seasonings. Squeeze a whole lime in there too. Crush up some garlic and dice and onion and throw them in there as well.

Here’s what it will eventually look like! Don’t worry the seitan all got rotated so each had a chance to be submerged.

After 20 minute have gone by, pop your foil seitan things out with some tongs and don’t burn yourself. Open them up and let them breathe for a second and then dump them in your marinade. These will bathe in the marinade until it comes time to fry them up.

Next, you’re going to prepare to fry them up. You will need a bowl of flour, a bowl of wet batter and a bowl of bread crumbs. And an affinity for fried foods.

What you’ll need:

flour
oat milk
apple cider vinegar
bread crumbs
salt
pepper
garlic powder
paprika
canola oil (or olive oil if you’re like me and forgot to buy canola oil)

Once you're caught up, take your seitan things out of the marinade and stick them on a plate. Dry excess liquid off too.

Sieve some flour into one bowl. ALWAYS SIEVE! NO CLUMPS!

In another bowl, add your oat milk and apple cider vinegar. Two parts oat milk to one part vinegar.

In the third bowl, add your bread crumbs.

In a pot (or pan with high walls) — add your oil and bring it up to temperature. I don’t have a thermometer but right around medium heat is where you’re going to want it. This next part is delicate so be careful and don’t burn yourself.

Dredge your seitan in the flour and coat it as evenly as possible. Then add it to your wet mixture. Then shake off the excess and dredge it in bread crumbs and coat evenly again. I suggest doing these all now and then frying them all one-by-one so you don’t accidentally burn any of them.

Now again, I did a few extras in case I made any errors.

But once you have your seitans fried, let them sit on a baking sheet or something to calm down.

NOW! The rest of this recipe is smooth sailing. You’re going to toast your telera/bread and assemble your torta. First you’re going to melt some butter and brush it on the telera and throw it directly in the oven, on the rack, for optimal crispiness. The toppings you choose to add to your torta are up to you, but I will list how I made mine below.

What you’ll need:

telera/bread
vegan butter
refried beans
vegan mayo
lettuce
tomato
red onion
vegan cheese
avocado
lime (on the side)

Preheat your oven to 300°. Add some vegan butter into a bowl and toss it in the microwave for like 20 seconds. Once it’s melted, cut your bread sandwich style and brush butter on the entire roll. Place them directly on the rack in your oven for 3-4 minutes.

If you’re using refried beans, throw some in the pan while your bread gets toasty. Melt some cheese in the microwave too if you wish.

Once your breads is ready, you can add any of the toppings you would like, but listed is how I assembled mine.

Add mayo to both sides of the bread and then add beans. Add your red onion, tomatoes and then your seitan. Then add cheese, avocado, lettuce and top with the other mayo-ed bread. Serve with lime and the non-optional topo chico.

But yeah if you wanted to do this with Gardein turkey cutlets, that would probably be fine. But like, way less fine.