vegan buffalo wings

Sometimes the intersection between eating healthy and succumbing to food cravings is a congested mess of sacrificing one for the other, but with a little bit of creativity and willingness, it can be done.

Vegan bar food is one of my favorite things to make and not just because it’s easy. Who doesn’t love fries and hot wings? I for one, LOVE them. Both of them.

But the truth is that today’s post isn’t about making vegan hot wings, it’s about the yummy vegan and accidentally vegan hot sauces I recently purchases which coat today’s lovely tofu wings. The recipe itself is quite easy and we’ll go through it later, but let’s talk a little about the hot sauce.

The main ingredient you might find in some of the most popular brands of hot sauce to make them not vegan is cane sugar, which is often whitened with bone char. So like any good vegan, you have to carefully look at the ingredients list and a good rule of thumb is that the shorter the list, the better it is in general and almost certainly for us vegans.

The first hot sauce is a brand I only became aware of recently, Marie Sharp’s. The sauces are spicy and delicious and some of them are flat out vegan while others just happen to be vegan. And then there’s a totally vegan brand, HiyaSelf.

I used a mixture of three sauces to create a super spicy vegan tofu wing and now we’ll talk about everything I did!

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Let’s keep it real, when it comes to cooking not every meal can be a gourmet masterpiece or the very definition of healthy and nutritious. We hope for one of those of two, but sometimes you just want what you want. Right?

That’s pretty much how this easy vegan meal came about. I felt like having something spicy but I didn’t want to go crazy with calories and I didn’t want to make something that would cost too much time in the kitchen because I was furiously trying to get my book properly formatted so the paperback could be completed.

Update/Shameless promotion: How Could I Forget is finally ready to order in paperback and digital!

Luckily for me, I found some leftover sauerkraut and decided…why the heck not? I love sauerkraut actually. I spent a part of my childhood in Wisconsin where I experienced many Oktoberfest celebrations and learned a lot about German and Polish culture. Then, I went on to spend about 8 years living in Germany, so yeah, sauerkraut is my jam! But, I’ve never used it out side of my seitan & kraut style recipes. So I did what any internet savvy home cook does, I consulted Google to find out other ways to use sauerkraut and what to pair it with.

Turns out, it makes an excellent side dish, with only a little prep time.

Since we’ve talked so much about the kraut, let’s start with that. I like to rinse it a little just so the taste isn’t quite so vinegar-y, then drain and set aside. Chop up one onion and a few cloves of garlic to saute (in oil or water) and when they start to crisp and turn brown, add the kraut. Cook until warm OR you can just turn off the stove and stir together if you want the full health benefits of fermented foods.

While the onions & garlic are cooking, you should re-hydrate your soya (TVP) if that’s what you’re using because that’s why I used in this easy vegan recipe, but you can always use whatever vegan protein floats your boat. I used the big pieces because there’s a lot of surface to cover in yummy spicy sauce and because I wanted a reason to break out my new air fryer!

While the soy chunks are in the air fryer, I added a bunch of spices to a bowl along with soy sauce and just enough olive oil to turn it into a paste/sauce that would work for a tossed coating. My spices: smoky & spicy paprika, garlic granules, ground ginger, harissa powder, piri piri, turmeric and cumin. When the timer beeps, remove the crispy vegan tofu wings and toss in the spice mixture.

If you’re my kind of vegan home cook and you tend to make foods a little on the spicier side, consider adding a cooling sauce for those in your home who don’t love spicy vegan foods the way you do.

I opted for a veggiegurt sauce with lemon juice, cumin, parsley and oregano. The hubs said it helped with the heat…a lot.

If you’re in the market for quick and easy vegan recipes, you will be happy to know that this recipe took about 30 minutes and that includes entering the ingredients into Cronometer.

What do you like to pair with your vegan hot wings?