Ingredient

Tofu Recipes

10 recipes with tofu for weeknights, meal prep, and quick ingredient searches. Choose by time, cuisine, and what is in your kitchen.

10 recipes

Crispy Fried Tofu with firm tofu, cornstarch and garlic cloves — Japan recipe

🇯🇵JapanEasy

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Crispy Fried Tofu

Japanese golden fried tofu with a crispy cornstarch crust, served with a simple soy-garlic sauce, sesame seeds, and scallion. A dish that wins over even tofu skeptics.

30 min190 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick🌱Vegan

Curry Laksa with chicken, coconut milk and rice noodles — Malaysia recipe

🇲🇾MalaysiaMedium

Soups

Curry Laksa

Curry laksa is a Malaysian-Singaporean noodle soup: rice noodles sitting in a spiced coconut curry broth, topped with chicken or shrimp, bean sprouts, and half a boiled egg. The coconut milk gives the broth a rounded sweetness, the curry paste brings heat and color, and a squeeze of lime at the table cuts through the richness. Malaysia and Singapore each have dozens of regional versions, from mild to fiery.

30 min960 kcal2 serves

🌶️Spicy🌾Gluten-free💪High protein

Miso Soup with miso paste, tofu and seaweed — Japan recipe

🇯🇵JapanEasy

Soups

Miso Soup

Miso soup (味噌汁, miso shiru) is a Japanese soup of dashi stock with miso paste stirred in, here with silken tofu, wakame seaweed and scallion. Ready in 15 minutes with just 5 ingredients. Regular dashi is made with katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes) and some miso is made with barley, so for a vegetarian or gluten-free bowl use kombu dashi and a rice or soybean miso labelled gluten-free. The one rule: never boil the soup once the miso is in, or its aroma cooks off.

15 min90 kcal2 serves

⚡Quick🥑Keto

Pad Thai with rice noodles, eggs and bean sprouts — Thailand recipe

🇹🇭ThailandMedium

Cereal and Pasta Dishes

Pad Thai

Stir-fried rice noodles with egg, bean sprouts, peanuts, and your choice of protein — shrimp, chicken, or tofu — in a sauce built on tamarind, fish sauce, and palm sugar. The three-part balance of sour, salty, and sweet is what makes Pad Thai distinct from any other noodle dish in the world. It is one of Thailand's most iconic street foods, eaten at vendors across Bangkok and virtually every Thai restaurant globally. The sauce is the whole recipe — get the sauce right and the rest is quick. Two rules matter most: cook in small batches so the wok stays hot enough to caramelize the sauce, and never overcook the noodles.

25 min580 kcal2 serves

🌾Gluten-free⚡Quick🌶️Spicy

Lo Mein with noodles, oyster sauce and soy sauce — China recipe

🇨🇳ChinaMedium

Cereal and Pasta Dishes

Lo Mein

Lo mein is a Chinese dish of soft egg noodles stir-fried with vegetables and protein in a glossy, savory sauce built on oyster sauce, light and dark soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, and sesame oil. Lo mein (捞面) translates from Cantonese as 'stirred noodles' — the name describes the cooking method, a scooping, tossing motion that coats every strand. Unlike chow mein, where the noodles are fried until crispy, lo mein noodles stay soft and slippery, coated in a thick, glossy sauce. The dark soy sauce is the detail that gives the dish its characteristic deep mahogany color; without it the dish looks pale. The sauce is premixed before the wok goes on — lo mein moves fast.

25 min570 kcal2 serves

⚡Quick

Tofu Pad Thai with rice noodles, tofu and tamarind paste — Thailand recipe

🇹🇭ThailandMedium

Cereal and Pasta Dishes

Tofu Pad Thai

Tofu pad thai is the vegetarian take on Thailand's best-known noodle dish: flat rice noodles stir-fried with crisp tofu, egg, bean sprouts and spring onions in a sauce of tamarind, soy sauce and palm sugar, finished with crushed peanuts and lime. It is not a compromise version: it works because the sauce, technique, and noodle handling are treated correctly. The tamarind is non-negotiable. The wok needs to be genuinely hot. The tofu needs to be dry before it hits the pan. Get those three things right and the rest follows. Soak the noodles and press the tofu first: allow 30 minutes for that before the wok goes on.

35 min950 kcal2 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌶️Spicy

Vegan Coconut Curry with tofu, curry paste and coconut milk — Thailand recipe

🇹🇭ThailandAdvanced

Vegetable and Mushroom Dishes

Vegan Coconut Curry

Crispy-edged tofu and vegetables simmered in a fragrant coconut-and-curry-paste sauce, finished with lime juice and fresh herbs. The kind of dish that makes your kitchen smell extraordinary and tastes like it took much longer than it did. The curry paste does most of the flavor work — frying it in oil first releases the aromatics fully before the coconut milk goes in, which is the step that transforms a flat-tasting sauce into something layered and complex. Serve over jasmine rice with extra lime and a scatter of Thai basil.

35 min440 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌱Vegan🌾Gluten-free

Mapo Tofu (Sichuan Tofu in Chili Bean Sauce) with silken tofu, doubanjiang and fermented black beans — China recipe

🇨🇳ChinaMedium

Vegetable and Mushroom Dishes

Mapo Tofu (Sichuan Tofu in Chili Bean Sauce)

Mapo tofu is the definitive Sichuan dish — cubes of silken tofu suspended in a glossy scarlet sauce of fermented chili bean paste and black beans, studded with crisp bits of pork and finished with freshly ground Sichuan peppercorn. The result is má là: the tingling numbness of the peppercorn against the burn of chili. Soft, fiery, and deeply savoury, it's built in minutes and eaten straight over steaming rice.

40 min380 kcal4 serves

🌶️Spicy💪High protein🌾Gluten-free

Kimchi Jjigae (Korean Kimchi Stew) with napa cabbage kimchi, pork belly and firm tofu — Korea recipe

🇰🇷KoreaMedium

Soups

Kimchi Jjigae (Korean Kimchi Stew)

Kimchi jjigae is a Korean stew built around well-fermented napa cabbage kimchi, pork belly and tofu. Frying the kimchi with the pork first turns its sharp brine into a deep red broth; the tofu goes in late so it stays in soft, generous pieces. Rice and a few banchan are all it needs.

45 min395 kcal4 serves

🌶️Spicy💪High protein

Sukiyaki (Japanese Beef Hot Pot) with beef, tofu and leek — Japan recipe

🇯🇵JapanMedium

Meat Dishes

Sukiyaki (Japanese Beef Hot Pot)

Sukiyaki (すき焼き, 寿喜烧 in Chinese) is a Japanese one-pot dish in which thin slices of marbled beef, tofu, negi, mushrooms and shungiku simmer in a sweet-salty sauce of soy sauce, mirin, sake and sugar called warishita, and every bite is dipped in beaten raw egg. At home you don't need a tabletop burner: a wide, deep skillet on the stove does the job, cooked in two rounds. This is the Kanto style, where the sauce is mixed in advance; the Kansai way of seasoning the beef directly in the pan is explained in the author's note. Prep and cooking together take about 35 minutes.

35 min555 kcal4 serves

💪High protein

Ingredients

Goes well with

Other ingredients that appear most often alongside tofu across the archive. Pick one to drill deeper.

rice noodles coconut milk bean sprouts peanuts cornstarch chicken eggs fish sauce oyster sauce soy sauce dark soy sauce tamarind paste