We all know that Greggs new vegan steak bake is pretty great, but I had a few issues with it. My main one is that I don’t have a Greggs with in walking distance of my house or work, so I can only get treats from them when I go into town. The second is that it’s just not very well seasoned? It’s not bland by any means, but I expected more pepper and more flavour in general. Of course this means I decided to make my own, and it can be super easy too.
You could go about all the hassle of making your own pastry, but I don’t have the skills or patience to do that, so I got some Jus-Rol pre rolled pastry to make this as easy as possible, and I got it on sale! I used two rolls to get 5 steak baked, along with one large onion, around a third of a bag of Tesco’s own brand vegan mince and some of their own brand gravy granules.
I don’t do measurements, I just judge everything by eye to get it how I want it and I advise you do the same! Throw the onions and mince in a pan for around 6 minutes or until the onions are going soft. Add enough water to just about cover it all and slowly add gravy granules, stirring the whole time. This is where I added a couple of bay leaves that I removed before filling as well as some salt and pepper.Once your filling is the way you want it, turn the pan off and sort out your pastry.
Cut the size of pastry you want, add your filling to the centre of one half and wet the edges with some soy milk. Fold it together into your steak bake shape, use a fork to seal the edges and cut some shallow lines part way into the pastry in an attempt to mimic the pattern on the ‘real’ thing.
Cook at the temperature and time advised by you pastry and ta-da! You have your very own vegan steak bake! The pastry isn’t quite as good as Greggs, but I honestly would say the filling is almost better. It’s not exactly steak, but nor is the one in Greggs so I’m pretty happy with it. Plus, I got 5 steak bakes out of this!
5 steak bakes would cost almost £8, and these ingredients cost me slightly under a fiver, not to mention I have plenty of mince, gravy and a couple of onions left over.
I can’t tell you how impressed with myself I am for making these! They’re delicious, super similar to the real deal and they’ve definitely saved me a bit of money that would have otherwise just been spent on the train and steak bakes! Let me know how these go if you try them out!
-Dana
Carry on Beautiful! 