Let's Talk Tofu

Hey you. Yes you. I'm looking at you. The one with the drumstick glued to your hand. Put.it.down. Now focus on the following picture.

Good job. Just take some deep breaths. I know it's easy to get sucked into the turkey leftover rut, but resist. And make the best tofu ever instead.

Need even more convincing? It won't take 10 hours to make, like that slightly disappointing, completely over-rated Thanksgiving Feast you are still trying to digest.

All snarky Thanksgiving comments aside, this is truly the best tofu I've ever made, and possibly the best I've ever eaten as well.

To make it, I basically followed this Cooking Light recipe for Udon Noodle Salad with Broccolini and Spicy Tofu, with a few modifications based on what I had on hand. In spite of the the fact that the tofu is mentioned last in the name of this dish, it is the real star.

Let's make tofu.

After pressing and cubing extra firm tofu, I marinated the cubes for ~15 minutes in a mixture of 2 tablespoons of sesame oil, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and 1 tablespoon of Sriracha sauce.

After the 15 minutes of soak time, I spread the tofu cubes in a single layer on a cookie sheet (coated with cooking spray as instructed) and roasted them for 10 minutes at 350 degrees F. (again, all per the recipe) When I pulled the tofu out of the oven it wasn't even close to being crispy. And trust me, successful tofu needs to be crispy.

I made the best decision of the day by cranking up a dry skillet to scoring hot and quickly searing all the cubes.

Perfection. I will never make tofu any other way. And neither should you. Yes, I'm bossy, but I'm right.

If you are wondering how the rest of the noodle salad came together, here it is:

Blanch bok choy and broccoli (which isn't scary at all...I'd never actually blanched anything before!) and toss with crisp radishes, crunchy cashews, tender noodles all dressed in the leftover marinade and a generous splash of rice vinegar.

This totally beats a leftover turkey sandwich any day!

Love to all,
~the, "even though an actual tofurkey freaks me out, I love tofu" gal, Jess

PS. If you were wondering how I press my tofu? Well, good ol' Joy comes in handy now and again!