Delicious pumpkin seed crusted tofu with a poached egg.
We could all stand to eat a lot less meat, poultry and fish on a day to day basis. One of the problems with being omnivorous is that meat, poultry and fish make you lazy – they are the stars of the plate, just demanding a few simple sides to round out a meal that will be filling enough that you won’t be staring at the fridge hungrily in a few hours. See, if you don’t cook vegetarian all that often it can be difficult to prepare a filling meal that will stick with you, it is just so much easier to fry up a steak.
Enter tofu, the bland block of coagulated soy milk you have never learned to love. Today we’re going to change all that. Here we present a collection of the most delicious tofu recipes on the web. You’ll never have to worry about Meatless Monday menu planning again.
Taking Meatless Monday as our guide we’ve collected the best tofu recipes for your three square meals of the day. First off is breakfast and we go for the obvious choice, the tofu scramble. Sounds so boring right? This Southwestern Tofu Scramble incorp0rates chilies, cumin, cilantro and, most importantly, salt to bring some flavour to the mix. Breakfast burritos stuffed with tofu marinated salsa actually look kind of bland in this recipe, I’d add some chopped spinach to brighten them up. Breakfast in a glass can become super pumped and hearty if you add tofu to your smoothie, like in this recipe that includes strawberries and bananas.
Barbecue tofu sandwiches are delicious at lunch, the secret is to slice the tofu and press it to get as much liquid as possible out. This helps the barbecue sauce to permeate the ‘meat’. Love this spicy kimchi tofu stew, which is ladled into bowls then topped with a raw egg yolk that cooks in the broth.
For dinner I love mapo tofu, the lovely numbing heat of Szechuan peppercorns is perfect for a fall day. Though the dish usually calls for ground pork, this recipe replaces it with earthy shiitake mushrooms and black beans. Tofu dipped in soy, then baked with chopped peppers and served with a delicious peanut sauce is super simple to make. My favourite entrée that showcases tofu comes from No.7 in New York, their pumpkin crusted tofu with lemongrass broth rice noodles and poached eggs is divine and you can easily make it at home.
After a day of eating tofu in all these new and different recipes you can finish up with a tofu dessert. There’s this recipe for orange scented silken tofu in ginger syrup that eats like a luscious custard, or this chocolate tofu pudding, or this recipe, which is my favourite, for Martha’s lemon cream with blackberries. Delicious!