Tofu Burgers

This recipe was among my first tries at cooking with tofu.  I think the original recipe came from one of Molly Katzen's Moosewood cookbooks, but I'm not entirely sure now.  I did find the combination of flavors in the OR both a little weird (tahini, miso and basil???) and underwhelming, and have over time found my own happy flavor mix.  But the basic technique for creating a burger patty out of tofu remains the same.  A delicious twist on this flavor mixture is using a curry paste instead of tomato paste with mint for the fresh herbs. 

The one thing you can do "wrong" here is to make the mixture too wet by not pressing enough moisture out of the thawed tofu or by adding too much stock.  The result will be a mushy patty rather than a toothsome burger at the end of cooking.

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Tofu Parmesan and BBQ Mushroom Quesadillas

It's a twofer!  What unites these recipes is the sauteed onion-and-mushroom component of each...it's a small element of the Tofu Parmesan sauce and a main part of the BBQ Mushroom Quesadilla filling.  If you're slicing, chopping and sauteeing for one dish, you might as well do enough for both.  Both recipes are adapted from the 28 Day Diabetic Meal Plan from diabeticconnect.com.  I apologize for no finished product pictures...I cooked these two meals on two of my busiest nights (and they cooked up FAST!) and consequently forgot to photograph. 

Tofu scares a lot of people, but in this dish it's nothing to be frightened of.  Freezing "toughens" the tofu, usually a problem with other foods, but a bonus here.  It gives the tofu "steaks" a toothier, meatier texture, so making this one into a freezer kit suits the recipe extremely well. 

I will say though that my Dear Husband and I decided we prefer the tofu unfrozen for this recipe, so in future, I will fridge the 'fu rather than freezing it as part of a freezer kit.  If do you freeze the tofu, pat the cutlets dry gently rather than pressing hard...you want moisture to remain in the cutlet to allow the crumb coating to stick.  I think I'd also go for more, thinner cutlets for freezing...6 instead of 4...for a more appealing texture.  Carry on!

Quesadillas are wonderfully fast to put together and cook.  You can assemble the quesadilla in its entirety (as I do) to freeze, or just the filling to thaw and assemble later.  It simply depends on whether you have more time on the front end (in prep) or on the back end (in actual cooking).  If you make the quesadillas up fully, you can bake them off from their frozen state for a super-fast, no-plan dinner.

To make both dinner kits, start with:

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Low carb, high protein snack foods

If I titled the post Tofu Jerky, would you have bothered to read?  Thought not.

It's been a bazillion years since I made this, and I forgot how much I actually like it.  Granted, you gotta like jerky in general.  But let me tell you, the kiddos are loving it...their gateway into the world of truck stop food :D  And it doesn't need refrigerated (which a lot of low-carb snack foods do).

The trick here is to press as much water out of the tofu as possible first so that it takes up as much marinade as possible.  That means this is a 3 step process (press, marinate, bake) and none of those steps are short ones.  So make a lot at once to make it worth your while.  Also, slice the tofu as thin as you can manage to get a better finished product and to shorten up the baking time...more thickness means more moisture means longer baking. 

If you have a food dehydrator, you can use that too instead of baking or Alton Brown had some kind of jerky-making set-up involving a box fan and an A/C filter that you can try, if you're so inclined.

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Grilled Tofu Mexican Wraps

This is a partial freezer meal...you can freeze the marinated tofu, the tortillas, and the dressing for the slaw but not the slaw itself.  You'll need a fresh veg to complete this meal, either a package of cabbage slaw, shredded carrots, shredded lettuce or some other shredded crunchy veggie, or a combination of the above.  If you want insurance against forgetting to pick something up for Dinner Day if you're freezing ahead, get a package of frozen Mexican vegetables.  In a pinch, you can nuke them, dress them and fold them into your wrap.

Lime is the dominant flavor in the tofu marinade and in the slaw dressing, the former with the juice of a 1 lime and the latter with its zest.  You'll need a bit more juice to round out the dressing and marinade...orange juice would be great, but I rarely have OJ in the house any more and I used apple juice today.  The slaw dressing was a bit sweeter than usual as a result, but it went over very well with the under-3's. 


This is very seriously my favorite tofu recipe ever.  Ever, ever, ever.  That's why there are two totally gratutitous food porn pics above...couldn't decide which looked scrummier :D

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Teriyaki Tofu and Roasted Pineapple

I make my own teriyaki sauce for this dish because the sauce is so prominent in this recipe and store-bought teriyaki sauce is just foul.  I make up the sauce a day before I'm going to use it, so I'll start pressing the tofu and make the sauce the night before Dinner Day, strain out the garlic cloves and ginger chunks and start marinating the cubed tofu the morning of, and then drain off the marinade to roast that night.  If you make this as a freezer kit, I'd freeze the teriyaki sauce separately from the pressed but uncut tofu block.  When you thaw it, cube the tofu and marinate at least an hour before roasting.

You can substitute just about any protein you want in this dish...marinate chunks of chicken breast or pork loin and roast for the same amount of time and at the same temperature.  It's a great way to accomodate vegetarians and non-vegetarians at the same meal without making completely separate main dishes.  If you do use tofu however, you can strain, freeze and reuse the marinate once more (if you marinate chicken or pork, chuck the remaining marinade).

I nearly always serve this with broccoli, steamed or roasted.  Tonight, I'm roasting broccolini on the same sheet pan with the fruit to save creating more heat with the stovetop.  And tonight's oven-use three-fer (#1 tofu/pineapple, #2 broccolini side dish)...a blind-baked crust for strawberry pie! 


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Tofu Broccolini Salad with Udon Noodles

Another try-out from Cooking Light May '11.  The picture is so mouth-watering, I immediately picked up ingredients for the recipe before really reading through the steps.  Oops.  Incredibly step-heavy.  A lot of last-minute cooking.  So not how I roll.

The majority of my changes to this recipe are in preparation timeline and combining separate steps to produce a more streamlined, make-ahead friendly dish.  The one major ingredient change I made is to use WAAAAYYYYYY less sriracha than the recipe calls for. Ginger brings its own heat, radishes typically have some zing and you just don't need to blow the roof of your mouth off with an additional half tablespoon of liquid fire, thankyouverymuch.

There are 4 main components to this dish, and almost all of them can be done up to a day ahead.  Store each element of the salad separately, boil the noodles (and broccolini, if desired) last minute and toss everything together. 

Tofu under a paver

You need to press the tofu as it's full of water which will prevent the tofu taking in the marinade.  You can wrap it in paper towels and press it under a weight (I use a fluorescent yellow paving stone) overnight, all day long or for as little as 30 minutes, though the less water you press out of it, the less marinade it will take on later. 



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Store-bought vs. homemade: Thousand Island Dressing

Don't get me wrong!  I am all about store-bought for some things...pie crusts, peanut butter, roasted red peppers.  But I simply do not understand what has happened to the manufactured version of many things to make them taste the way they do...teriyaki sauce (more on which later), mayonnaise, salad dressings.  When you make these things at home, they taste NOTHING like their store-bought counterparts.  Not always better (SEE peanut butter), but totally dissimilar and in many cases in my oh-pinion, the homemade version is in fact superior in taste.  And cheaper.  And healthier.  And cheaper. 

So Thousand Island Dressing.  I made some as an enticing dip for crudité.  It takes nothing like store-bought, which is a giant plus as far as I'm concerned.  My better half who likes store-bought TID also liked this, so don't give up on it if you do happen to enjoy the Miracle of Modern Chemistry that is shelf-stable salad dressing.  I like the tofu base here as a way to sneak in extra protein and reduce fat content.  This recipe uses the type of tofu that comes in a box, like this:

I know it seems asinine to use just a couple tablespoons of minced vegetables.  Here's what I did...I'm planning to make cheesesteaks later in the week, so I went ahead and sliced some onions and green peppers for that, stole a slice or two of each for this recipe, and put the rest in a container to saute later.  I get double-mileage out of my prepwork!

Homemade Thousand Island Dressing
Makes 1 1/2 cups


Finely chopped veg



3 tbsp minced fresh onion

3 tbsp minced bell pepper

3 tbsp minced green olives

1 hard boiled egg, finely chopped

1 10 oz. aseptic package firm tofu

1/4 cup ketchup

1 tsp BBQ seasoning (I'm using Penzey's)

1 tsp worcestershire sauce

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp lemon juice

Put onion, green peppers, olives and egg in a food processor and pulse until very finely chopped.  You don't want big chunks of anything left.

Add the tofu, and pulse until tofu is smooth.  Add remaining ingredients and pulse to combine.

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Stay-in Take-out: Hot & Sour Soup

Again, adapted from the Argo cookbook.  I add more "stuff" than the original because I like soup that falls closer to the "hearty" end of the hearty-brothy spectrum, and I dialed the heat back (too much for the hubbie's liking, but good for me). 

I think the big issue in controlling the heat in this soup is which chili-garlic hot sauce product you use.  The recipe calls for "chili garlic sauce" which I interpret as the relatively mild Thai garlic chili sauce, though there is also sriracha's chili garlic cousin which will make your nose sweat and your head run.  The original recipe also calls for ground white pepper, which I do not keep in my spice collection, for which I substitute more chili garlic concoction rather than using another ground pepper.  Next time I make this, I'll use 3 tsp of the milder chili garlic sauce, or perhaps 1 tsp of the super-hot version.

This is a great prep-ahead meal.  It took me about 25 minutes to get everything sliced and measured in the morning, and only about 5 minutes to cook the soup.  Do the prep the night before and stick everything in the fridge for super-duper fast dinner the next day.

Clockwise from top left: seasoning sauce, mushrooms/tofu/bamboo shoots, broth, sliced pork, eggs, cornstarch

Hot and Sour Soup
Makes 6 servings

1 oz. dried woodear mushrooms (or other dry mushroom)
4 oz. sliced fresh button mushrooms
1 4 oz. can bamboo shoots, sliced lengthwise
8 oz. tofu, cubed small
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8 oz. lean pork, sliced thinly
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1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice vinegar
3 tsp chili garlic sauce (mild) OR 1 tsp chili garlic sauce (hot)
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp sugar or Splenda
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6 cups broth, vegetable or chicken
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1/3 cup cornstarch
3/4 cup water
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2 eggs, beaten well
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Garnish (optional):  sliced green onions, cilantro, parsley, chives
Soak the dry mushrooms in warm water for 15 minutes.  Meanwhile slice the fresh mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and tofu and combine in a container.  Drain the soaked mushrooms and chop coarsely.  Add those to the other vegetables. 

Slice the pork and put that in a separate container.  Combine the soy sauce, vinegar, chili garlic sauce, sesame oil and sugar in another container.  If prepping ahead, measure out  broth, if necessary, and put in a sealable container.  If prepping ahead, measure out cornstarch but do not add water until just before cooking.  Beat eggs and place in another container. 

When ready to cook, add the water to the cornstarch and mix well.  Boil the broth in a 3 or 4 quart pot.  Add the pork and boil 1 minute (the pork will cook in this time if you have sliced thinly; cook longer if the pork is in bigger pieces).  Add the seasoning sauce, vegetables and cornstarch slurry.  Cook 1 minute longer.  Stir the pot in a circular motion while slowly pouring in beaten eggs.  Cook until eggs form cooked strands.  Top with optional green stuff. Pin It

Tofu Enchiladas

This begs to be assembled as a freezer kit.  Shredded tofu toughens up a bit in the freezing/thawing process, which works well in this dish.  Calm down, calm down...you don't have to use tofu, but if you're looking to expand your protein repertoire, give this a try!

You can freeze the sauce, the tortillas, the shredded tofu, the onion/garlic/spice mixture and shredded cheese, keep a can of black olives in the pantry and you're good to go.  Optionally, you may want to have guacamole, sour cream, fresh chopped onion, sliced avocado on hand when you're ready to serve.

For tofu rookies, you can get water-pack and aseptic box tofu.  They're usually both in the refrigerated area of the produce section.  The water pack tofu is firmer and better suited for dinner dishes, in my oh-pinion.  The aseptic box tofu makes kick-butt desserts though. 
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