I recently attended a potluck with an 'un-chicken' theme, in anti-honor of National Chicken Month. Everybody made fantastic dishes such as chicken salad, chicken and broccoli bake, chicken and corn chowder, and chicken croquettes, to name a few. The versatility, originality and tastiness of the dishes presented a hell of case for giving up our innocent fowl friends. As The Spicy Vegan, I naturally had to bring a spicy chicken dish. What's better than spicy Buffalo wings? Nothing.

The idea was presented to me by the hostess Janessa, The Epicurious Vegan, and I welcomed the challenge to create one of my favorite dishes from my pre-vegetarian days, one that I missed for its delicious spicy sauce. The first challenge was figuring out what to use as a base. I went to our local Asian Market, Fubonn, and bought VegeUsa dehydrated soy protein nuggets from Taiwan. The trick to using these is getting rid of the cardboard taste. I decided to hydrate mine in vegetable stock instead of water. Next step was creating the Buffalo wing sauce. I didn't measure anything, so you will have to adjust according to personal taste

Buffalo Wing Sauce:
Frank's red hot sauce
earth balance
vegan worcestershire sauce
cayenne
paprika

I did a roughly one to one ratio of hot sauce and earth balance, followed by a healthy dash of worcestershire sauce and a heavy handed sprinkle of cayenne and paprika. I simply put all ingredients in a sauce pan and simmered them together until well incorporated. Next, I tossed my newly dehydrated wings in the sauce and marinated overnight. In the morning, I baked the marinated nuggets at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes. Then I took them out of the oven, tossed them again and baked for another 15 minutes. Once I arrived at the potluck I tossed them again and baked for another 15 minutes. You can repeat this step endlessly as it will only continue to seal in the flavor.  The final step was tossing them one last time but leaving them slightly saucy. Serve with your favorite dressing (I used a homemade ranch-- recipe to follow), carrot and celery sticks and voila! You are now ready to blow some minds.

Enjoy!