Meatless Monday – Crispy Garlic and Ginger Tofu

For a whole month during our vacation, I ate a lot of meat. More meat than I am used to. I ate a lot of seafood in Mexico but when we were in the Philippines, I ate meat almost every day. You gotta try the local delicacies right?

I also ate a lot of sugar, way more sugar than normal too.

Naturally, I was craving veggies when we returned. A ton of veggies. I am going thru a huge (Costco) bag of spinach every week. I want to eat veggies with my breakfast, lunch and dinner. I can’t get enough. I am just eating what my body craves at the moment. So I give in.

I also did not have any appetite for meat dishes. Red meat specifically. I don’t know if I was just turned off by it after eating it for a month, but whatever it is, I did not want to be near it.

I’m slowly making chicken dishes again, but the appetite for red meat has not come back.

I have made a few meatless meals recently and one of them is this tofu recipe I found from Andrea’s blog, Can You Stay For Dinner? . I always drool over her recipes.

I love tofu dishes, especially when prepared to my liking. The husband, not so much of a tofu lover. But he loved this dish.

The key to this dish is the way you marinate the tofu. It takes time but it’s worth it.

Crispy Garlic and Ginger Tofu

Prepare your marinade and sauce:

• ½ cup low sodium soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 3 garlic cloves, minced

Remaining ingredients:

• oil for cooking (I prefer using coconut oil for tofu)
• 16 oz block extra firm tofu, pressed, dried with a towel, and sliced into 1/4” thick strips

Whisk all marinade ingredients in a small bowl.

Lay the slices of tofu in a shallow pan and pour the marinade over the top. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Set a large nonstick frying pan over medium high heat. Add the coconut oil and swirl to coat.

Place the tofu in the pan in a single layer and let them cook for about 8 minutes per side. Check the underside of one of the pieces after 4 minutes to ensure they don’t burn.

The tofu should develop a dark, crisp crust. Remove the tofu from the pan, place it on a serving plate.

Pour the remaining marinade in the pan. Bring to a boil and simmer, stirring frequently, until it has thickened into a glossy syrup.

Pour the thickened soy sauce over the tofu and serve with your sauteed or grilled vegetables.

While the tofu was cooking, I also grilled vegetables on our stovetop grilling pan.

I after I grilled the veggies, I tossed it with thinly sliced green onions.

The tofu came out really tasty. The tofu has a nice blend of flavors that combines the ginger and garlic in the marinade mix. It is more salty than sweet and I love the crispy texture of the tofu strips.

For the husbands plate, I wrapped the tofu and veggies in flour tortillas.

While I ate mine on a bed of whole wheat couscous.

We love this dish and will be making it again. Next time I will double the recipe, both for the tofu and the vegetables so we can have leftovers for the following day.

What meatless recipes have you cooked recently? Do you participate in Meatless Monday (or any other day in the week)?