Sweet and sour tofu with kale

This sweet and sour recipe is not a traditional sweet and sour recipe. The type you can buy from your local Chinese take-away is likely to use rice wine vinegar for the sour component, brown sugar for the sweet component, and cornflour as a thickener. Most recipes online call for tomato sauce (ketchup) too. 

In contrast, this dish uses pineapple for the sour and sweet components and delivers a subtle spice kick thanks to (you guessed it!) sriracha. It also uses a whole bunch of kale. I liked it a lot. 

If you're like me, you will have all the ingredients for this as pantry (or fridge) staples. In an ideal world you would press your tofu ahead of time, but if you walk in the door at 6.30pm this could be on the table 30 minutes later. Served with quinoa or rice, it is a perfect mid-week meal. It is so good, though, that you might want to whip a bowl up on the weekend too.

Sweet and sour tofu with kale

Serves 3 if served with a grain base

Vegan

Author: Bite-sized thoughts

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Ingredients

1/3 cup natural pineapple juice

1 tbsp soy sauce

1/2 tsp sriracha or other chilli sauce, or to taste

350g block firm tofu, pressed and sliced or cut into squares

1 small onion, chopped

1 large carrot, finely sliced

1 small bunch curly kale, roughly torn or chopped

1/3 cup canned pineapple pieces

Oil, for sauteing

Quinoa, rice or noodles, to serve

Method

In a measuring cup or jug, whisk together the pineapple juice, soy sauce and sriracha and set aside until needed.

Heat a non-stick pan over medium-high heat and drizzle with oil. Add the tofu and allow to cook for several minutes on each side, until starting to crisp up and turn golden.

Add the onion and approximately one-third of the sauce mix to the pan. Allow to cook, uncovered, for another 5 to 8 minutes until the onion is soft and the tofu starting to brown. Add the carrot and another one-third of the sauce and cook for a further 5 or so minutes.

Add the kale, pineapple pieces and remaining sauce to the pan and reduce heat to low-medium. Allow to cook for 10 minutes or until the kale has cooked down, stirring occasionally.

Serve with quinoa, rice or noodles.

I'm linking this in to Catherine's Anyone Can Cook Vegetarian Food challenge for March - non-terrifying tofu; and to Ricki's Wellness Weekend.

Do you like sweet and sour dishes? I go through stages with them - sometimes they seem just right, other times not at all what I want!

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