Today's recipe is for the other times. The nights you get home, haven't stocked up on south-east Asian ingredients, and don't fancy grating ginger, seeking out lemongrass or chopping chillies. The nights you want something fresh and tasty, but also easy. Minimal ingredients and minimal chopping.
These honey soy tofu wraps are the answer. The marinade features nothing more than your honey equivalent and soy sauce. The vegetables will need chopping, but that's as complicated as it gets. You don't even need to cook rice (although you could) - just tear open a pack of wraps and pile the filling in.
You may have spotted broccoli in the top photo, which I will concede is not very wrap friendly (at least not the way I chop broccoli, which is large and haphazard!). If you want to include broccoli in your own dish, I recommend serving open wraps, which I did. Mr Bite isn't a big broccoli fan so I left it off his plate and wrapped his wraps up the conventional way.
However you serve it, the vegetable and tofu component of this is wonderful and can even be enjoyed without any accompaniment at all. The recipe doesn't generate a lot of sauce, but the flavours are soaked up by the tofu and then the vegetables.
'Honey' soy tofu wraps
Super easy and super delicious
Serves 4
Vegan, easily gluten free and low in fat
Author: Bite-sized thoughts
Ingredients
1 tbsp rice malt syrup, agave syrup or honey if not vegan
1 tbsp + 1 tbsp soy sauce
350g block firm tofu, sliced into thin long strips
1 brown onion, sliced
1 red pepper, sliced
2 medium carrots, sliced
1-2 cups spinach or other green leaves
1-2 cups broccoli florets, optional
Wraps, to serve (or rice or noodles)
Method
Whisk together the rice malt syrup or equivalent and 1 tbsp soy sauce.
Heat a large non-stick pan over medium-high heat and drizzle over the syrup-soy mixture. Add the tofu strips. Cook over medium-high heat until the tofu is browned, a few minutes. Flip and repeat. When the tofu is golden on all sides and starting to turn crispy, transfer it to a plate while you cook the vegetables.
Reduce your pan heat to medium and add the remaining tbsp soy sauce. Add the onion, carrot and pepper and stir fry for 5 to 10 minutes. Add the broccoli (if using) and cook for a further few minutes. Reduce heat to low and add the tofu back into the pan along with the spinach. Cook to heat through, about 5 minutes.
Serve in wraps or with side of choice.
What stir fry flavours have you enjoyed lately?
I love how quick and easy (and tasty and healthy!) this meal is! I love making stir fries for a quick meal but haven't tried a "honey" soy sauce before...normally I just grate the ginger and chop a chilli (but rarely do I use lemongrass, although I do really enjoy that too!). I'm currently writing out my meal plan for next week, I'm thinking I will make this and serve with rice :)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to provide some easy inspiration! I do love your standard ginger/chilli type too :-)
DeleteI am with you about grating ginger and chopping chilli - bottom of my list of fun things to do - but I have been more into stirfries lately - there is one that I have made a few times recently called Matthew's Delicious stir fry that was doing the rounds of melb veg blogs at one stage and is great and quick and uses soy and maple syrup. This one has the tofu fried in oil first and then the marinade added - interesting you cook your tofu in the marinade - some of it looks golden brown but other bits less so - would be interested to try and see how it works for me
ReplyDeleteIt might depend on how you like your tofu...I really dislike tofu fried in oil which is challenging when ordering take away as that is often how it comes! As per my reply to Sharon below, I find it works to not press / marinate tofu so long as you don't cook it in too much liquid and do cook it pretty thoroughly. But everyone has their own tastes so trying and seeing is probably the best way!
DeleteThis just goes to show that you can whip up delicious and healthy meals in not a lot of time. Healthy eating doesn't have to be complicated and this looks great.
ReplyDeleteI've had very little free time lately so Quick 'n' Easy is definitely what I need right now. I must admit I've been cheating with tofu and buying the ready marinated Cauldron pieces or smoked tofu as I've always found the plain blocks need pressing. Do you not find this? I'd love to hear your tips xx
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, I buy the marinated Cauldron pieces quite often too! I do like pressed and marinated tofu a lot as well, but I find if I slice the tofu quite thinly and cook the slices in not too much liquid in a hot pan I can get away with not pressing it and it still goes crispy :-)
DeleteYum, these sound really good. I know what you mean about sometimes not wanting to faff about.
ReplyDeleteSome days, life is too short for faffing :-)
DeleteI can see myself enjoying this in a wrap but I think more so, on a bed of rice noodles. I was going to cook a spicy Asian dish tonight but I now realise I don't have the ingredients - might have to do something with honey and tofu instead! xx
ReplyDeleteStir fry on wraps - genius! I can't believe I have never thought of this but now that I have, you better believe it's going to be happening in my kitchen. Perfect for the warmer weather here at the moment too :-) (PS: I LOVE the word 'faffing')
ReplyDelete