With the rich flavour of smoked paprika and garlic, this spicy vegan Chorizo is perfect for slicing, topping pizzas and adding some heat to all your favourite Spanish recipes.
What is chorizo?
Chorizo is a spicy Spanish sausage full of the flavour of garlic and smoked paprika.
Don’t confuse it with Mexican chorizo, which is better known in the American continents. Mexican chorizo is usually mashed during preparation and resembles minced meat. You can find our Mexican-style vegan tofu chorizo recipe here!
Spanish chorizo is a firm sausage and usually served sliced, and sometimes fried and used as part of other dishes.
We’ve done a lot of experimentation over the last few weeks to come up with a recipe for vegan chorizo sausage that is both simple and comes as close to the real thing as any ever will.
It's full of flavour and has a great, firm texture, which makes it perfect to cook with.
Whether you fry it up for breakfast, put it on pizza (vegan pepperoni - can you believe it?), or simply have it as a snack or on a sandwich - this vegan chorizo does not disappoint.
Ingredient tips
In our recipe for vegan chorizo we use two ingredients commonly relied upon when imitating meat: Vital wheat gluten and soy mince.
Vital wheat gluten is a protein rich powder made from wheat flour and is the main ingredient of the meat substitute seitan. It helps to bind the vegan chorizo and give it a firm texture.
It can be tricky to find it supermarkets, so we order vital wheat gluten online.
Soy mince adds some grainy texture that gives the chorizo a very sausage-like feel when chewing it. Dried soy mince is made from defatted soy flour which is then dehydrated. You can also find it called Textured Vegetable Protein or TVP.
We recommend buying dried organic soy mince.
The rest of the ingredients provide flavour, most prominently smoky paprika (also responsible for the deep red colour) and garlic.
We also throw in some organic soy sauce, spicy pepper, fried onion and herbs for good measure, as well as some flavour-neutral refined coconut oil. What is a sausage without some fat? In a frying pan or on pizza, our vegan chorizo will basically fry itself!
Making vegan chorizo
We wanted it to be easy to make our vegan chorizo recipe at home, so we kept the process as simple as possible. It is really not that complicated, especially if you are making more at once!
Once the onion and garlic is fried and mixed into a dough with the rest of the ingredients, it is tightly wrapped in parchment paper.
And then it's steamed on the hob for 1 hour, or 30 mins if you use a pressure cooker.
When the vegan chorizo has cooled it is firm enough to unwrap and easily slice it.
Just be warned at this point that the chorizo might stain both wooden and plastic boards and work surfaces, especially when it is warm. So think about where you set it down after steaming.
We often store it in the fridge wrapped in parchment paper and slice it in that.
Also, you might get very orange hands in the making of it - but no worries there, it comes off easily when you wash your hands.
- Fry the onion until soft, then add the garlic
- Mix all the ingredients together into a dough
- Make a sausage shape of dough on a piece of parchment paper
- Wrap tightly and secure both ends
- Place in a steamer and steam for 1h
- Leave to cool and firm up before unwrapping and slicing
How to use it?
We mentioned before, it is absolutely amazing on pizza. If I was ever missing anything on a vegan pizza, it was salami. By the addition of our vegan chorizo, our already mouthwatering vegan pizzas just got a whole level tastier! Start with our easy recipe for vegan pizza dough.
When adding it to stews, we recommend slicing and frying it first and adding it in close to serving time. The longer our vegan chorizo is simmered, the more it will give off its flavour to the liquid and get soft and spongy.
The vegan chorizo perfectly lends its spicy flavour to Spanish recipes such as paella or our Vegan Spanish Lentil and Chorizo Stew. But also works great with pasta, like in this Wild Fennel Pasta.
We hope you enjoy your vegan chorizo! Check out these other meaty vegan recipes:
This smoky and salty Vegan Tofu Bacon
Our popular Vegan Schnitzel or Breaded Tofu
This delicious Vegan Spaghetti Bolognese
And our umami rich Mushroom Pâté
📖 Recipe
Homemade Vegan Chorizo
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp refined coconut oil
- ½ cup (80 g) onion finely chopped
- 8 cloves garlic pressed or minced
- ¼ cup (20 g) dried soy mince
- 2 tbsp (30 ml) soy sauce
- ¼ cup (60 ml) water
- 4 tbsp smoked paprika
- 4 tsp mixed herbs
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp cayenne pepper
- ½ tsp black pepper ground
- 10 tbsp (100 g) vital wheat gluten
Instructions
Mixing the dough
- On medium heat, fry the diced onion in the coconut oil until it's just starting to brown, about five minutes.2 tbsp refined coconut oil, ½ cup (80 g) onion
- Stir in the garlic and take off the heat.8 cloves garlic
- Transfer everything to a mixing bowl. Add the dry soy mince, soy sauce and water. Mix.¼ cup (20 g) dried soy mince, 2 tbsp (30 ml) soy sauce, ¼ cup (60 ml) water
- Add the smoked paprika, herbs, salt, cayenne pepper and black pepper. Mix again.4 tbsp smoked paprika, 4 tsp mixed herbs, 1 tsp salt, ½ tsp cayenne pepper, ½ tsp black pepper
- Add and stir in the vital wheat gluten, until it is all absorbed by the moist mixture.10 tbsp (100 g) vital wheat gluten
- Knead a bit to compact the dough as it comes together.
Shaping
- Split into individual portions, transfer each onto a piece of parchment paper (large enough to wrap the chorizo and tie the ends, about 20 x 25 cm / 8" x 10" each).
- Use your hands to shape sausages out of the portions of dough. Don't worry if it's not too perfect, you'll tidy it up later.
- Wrap the parchment around the sausage, trying to make it reasonably tight.
- Twist the paper at one end of the sausage and bind it with a piece of string or a wire closure.
- Before twisting the other end, just try and press the mixture inside the roll towards the first end, creating a compact and neatly round sausage shape.
- Twist and tie the paper at the second end.
Steaming
- When your sausages are ready to be cooked, cover the bottom of a saucepan (that can be used with a steaming basket or insert) with about 3 cm of water and insert the steaming basket / insert.
- Put your chorizos in the steaming basket, put the lid on and bring the water to a boil.
- Turn the heat down to a simmer and steam the sausages for one hour. After a while check that there is a gentle flow of steam coming out from the lid.
- Pressure cooker method: You can steam the chorizo in a pressure cooker in a steaming basket and reduce the cooking time to 30 min.
- Carefully take the chorizo out of the steaming basket. Before you unwrap the chorizo, let it cool down to room temperature to firm up.
- The chorizo gets even firmer when refrigerated for a couple of hours or overnight, making it perfect for slicing.
Notes
Nutrition
This information is calculated per serving and is an estimate only.
Marvie Dumancas says
Hello! I'm so excited to have found your page and this recipe.
QQ..... what do I need to change if I want to make this loose? That's how our family likes our chorizo, so we can easily add it to tacos. omelettes, etc. TIA!
Sophie and Paul says
Hi Marvie! It's so lovely to have you here! This is a Spanish style chorizo so it's different from Mexican style chorizo. It's firm so it can be sliced and has a different flavour. If you wanted a looser texture I imagine you could pulse it in a food processor after cooking it. We're actually planning to publish a Mexican-style chorizo recipe made from crumbled tofu sometime soon! All the best, Sophie
Ann says
This was fantastic on our pizza! My husband loved it so much he insisted we fry it all so he can snack on it.
I made a couple changes to your recipe: I used olive oil (in keeping with the Spanish style) and it worked fine. I used hot paprika instead of cayenne--nicely spicy. And I added a few dashes of Liquid Smoke.
As an experiment, I fried some slices and froze them overnight. They maintained their "structural integrity" and didn't crumble.
Great work! I look forward to trying more of your recipes. Cheers!
Sophie and Paul says
Thank you Ann, so glad you like our vegan chorizo! 🙂 Thanks for letting us know about your experiments with ingredients and freezing. This will be very helpful for other readers making this recipe! Hope you'll enjoy more of our recipes. All the best, Paul & Sophie
Ann says
Hi Sophie & Paul,
Greetings from locked-down Melbourne. I have a favorite vegan pepperoni here ("2 Broke Guys") but haven't been able to buy any 😒 and wanted to try making my own. I stumbled upon your recipe, which I made this morning. Luckily I had all ingredients on hand. It's now chilling in prep for pizza tonight! I can't wait to try it! Thanks heaps!
Joaquim Ayala says
Just wondering if there is a way around not using coconut oil, which is high in saturated fat. Would olive oil work, or is the fact coconut oil solidifies at room temperature critical to maintain the shape of the sausage?
Sophie and Paul says
Hey Joaquim, I've made it with sunflower oil before and it came out fine, so olive oil should be good as well!
I use coconut oil in the recipe because it's solid at room temperature and below, so is retained a bit better and then melts when heated up, similar to real sausage.
Hope this helps! We'd be grateful if you let us know how it works out using olive oil! 🙂 Enjoy, Paul
Josh says
So stoked to try the recipe! Do you rehydrate the soy or leave it dried and uncooked?
Sophie and Paul says
Awesome, we hope you enjoy it! The dry soy mince gets mixed with the soy sauce and water in the recipe, there's no need to rehydrate first. I'll update the recipe to clarify - thanks!
Adrianne Grace says
This looks like a great recipe! I can't wait to try this out. Can I ask how many grams of chorizo does the recipe for two servings make?
Sophie and Paul says
Hey Adrianne, to give you an exact weight we'd have to make another batch, but we think it's about 150g per chorizo, and the recipe makes two! Hope this helps 🙂 S & P
Debbie says
Very nice texture and not hard to make but it's super salty!!! I will make it again but I'll put less salt (and omit the soy sauce) as that's all I can taste and I followed the recipe to the letter. Guess it depends on your taste buds but yeah way too salty for me. Otherwise pretty good! 🙂
Sophie and Paul says
Hey Debbie! I guess taste buds are different. My taste palate is definitely used to quite salty foods, sorry you found it too much! That said, I remember all kinds of sausages to be rather salty foods... This chorizo is normally eaten with less salty things along it for balance, like on bread, with pasta, or in a stew.
Of course you can reduce salt level to your taste. Just worth mentioning that the soy sauce adds more than just salt, it's also full of umami-flavoured amino acids. So I recommend you reduce salt first and use a low sodium soy sauce, rather than reducing soy sauce... Thanks for the comment, I hope you can make the vegan chorizo work for you with less salt, and would be happy to hear how it turns out 🙂
Best wishes, Paul
Dawn's plant based adventure says
I've just made this & my husband is saying wow so many times, I have to giggle. It is so realistic it is almost disconcerting ha ha. I live in Spain & may try this out on my neighbours to see what they think 😉
Sophie and Paul says
Hehe, love it! Delighted you and your husband approved of the recipe. Thanks so much Dawn for sharing the recipe too. We hope we can share more tasty recipes with you on your plant based adventures!
Marike says
Hi there! I was wondering if there is any replacement for the dried soy mince, or if it can be left out? I've never heard of it before (I live in the Netherlands) but since the recipe only calls for 10 grams for 1 sausage...
Sophie and Paul says
Hi Marike, You might also find it sold at health food stores as TVP texturised vegetable protein or soy granulat. We’ve only tested the chorizo with the dried soy mince, but if you want to try it without, we suggest also reducing the soy sauce by half and only using enough liquid to until it holds together as a dough. Hope this helps !
Marinda says
Hi Marike, in dutch they are called "Soja Brokken"! I got them at 'de Notenshop' along with the tarwegluten.
Sophie and Paul says
Thanks for the tip Marinda!
Tom Jackson says
Love the website; the recipes are really enticing and simply set out. My one quibble would be that when doubling or tripling a recipe not all ingredients need to be doubled or trebled; garlic and salt being two that shouldn't be. The chorizo recipe when trebled calls for 24 cloves of garlic!
Sophie and Paul says
Hi Tom, thanks for your comment and the compliments!
In regards to ingredient amounts: You will find that the original recipe already makes 2 chorizos. The garlic and salt are important elements to the recipe, so I wouldn't recommend reducing them if you make more.
Tony says
Hi Guys
Thank you for your hard work, and what I can only imagine is alot of time in the kitchen. I made this recipe today for the first time, so easy to follow. Turned out amazing. I was wondering instead of steaming for an hour could these be smoked ? Think 225 for two hours maybe? Once again definitely a keeper for recipes.
Sophie and Paul says
Hi Tony, thanks for the comment!
We haven't got much experience with smoking. Other smoked seitan recipes on the web suggest that you have to steam or boil it first so the vital wheat gluten is cooked through properly. Underdone seitan can be quite unpleasant and can cause some digestive problems. I would encourage you to do your own research and tests, but make sure to check that the chorizo is fully done before eating it!
Best wishes, Paul
Jordan says
Great recipe, thank you! It was a little effort tracking down vital wheat gluten (I had never heard of it before) but totally worth it. I've made this several times now and it's sooooo good. The last batch I added some fresh chillies as well as some liquid smoke. My personal favourite dish that I've made with it so far was a chorizo, mango, avocado salad with coriander, mint, ciabatta croutons and toasted pine nuts.... it was delicious.
Thanks again! 🙂
Sophie and Paul says
Hi Jordan,
so glad you found our recipe! 🙂 That salad sounds delicious. Will definitely try it! Cheers
Nikki says
I just found your website last week and immediately fell in love! Once I saw this, I knew I had to make it. I went right to the kitchen and got to work, thankfully I had all of the ingredients! (I like how simple and straight forward all of the ingredients are). I waited until the next day to try it and WOW... I was totally in awe. I truly think this is the BEST recipe I have ever came across. Thank you so very much for sharing it with us all. P.S. I shared it with a friend who grew up eating authentic chorizo, and she couldn't believe how good it was!
Sophie and Paul says
Wow, thank you so much Nikki!
Really pleased to hear that our chorizo recipe has been approved (and even crowned the best!) by you and your friend! Paul's put a lot of effort and testing into this to make it just right, so this is very rewarding to know 😊
If you haven't tried yet, I recommend frying or grilling it for a bit, which brings out the best in it. It is amazing on pizza, pretty much like pepperoni!
Hope you'll enjoy our other recipes as much - though this sets the bar quite high 🙂
Lots of love, Sophie and Paul
Alexandra says
Thank so much for this recipe. I made today with Penne all'arrabbiata and this chorizo is sooo delicious and perfect. I made other chorizo recipes in the past and for me the result was so dry and hard or with a flavor not very pleasant than I expect in a good vegan chorizo. I'm Colombian and here the vegan options that you can buy in supermarkets are very expensive and also very processed, which I don't think they are healthy. I'll do again and I'll try them in a vegan Choripan. Thanks again.
Sophie and Paul says
Thank you so much, Alexandra!
We love that our vegan chorizo is so versatile and goes with so many things! The reasons you name are exactly why we wanted to make our own instead of buying. We worked hard on this recipe, so very happy that it paid off 🙂
Lots of love, Sophie & Paul
CHP says
Wow, this is epic! Your recipes just keep getting better and better.
Would love to make that myself, but have no idea where to get Vital wheat gluten 😕
I really love how you describe everything in your recipes so nicely. Very easy read. Love coming back here weekly for new inspirations. Bookmarked 🙂
Sophie and Paul says
Wow thank you! We just love creating new recipes. Vital wheat gluten is also known as seitan flour, it's quite unique so there's not really a good substitute for it (though you can make seitan by washing all the starch out of plain white flour until you just have the high gluten content left)
I have a feeling you are in Germany? You can get Seitanbasis by Veganz at Rewe, or maybe you might get lucky at a zero waste store! Love, Sophie x
Maddox says
this recipe looks so good! I'm keen to try but we don't own a steamer, I don't think... we don't even have a working oven! is there a way to make it work on stovetop? or using an airfryer maybe? would love tips!
Sophie and Paul says
Hi Maddox, Thanks! I'd recommend steaming them if you can. You can make an improvised steamer by placing a small colander or strainer inside a large pan and covering with a well fitting lid, or by using alluminium foil to form three balls and placing a heatproof plate on top to form a steaming rack inside a pan. See this article for more info. Hope that helps you! Sophie