Latin baked tofu

November 27, 2023

   

I was all set to make us a dinner based around tofu chicharrones one Monday night, but had forgotten the crucial 'freeze and defrost the tofu' stage. This failure had an upside though, in prompting me to get out Viva Vegan and try something different from a book that we really love but seldom explore these days. I settled on this really simple Latin baked tofu, remembering how much we liked the other baked tofu recipes in the book.

This one is probably the simplest of the lot - a very simple marinade and 45 minutes or so of baking and you get a serve of chewy, tangy tofu, ready for whatever you have planned. We combined it with a serve of the silverbeet with raisins and capers recipe that we've made a bunch of times and popped everything in some tortillas. Perfect Monday night meal.

Latin baked tofu

(slightly adapted from Terry Hope Romero's Viva Vegan)

500g of firm tofu, sliced into ~1cm thick rectangles

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon tamari

marinade

1/2 cup white wine

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 tablespoon tamari

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon dried oregano

Preheat the oven to 200°C. 

Combine the olive oil and tamari in a baking tray (approx 30cm x 20cm, but whatever fits your tofu comfortably). Lay the tofu slices in the baking dish and press into the oil mixture, before flipping them over and repeating - you want them nicely coated. 

Bake the tofu for 20 minutes. 

Meanwhile, thoroughly combine all the marinade ingredients in a bowl. Flip the tofu rectangles and pour the marinade over the top, popping everything back in the over for another 25-30 minutes of baking. The marinade should thicken up or evaporate and the tofu should be firm and chewy. 

Serve, scooping out any leftover marinade for extra deliciousness.