Hot "Wings" with Roasted Garlic Ranch

I love spicy food, what can I say? Pick your hot sauce according to your tastes. Also note that a lot of hot wing sauces are not actually vegan, as they contain eggs and/or butter flavor. I do not understand this.

Also, some people prefer to steam their tempeh before cooking it. I have not personally found this to be necessary for this particular recipe (although there are other times when I do think it helps with the flavor and texture. My concern is that if the tempeh is steamed it won't be strong enough to be tossed in the bag to coat or to be fried.

For the Hot "Wings"

Serves 4-6
Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

3 packages tempeh, cut into 1x2 inch rectangles
1/4 cup canola oil, more or less, to coat the bottom of your frying pan
1 cup hot wing sauce, divided
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

To serve:

carrots, julienned

celery, julienned

cauliflower, broken into bite-sized pieces 

Directions

Heat oil in a large skillet.

In a medium bowl, lightly toss the tempeh with the 1/2 cup hot sauce. Pour out any excess liquid. In a large ziplock bag, combine the cornstarch, baking soda, and black pepper. Add the tempeh (in batches if necessary), and toss to evenly coat.

Add tempeh to pan and fry on each side until golden brown all around. Once finished, toss in bowl with remaining 1/2 cup hot wing sauce, until well coated. Discard any leftovers. It is now ready to serve with ranch dressing (recipe below) and fresh celery and carrot sticks! Alternatively, you can make this into a salad by serving tempeh hot wings, chopped celery and carrots on top of a bed of spinach tossed with ranch dressing. I tried this with the leftovers and it was delicious!

For the Roasted Garlic Ranch Dressing

Makes: 1 1/2 cups
Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

1 cup Vegennaise

1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil

10 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 teaspoons oregano

3/4 teaspoon cayenne

Black pepper and salt to taste

Directions

In a measuring cup, combine mayo, vinegar, oregano, cayenne, pepper, and salt. To streamline you can prepare the garlic using left over oil from the tempeh. Once you have removed the tempeh from the pan, saute garlic until golden (if making separate from the tempeh, use the 3 tablespoons of olive oil to saute), then add the garlic and remaining oil to the dressing and combine.

Serve the tempeh with the cut vegetables and a side of ranch.

Enjoy!