What Is Upton's Naturals Traditional Seitan?
Upton's Naturals is a Chicago-based meat-alternative company founded in 2006 by Daniel Staackmann and Nicole Sopko, two longtime vegans who built the company as a self-funded, independently owned operation rather than taking outside investment. That's unusual in the plant-based meat category, where most of the well-known names have run on venture capital. Upton's has grown steadily on the strength of that independence, and the brand now markets itself as the best-selling seitan brand in the country by retail sales.
Traditional Seitan is the plainest item in their seitan lineup — no chorizo spice, no bacon smoke, no Italian herbs, just large, minimally seasoned chunks of wheat gluten meant to be a blank canvas. It ships refrigerated in an 8-ounce vacuum-sealed pouch, four servings per package, and it's sold at Whole Foods, Kroger, H-E-B, Central Market, and a long list of regional and independent grocers, plus online through Amazon, Instacart, and Vegan Essentials.
Ingredients
The full ingredient list is short: water, vital wheat gluten, soy sauce (water, soybeans, wheat, salt), whole wheat flour, sea salt, garlic, onion. That's it. There's no oil, no added sugar, no gums or stabilizers, and no long list of natural flavors doing invisible work. The product carries Certified Plant Based and Non-GMO marks, along with CRC Kosher certification.
Because it's built on vital wheat gluten rather than soy or pea protein isolate, Traditional Seitan is not suitable for anyone avoiding gluten or wheat — that's worth flagging clearly, since a growing share of "plant-based meat" shoppers are also gluten-sensitive and seitan is the one major meat-alternative category that's a hard no for that group.
Pricing typically lands in the $5 to $7 range for the 8-ounce package depending on the retailer, which works out to roughly $0.65 to $0.90 per ounce — noticeably cheaper per gram of protein than most formulated plant-based meats, since there's no expensive protein-isolate extraction or flavor-engineering process baked into the cost. It's a refrigerated product, not frozen, so it lives in the same case as tofu and tempeh rather than next to the Beyond and Impossible patties in the freezer aisle, which is worth knowing if you've walked past it before without realizing it was there.
Is Upton's Naturals Traditional Seitan Vegan?
Yes. Every ingredient on the label — wheat gluten, soy sauce, whole wheat flour, salt, garlic, onion — is plant-derived, and Upton's Naturals itself is a vegan-owned and vegan-operated company from top to bottom, not just a mainstream brand that happens to sell a plant-based item. There's no hidden honey, no dairy derivative, no shared-line ambiguity to untangle here the way there is with a lot of mainstream snack brands. If you want to double-check any specific Upton's flavor before buying, since some of their seasoned varieties (like certain chorizo or bacon styles) use more complex spice blends, you can run the label through the spvegan.com ingredient checker.
Nutrition: How Traditional Seitan Stacks Up
Seitan's whole appeal is protein density without much fat, and the label backs that up. Here's how it compares to other plant-based proteins by their own standard serving sizes.
| Product | Serving | Calories | Protein | Fat | Sodium |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upton's Naturals Traditional Seitan | 2 oz (57g) | 90 | 18g | 0.5g | 440mg |
| Beyond Meat Beyond Beef, Plant-Based Ground | 4 oz (113g) | 231 | 20g | 14g | 390mg |
| Tofurky Hickory Smoked Deli Slices | 5 slices (52g) | 100 | 13g | 3g | 300mg |
Per ounce, Upton's seitan delivers roughly the same protein as Beyond Beef with a fraction of the fat and calories, because wheat gluten is close to pure protein rather than a formulated blend of oils, protein isolate, and binders. The tradeoff is that seitan doesn't behave or taste like ground beef the way Beyond's products are engineered to — more on that below. If you want the full picture on how a formulated product like that performs, our Beyond Beef Crumbles review covers it in depth.
Taste and Texture
Traditional Seitan is deliberately plain, and that's both its strength and its limitation. Out of the pouch, it has a firm, chewy, slightly springy bite that holds up to high heat without falling apart — pan-fry it, and it browns and crisps at the edges the way a cheaper cut of meat does. Flavor-wise, though, it's genuinely neutral: mostly savory from the soy sauce and salt, with a background wheat-y taste that doesn't try to imitate beef, chicken, or pork the way a Beyond or Impossible product does.
That neutrality is the point. This isn't a swap-in patty you drop on a bun and call done — it's a base you're meant to season aggressively, the way you'd treat raw tofu or tempeh. Marinate it in a Thai peanut sauce, toss it into a Korean-style stir-fry with gochujang, or pan-fry it with smoked paprika and cumin for a taco filling, and the chew does the work while the seasoning carries the flavor. Eaten plain or under-seasoned, it comes across as bland, and that's the most common complaint in outside reviews of the product. If you're looking for something that tastes convincingly like meat straight out of the package, this isn't it; if you want a protein-dense ingredient that takes on whatever flavor you build around it, it delivers.
Upton's Naturals vs. Other Plant Proteins
| Feature | Upton's Traditional Seitan | Beyond Beef | Firm Tofu |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base ingredient | Vital wheat gluten | Pea protein isolate + oils | Soybeans |
| Processing level | Minimally processed, short ingredient list | Highly formulated | Minimally processed |
| Gluten-free | No | Yes | Yes |
| Out-of-package flavor | Neutral, savory | Beef-forward by design | Very neutral |
| Best use | Stir-fries, tacos, sandwiches, bold marinades | Burgers, meatballs, tacos where a "beef" flavor is wanted | Stir-fries, scrambles, baked dishes |
| Protein per 100g (approx.) | ~32g | ~18g | ~15g |
How to Cook It: A Few Tips That Make a Real Difference
Because the product is so plain out of the pouch, how you cook it matters more than with a pre-flavored alternative. A few things make a noticeable difference. First, don't just dump it straight into a pan cold — letting it sit in a marinade for even 15 to 20 minutes helps the chunks actually absorb flavor rather than just wearing a sauce on the outside. Second, high, dry heat is your friend: a hot cast-iron or carbon-steel pan with a thin layer of oil will crisp and brown the edges in a way that a crowded nonstick pan at medium heat won't. Third, resist the urge to over-stir once it's browning — seitan develops better texture and color when it's allowed to sit in contact with the pan for a minute or two at a time, the same way you'd sear a piece of meat rather than constantly tossing it.
It also freezes well if you don't get through the full 8-ounce package within the five-day post-opening window the label recommends. Portioning it into a marinade and freezing flat in a bag is an easy way to build a stash of pre-seasoned, ready-to-cook protein for busy weeknights.
Other Products in the Upton's Naturals Lineup
Traditional Seitan is the starting point, but it's worth knowing the brand also sells more heavily seasoned seitan varieties, including Italian and Chorizo styles that were part of the company's original 2006 launch, along with bacon-style seitan strips, jackfruit-based products marketed as pulled "pork" and "carnitas," and Updog, a plant-based hot dog. If the plain version feels like too much of a blank canvas for a first try, the Chorizo or Italian seitan gives you built-in seasoning while still keeping the same short, recognizable ingredient list the brand is known for. Because those varieties use more involved spice blends, it's still worth a quick label check on whichever specific flavor you pick up, using the spvegan.com ingredient checker if you want to confirm nothing unexpected has been added.
Who Should Buy This
Traditional Seitan makes the most sense for cooks who like to season their own food and want a protein with real chew and structure — think stir-fries, fajitas, grain bowls, or sandwiches where you're already building a sauce or marinade. It's also a good fit if you're specifically trying to avoid the oil and additive load of a formulated product like Beyond or Impossible while still getting a comparable amount of protein per serving. It's a poor fit if you're gluten-free, or if you're looking for something that tastes like meat with zero effort — this needs a few minutes of seasoning to be worth eating.
Final Verdict
Upton's Naturals Traditional Seitan does exactly what it says on the label: it's a short-ingredient, high-protein, low-fat wheat protein that browns well and holds its texture under heat, backed by a company that's actually vegan-run rather than a legacy meat brand testing the plant-based waters. It's not trying to fool anyone into thinking it's beef, and shoppers expecting that will be disappointed by how plain it tastes straight out of the bag. But as a blank-canvas protein for people who already know how to cook, it's hard to beat on nutrition and price relative to the more heavily processed alternatives on the shelf next to it.
Rating: 8/10. Excellent for what it's designed to be — a minimally processed, protein-dense base for seasoned dishes — and a weaker pick if you want a ready-to-eat, meat-mimicking product with no extra work required.
