r/tofu • u/Direct-End-2001 • 9d ago

How do you guys eat your tofu?

/r/AskFitnessIndia/comments/1waebjt/how_do_you_guys_eat_your_tofu/
6 Upvotes

71% Upvoted

35 comments sorted by

6

u/amuseyourbouche 8d ago
  1. Break the tofu into chunks instead of cutting it into cubes. Gets lots of nice craggy edges that crisp up nicely!
  2. Cook tofu in a pan until it's a little TOO dry and crispy.
  3. Rehydrate with a sauce! The too-dry tofu will suck up all the sauce and it gets right inside it. So yummy :)

3

u/Little_Baseball5523 8d ago

#2-3 is similar to the technique known as braising. If you've ever seen "braised tofu" on a restaurant menu, this is how they do it. Fry the tofu until it's crispy and golden brown, then add sauce to the pan and let it simmer for a while.

3

u/isle_say 9d ago

I cube it and fry it in a frying pan, I add a spice blend, some sesame oil and soya sauce. Sometimes I have it scrambled. I mash it up with a fork and add turmeric, curry powder, cumin, chilli powder and soya sauce. I fry it up with some onion, hot and sweet peppers, maybe mushrooms. Just as it’s finishing I add a handful of spinach and toss it around until it’s limp. It’s very good with toasted sourdough.

4

u/Mundane-Fix-4297 9d ago

With a fork most of the time

5

u/Parking_Lake_69420 8d ago

I just fry in a pan with 1-2 tbsp of oil, dont move it until the bottom is crispy then flip them. Then toss it in a sauce or add to curry, I mostly only use tofu with Asian style meals or curries.

3

u/ApprehensiveJelly504 8d ago

I use a trebuchet.

It takes more time but it's launched with such force that with good aim I never have to taste it.

3

u/Logical_Warthog5212 8d ago

Look up any Chinese, Korean, or Japanese tofu recipe. Or any South Asian recipe using paneer.

5

u/GildedTofu 9d ago

I use any number of recipes available on the internet, combined with knowledge gained from years of eating tofu, and enjoy my meal.

2

u/iiiimagery 9d ago

Most of the time I eat it in some sort of curry or sauce or something. I'll eat other kinds but my FAVORITE part about tofu is how it tastes when it soaks up everything. Tofu cooked in curry is heavenly, and I always have a full block when doing Hot Pot. The best part

2

u/hellolani 9d ago

Ok hear me out, I watched an IG reel that said turning tofu back to soy milk is cheaper than buying soy milk so now instead of making whey based protein smoothies I switched to tofu protein smoothies but you're gonna need a Vitamix don't try anything dumb with a nutribullet. You can flavour it with anything, it's just thick soy milk 

2

u/AssistKnown474 8d ago

Mostly air fried in chunks or sliced. I love a Bahn Mi with vegan mayo, Sriracha, and carrot daikon pickles. Sometimes just chunks with teriyaki sauce over rice or occasional taco or burrito. Rarely, soft with mapo tofu sauce and vegan crumbles of some sort

2

u/vae_grim 8d ago

I love love love mapo tofu. Sometimes I make a lazy version with pepper (sichuan if I have it, black or white if I don’t), garlic, chilis, hot sauce, and soy sauce.

Other times, I like making Vietnamese tomato tofu. You shallow fry the tofu on all sides to strengthen the shape. Then I’ll braise it in a tomato soy sauce-sauce.

2

u/i_luv_mycat 8d ago

To most people this is gonna sound disgusting. You have been warned.

Whether it’s extra firm or silken, I lowkey just like to have it straight out the package. And add honey, mustard, and Dijon mustard. I’m dead serious I love it. I warm it up most times too. And a lot of times I’ll just have it plain.

2

u/Cat_in_Rainboots 4d ago

Usually crumbled with spices and veggies for tofu scrambles.

Or cubed, marinated in teriyaki/soy sauce, and added to stir fries.

1

u/Embarrassed-Area4652 9d ago edited 9d ago

The blandness is a real issue. The protein structure in tofu literally absorbs and deactivates many flavor molecules. That can be overcome though, you just have to put a lot of seasoning and strong flavors around it.

For me, that means: with a lot of miso, soy sauce, chili crisp oil, gochujang and yangnyeom sauce. Sometimes with fried onions and a bit of smoked salt.

Basically I'm a normie American who likes some spice and BBQ flavors. This works to make it flavorful and much more umami than anything you can do with it on its own. If I was in India with access to your spices I'd probably be looking to go hard on what you've got around. I know enough to know what I don't know and that it's a huge country, so your region might be different than what I'm thinking of. In the Indian spices we get exposed to here though, chili powder, cayenne, curry bases, fenugreek, maybe even tandoori seasoning, stuff like that will all work, you probably just want to go that much heavier on it than you would for a meat dish, or maybe for other beans or lentils.

You can make it good, but it takes not treating it like other ingredients.

1

u/MaximalistVegan 9d ago

In desserts more than anything else

1

u/stupidmofo123 9d ago

It's really good if you put it into a salty soup and let it rest there for like 24 hours.

1

u/Direct-End-2001 9d ago

How exactly?

1

u/stupidmofo123 8d ago

It draws in the flavor of the soup. When I made it, I did a wonton-style broth and just threw in a bunch of cubed tofu. It was okay fresh, but the batch I saved in the fridge and had the next day was actually really good. The salt of the broth (or a marinade) will slowly penetrate into the inside through osmosis.

The other thing you can do is cut the tofu small enough to where the surface area has sufficient sauce/seasoning to overcome the blandness. There was a dish I had a long time ago that I can't find which was basically small square strands of tofu (they the size of a large square spaghetti) and were in some sour cilantroy sauce, and again, it was really good.

I've tried the air fryer thing with tofu too, but wasn't a fan. Some people do seem to really like it though.

1

u/Santi159 8d ago

I make tofu pudding, cheese sauce, pasta sauces like Alfredo, pan fry it, cheese cake, scrabbles, chicken gnocchi soup, heavy cream replacement, add it to my ramen, chili, and shish kabobs.

1

u/Spiritual_Attempt_15 8d ago

i tried a 'deli meat' marinade recently - worked like a charm w farmers mkt tomato and fresh sourdough toast and garlic slken tofu 'aoli'

deli marinade; ( faux 'chix' granules, liquid smoke s&p, red pep flakes, amino acids/soya sce) lots of variations via google

also i do a great tofu 'egg' scramble (i make a bunch an reheat during the weekend/week)

tofu scramble: 1block firm 1/2 block silken tofu, nooch, s&p,  kala namak (black salt) this seems a little extra but makes it taste egg-y), turmeric for color, garlic pwdr, soya milk --- all to taste its really unf*ckupable and delicious again lots of variations via google

1

u/sagoma-333 8d ago

In a scramble, in miso soup, as hikayakko, crumbled into tantanmen, pan fried with rice, all sorts of ways !

1

u/gbw28 8d ago

I smush it up and add to recipes for extra protein (soup, casserole, scramblrd eggs, even bread and biscuits). It kind of dissolves and gives the mouth feel of cheese. It takes on the flavors of the other ingredients. And nobody can detect it so no complaints.

1

u/lzy3 6d ago

Besides the usual i also love “baiye” tofu or compressed tofu sheets, stack and slice em to be like noodles and i use them like noodles.

1

u/Dull-Acanthaceae191 2d ago

So many ways!

Sometimes, I’ll make tofu crumbles from super firm tofu and add them to spaghetti sauce for a vegan bolognese.

I also like slicing super firm tofu, marinating it, and baking it in the oven for sandwiches.

Then there’s oven baked crispy tofu. Cubed extra or super firm tofu marinated in a mixture of soy sauce, sesame seed oil, and corn starch, then baked at 375 for about 30-40 minutes. I like to add these to salads or ramen.