How to make TOFU taste 10X BETTER!

here's how I actually tried Tofu for the first time a decade ago now after a while I could make tofu tolerable but to be honest I still thought that tofu sucks in this video I'm going to show you the four main types of tofu and how to prepare them for cooking then we're going to launch right into six Unforgettable tofu recipes all of them are fantastic especially number two which blew my mind so get ready your tofu game is about to get 10 times better so when picking out your tofu the main decision that you're going to make in the grocer store is what level of firmness you want your tofu to have silken tofu is very soft and perfect for smoothies soups or even as a base for sauces and dips it's smooth and creamy texture really Blends well adding richness and protein to your dishes next we have firm tofu this type of tofu is still quite soft so it's great for dishes where you still want to have a little bit of gentle texture like in an eggless tofu salad baking it also helps get you a crispy texture on the outside while soft and creamy on the inside extra firm and super firm tofu are your best options if you want a really meaty texture that comes out super crispy after cooking between the two of these super firm tofu has the most protein density and also the strongest texture as the name and Plies for silk and tofu you often just need to throw it into your dish such as a smoothie or some sauces but for the other kinds of tofu that are more firm there are many different ways that you can prep it so the first way that you can prep firm tofu is by taking an entire entire unopened package and throwing in the freezer no wait I'm Bing [Music] you then you can bring it out and you can thaw it after freezing and then drain it to get a really nice chewy texture now the simplest way to prep your tofu is just taking it right out of the fridge cutting it open draining the excess water and then it's ready to cook honestly that's what I do 99% of the time because it's super easy and super fast however lots of people like to press their tofu and generally speaking the less from your tofu the more water it's going to have in it which means the more you're going to need to press the excess water out to get a meteor texture now honestly I've been vegan for about 10 years and I have never purchased a tofu press until this video so it's really not something that you need to have but if you do like to press your tofu and do that on a regular basis then this could be a good investment for you that was a little high as I said I pretty much never press my tofu and one reason is because I often use super firm tofu so super firm tofu you don't need to press because it already has a really low water content okay now we've been talking so much about tofu are I'm pretty curious let's do it it tastes like kind of bad coconut it's like kind of bad coconut water it's not great definitely wouldn't want to drink all that but tofu is great o 10 out of 10 for that transition to show a scoring method of preparing tofu we're going to be making barbecue tofu steaks preheat the oven to 400° and prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat grab as many blocks of super firm tofu as you like when cooking tofu I recommend making extra for the week just know that each marinade recipe in this video will yield one serving which is enough to marinate one block of tofu so be sure to multiply the measurements by how many blocks you want to make as you go through each recipe I'll be cooking two blocks of tofu myself and making two servings of marinade still all measurements on screen will be for a single serving to get started with making our barbecue tofu steak cut the Block in half lengthwise you can also cut the block into thirds for a more slim and Well Done stake on each half start making diagonal cuts that go through the block halfway we do not want to slice through the entire block one trick is to use wooden spoons or Chopsticks to keep the knife from cutting all the way through then repeat the step in the opposite direction making diagonal cuts that are perpendicular to the ones we just made in a flat bottom Bowl add 1/4 cup of your favorite barbecue sauce 1 tbsp of apple cider vinegar and half a teaspoon each of paprika and garlic powder add each tofu steak to the Bowl crisscross side down Fanning it out just slightly we want to be sure to get as much sauce to the center of the tofu as possible so the whole thing has great flavor flip and gently press down again use a spoon to add more of the sauce into the crevices there should be a little sauce left over you can open up the tofu even more by pressing in a teaspoon or two of minced garlic this will create extra room for our barbecue marinade and allow our steak to cook more thoroughly transfer your tofu steaks to the pan and pop in the oven for about 45 minutes until the edges are nice and crispy once they are done you can drizzle with the remaining sauce for extra flavor all right time for some barbecue tofu steak taste test let's see how we [Music] did well cooked I can taste a lot of the garlic which is good cuz I love garlic yeah it's actually a nice uh nice addition and some tofu steak now I could actually Crush that right now I'd give this a four out of five barbecue isn't really my good go too but it has a really nice flavor it has a really extra firm for lack of a better word tough texture in a good way it just tastes really meaty I think the garlic helped a lot I love garlic so that was a good addition I think that really helped it to cook thoroughly very good four out of five so next up I'm going to show you a recipe with tofu torn into chunks by making some peanut butter tofu chicken pizza pieces to make some super crispy tofu that tastes like it was fried we want to use a thick high-fat sauce we're going to be using peanut butter for that so we can avoid using oil while we make our Thai inspired peanut marinade feel free to press out any excess water from the tofu in a bowl add 1/4 cup of peanut butter 2 tbspoon of tamari 2 tpoon of rice vinegar 1 tbspoon of maple syrup how impractical is this handle can we talk about that so usually I steer clear of oil which is why peanut butter is the base of the sauce but I will be using a little bit of sesame oil because it does add a nice flavor 1 teaspoon of sesame oil half a teaspoon each of garlic powder and ginger powder 1 tbsp of cornstarch and 3 tbspoon of water if the sauce is still really thick you can add another tablespoon of water whisk to combine pull the tofu apart with your fingers into bite-sized chunks and drop them into the bowl so I use py rice containers so I can put Tops on them and shake it but you can just use a mixing bowl and then use a wooden spoon to mix it all around add tofu to your air fryer at 400° for about 12 to 14 minutes until it is nice and crispy all right so here are our peanut butter tofu chicken bites and this is paired with a nice kind of Asian inspired dish moment of truth that tofu is really good that peanut butter is awesome so I'll be honest we made this a few hours ago because we're filming and that's just how it goes on set I wish I had tried it when it first came out of the air fryer but I wanted to do a genuine authentic reaction on camera so we didn't do that yeah I think if it's just a little if it's a little crispier too that's a 4. 8 with a crisp extra crispy probably 4. 9 next up we're going to be cutting our tofu into squares and we're going to be making some spicy tofu bites and we're going to be using the tofu that we froze and then defrosted to create a meteor texture let's do it so whenever you're cooking your tofu you can either apply the sauce before or after for this recipe we're going to experiment with both so as I said I don't usually press My Tofu but if I am going to press My Tofu it would just be by taking a towel like this and then applying a little bit of pressure lay the block of tofu flat and cut in half lengthwise next flip each half with a cut Edge facing up and slice lengthwise into thirds flip the tofu over onto its side so the cut layers are stacked then slice into thirds to make squares if you like you can also make a diagonal cut on each Square to make triangles both are great shapes for dipping the tofu easily in into sauce combine 1/4 cup of hot sauce half a teaspoon of garlic powder and 1 tbspoon of corn starch for the tofu that we're air frying before we add our sauce I'm going to use some liquid aminos to help the corn starch stick air Fry at 400° for 12 to 14 minutes or until crispy you can make either version of The Spicy tofu bites but I'm going to show you how to make both all right so our tofu is super spongy and absorbent so we actually went through all the sauce and I need to add a little bit more so I'd probably use one and a half of the servings that I did originally I'm so vegan I don't even use sponges I use frozen and pressed tofu she it wipe the counters down air Fry at 400° for 12 to 14 minutes or until crispy so while our spicy tofu bites are cooking in the air fryer we're going to be whipping up some creamy vegan Ranch so for the base of this dressing we're going to be using Sil in tofu so we're basically going to be dipping tofu in tofu and that's going to give us an extra boost of protein nice sound effect to a blender add one block of silk and tofu 2 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard 1 tbsp of garlic powder 1 tbsp of onion powder 1 tbsp of nutritional yeast and half a teaspoon each of both salt and and pepper blend until smooth and then pour into a jar roughly chop up about 2 tbspoon of fresh dill and then mix into the jar this tofu Ranch will thicken slightly in the fridge so add water as desired to thin so again we're going to try this dish two different ways we add the sauce before we air fried which brings a more crunchy flavor and we're also adding the sauce after air frying which adds a more intense flavor okay time for the taste test there's so many different flavors happening and also the tofu has a really unique texture this is the one that we froze ahead of time and then defrosted I don't think I've ever had spicy chicken wing anything like vegan or not it's just not really my thing so I've always seen celery sticks with these but I've never experienced the cel stick with this feel like I've got a lot of first on this channel so what do you dip this one too you do that in one and the other is that how it works let's try it I like that that's nice kind of helps bring the intensity down a little bit I need some soy milk see how many different types of uh soy we got right now now so we got the tofu that we dip in tofu that we wash down with tofu milk so yeah that's a little too spicy for me I'd probably give it a 3.

8 I like the sauce probably give that sauce a 4. 2 now let's try the UNS spiced version all right let's try this I actually really like that combo I don't even watch football and I'm thinking like I need to watch some football right now isn't that what you do when you eat this kind of food I would actually give that a 4. 5 that's a five out of five every day if you like almond milk or coconut milk or oat milk you're wrong soy milk is a superior plant milk next up we're going to be making some Savory tofu crumbles which is one of my personal favorites and we're going to be using firm tofu and using a stove this is one of the quickest ways to prepare tofu because all you need to do is crumble it up into a pan and cook it all right so I'm using a non-stick pan because I don't want to add any oil and to crumble this tofu I know it sounds gross and it kind of looks gross but it produces a really great crumble so all I'm going to do is take in my hands like this and extrude it just crushing it I know it looks weird but it crumbles very perfectly I always wash my hands first if you don't wash your hands first yes it's extra gross so don't do that now while we let this cook for a few minutes I'm going to start making our sauce while that's cooking grab a bowl and combine a/4 cup of tamari 2 tbspoon of maple syrup 2 tpoon of apple cider vinegar half a teaspoon of garlic powder and half a teaspoon of paprika then mix so at this point I've cooked off most of the moisture and we're ready to add our sauce pour the sauce into the pan and immediately mix to coat all the tofu the sauce will bubble from the heat continue to cook the Tofu for another 5 minutes until all the edges are slightly browned it's time for some Savory tofu crumbles let's get some of the avocado on here actually I should try the tofu crumbles by themselves let's do that first hard to go wrong with those you know we added maple syrup to this didn't we we had maple syrup and that is a fantastic idea I'm in the mood for kind of salty meals but that adds a little bit of sweetness in a way that's really delightful to the tongue hard to go wrong with some tofu crumbles I would give this a 4.

3 pretty good all right on to next one so we just covered a bunch of different ways that you can season prepare and cook tofu but now I'm going to show you my go-to daily tofu recipe this super fast recipe only has three ingredients we have extra firm tofu teraki sauce that's store bought so it's all ready to go and we also have some table tasty which is some seasoning that we're going to put on the top and to show you just how fast you can prepare this recipe I'm going to set a timer 3 2 1 go all right so the first thing I'm going to do is cut it like so actually I'll cut it together on here so I'm going to cut it into four different sections top the sides now I'm going to take the top off line it up as so I'm going to butterfly cut it which means I'm going to cut through about half of it going either way so this is what it looks like going to put on a little bit of sauce on the top as so you don't need too much you're going to go ahead put the sauce into the top you can also use super firm Tofu for this which is actually what I normally use what I like most about the butterfly cut is that it Cooks thoroughly throughout the the entire cube of tofu and it just makes a better texture and taste so now what I'm going to do is put a little bit of this on top put that in for 415 minutes so it's about 4 minutes to do that whole thing actually I still had to like open things and show things to the camera so I think you can do it in less than 4 minutes so super fast really easy and also it tastes delicious wow who made this amazing tofu dish this looks like the best one by far I wonder what this one tastes like I definitely didn't eat this yesterday pretty solid but i' have to be honest and say this is probably like a 37 doesn't beat the other ones today going to have to uh go back can rework my recipes it's pretty solid it's also super fast which is the main reason I love it well that piece was a little better that was a 39 I don't feel like this deserves a a 4.