45 Best Tofu Recipes! Stir-fries, Marinated, Curries, Sandwiches & More

Tofu is an interesting ingredient. In the initial years when we transitioned to eating vegan, I used to dislike tofu. That was probably because of the tofu I tried in restaurants which was bland or just fried and added to things. No marination, no spices or herbs. Then, I started cooking with it myself and the challenge was to see if would like tofu. Challenge accepted and then some.

Try my Indian butter tofu, Orange Tofu, Cajun Baked Tofu, lemon asparagus pasta, Chili garlic baked tofu, Tofu in Amritsari sauce and then try the rest of the recipes as well.

What is Tofu?

Tofu is basically bean curd. It is made by curdling soy milk (milk from soybeans) and then pressing the resulting curds into blocks. The process is similar to making cheese curds from dairy milk.

During transition, I didn’t particularly eat much Tofu or miss eating it. There were plenty of beans, lentils and legumes in our diet. Tofu is easily more available in restaurants and when travelling, so its a good protein to get to like. And that’s what happened when I started to prepare it in various ways.

If you are avoiding soy, you can use other protein subs in most of these recipes, such as chickpea tofu, cooked chickpeas or beans, roasted veggies, seitan, meat subs etc. Most recipes have the alternatives mentioned to make them soyfree when possible.