Vegan Runza: A Tutorial

Sometimes unplanned purchases can end in awesomeness. Like this big bag of shredded cabbage I snagged at Sam's Club.

 

I buy heads of cabbage a lot because it's a cheap and filling vegetable that can go in almost anything. This bag contained 2 pounds of shredded green cabbage, along with some barely-there red cabbage and carrots. Bags of this mix were strategically placed near huge jars of coleslaw dressing. Ick! I wasn't certain what I was going to do with my bag...stir fry, maybe?

It turns out that other inspiration would soon strike me. Seemingly random inspiration. How about runza? I haven't had that since BV (Before Vegan) times. I am pretty good at veganizing dishes, so I decided to give it a shot.

The first thing I did was make up the dough. Runza dough traditionally has eggs and milk in it. I figured I could just make a regular yeast dough, but as I was flipping through cookbooks I came across a recipe for soft pretzels. I decided that this dough would be an excellent choice, keeping in line with the pseudo-German aspect of this dish. So I whipped up a batch using a recipe from this book. You can always find one online, they're not complicated at all.

 

Once the dough had done its thing, I divided it into twelve pieces

 

And then flattened them into disks.

 

 

Then I worked the filling. To start, I chopped up half an onion

 

I sauteed this in a little bit of olive oil while I thawed and chopped some Boca burger patties. 

 

You could use whatever vegan ground beef analog you wish. Trader Joe's makes a pretty good one, or you could even use cooked chopped mushrooms. Go crazy.

Once the onions are starting to turn translucent, add your meat substitute and stir it in.

  

 Then cover the whole thing with cabbage.

 

Cook until the cabbage is tender, but not mushy. Season with lots of black pepper and hot sauce if that is your thing.

 

Next, roll your dough chunks out until they are about 4-5 inches across. Top the bottom half of a dough with about 1/4 cup of your filling.

 

The top with a healthy pinch of Daiya.

 

Fold the dough in half, and crimp with a fork to seal. 

You don't really need to create a high-performance seam here. You will be tucking in the runza to bake anyway. 

Like this.

 

What turns pretzel dough into baked pretzel goodness is a baking soda wash. These are shown already "glazed".

They bake up nice and golden like this.

 

Ok, so there are a little splotchy. There must have been some dried flour stuck on in some places. I baked these at 350 for about 30 minutes, and they turned out perfect.

 

Nice and hot and crusty out of the oven!

 

This was easily the best Daiya application I have discovered so far. It melted and blended perfectly into the savory filling and soft innards of the roll.

This recipe may seem like a lot of work (it was), but it's totally worth it, I promise!