Monday Dinner: Jerked Seitan with Mango Salsa and New Potato Salad

  Well it’s back to the old drawing board.  The holidays are over, my birthday has passed, and there are no more excuses to be eating the way we have been.  We continued our healthy dinner practice last night with Jerked Seitan with Mango Salsa and New Potato Salad.  
  This is a recipe that we got from the extensive weight watchers community collection.  Nicole and I used to be vegetarians when we first met each other, and we both agree to this day that it introduced us to foods we would have never tried otherwise.  Even today we still incorporate a vegetarian dish or two into our weekly routine.  
  If you have never had Seitan before, or have never even heard of it, I suggest you try it out.  This was the “meat” I enjoyed most as a vegetarian.  I was the worst kind of vegetarian, constantly looking for substitutes for the non-vegetarian food I had loved.  Seitan is a great meat substitute and you can find it in the cooler of your local grocery store if they have an organic section.  Its also something that you can make from scratch but it’s a huge pain in the ass and I never got it to taste right.

Here is the recipe:

PointsPlus Value: 8 per serving
Servings: 4
Preparation Time: 25 min
Cooking Time: 8 min
Level of Difficulty: Easy
Ingredients
1 spray(s) cooking spray
1 Tbsp jerk seasoning
1 pound(s) seitan slice(s) , rinsed and dried, cut into 16 pieces
1 large mango(es) , diced  
1 small jalapeño pepper(s) , diced (don’t touch seeds with bare hands)  
1/4 cup(s) fresh lime juice
3 Tbsp uncooked red onion(s) , diced  
1 pound(s) uncooked red potato(es) , boiled, cooled and cut into quarters  
3 medium uncooked scallion(s) , sliced  
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp olive oil
Instructions
1. Coat a large nonstick skillet with cooking spray and heat over medium heat. Place jerk seasoning on a plate and roll seitan in seasoning to coat on all sides. Brown seitan in skillet, about 3 to 4 minutes per side.
2. In a medium bowl, combine mango, jalapeno, lime juice and red onion; cover and set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, mix potatoes with scallions, vinegar and oil; toss to coat potatoes.
4. To serve, place 1/4 of seitan on a dinner plate, top with 1/4 of salsa and serve with 1/2 cup of potato salad.

I won’t lie. I realized when we started the recipe that I had never cut a mango before.  Not that it was at all difficult, I just never did it!  Youtube.

Boiling the potatoes takes the longest when preparing this.  The recipe called for red potatoes but we just used fingerling potatoes mainly because we had them in the house already.

Jerking the Seitan before cooking…

   Besides the potatoes, we also altered the recipe by replacing the scallions with shallots, two minor changes. At first bite, we both agreed it tasted a little bland.  Once the flavors started to mix together, it actually got really tasty.  The mango and onion really made this dish pop and the jalapeno peppers gave it some really good spice.  If you are not a fan of really spicy foods, don’t worry, this isn’t spicy at all.  The potatoes do a great job of keeping the jalapeno’s from overpowering the dish.           All in all, I think I’d make this again.  I’m not nuts about it, but it was a nice blend of flavors worthy of being made a second time.