The tofu rice bowl I make once a week (Recipe)

When I was in college, my mom gifted me one of those cookbooks with shiny stock photo covers—the type of text-only cookbook you find in the paperback book section of the supermarket, full of weeknight Instant Pot recipes or gluten-free baking techniques. This one was called “Vegan on the Cheap.” 

I’m not sure if my mom knew the difference between vegan and vegetarian (of which I was the latter), but she did know I was broke. My best friend and I lived together, sharing a one-bedroom apartment and a $50 per week grocery budget. We survived on cheap, college-era vegetarian food—microwaved black bean nachos, Trader Joe’s shells and cheese, and frozen pizza. This was before I knew how to improvise a healthy and delicious meal, before I knew what radicchio was or how to cook beans from scratch.

There was one recipe in the book—“Salsa Tofu Burritos”—that now, many years later, I still make. It’s a relatively straightforward tofu scramble with nutritional yeast, soy sauce, sriracha, and salt and pepper. After seasoning, the recipe calls for dumping an entire container of store-bought salsa into the pan of fried tofu. That, as you can imagine, makes the thoughtfully crisped tofu soggy and sad. I nixed that step and experienced, for the first time, what it was to make a recipe my own. 

I don’t remember whether I ever turned the tofu into a burrito or added chopped avocado and vegan cheese as the recipe endnote recommended. But something stuck with this tofu. I’ve made this recipe, that I now call “tofu rice bowl,” once a week for over a decade, now.  

I’ve iterated on the original recipe over the years. I used to wring the tofu out with paper towels over the kitchen sink, for instance, before I advanced to pressing it between two kitchen towel-lined dinner plates with a dusty 15 oz. can of tomatoes balanced on top. But in all honesty, even the tofu-pressing can be half-assed and rushed, the tofu just may take a few more minutes on the stove. If you have the time, you could certainly marinate the tofu and even dredge it in a corn or potato starch to help crisp it. Those are all ways I have made it, but more often I stick with the simplest, laziest, one-pan method. As far as seasoning goes, after the great Huy Fong sriracha shortage I switched to Crystal Hot Sauce, and it was a welcome, dish-balancing, discovery. Any vinegar-forward Louisiana-style hot sauce will do. 

The one instruction in this recipe that’s actually important to follow to the letter is pulling apart the tofu with your hands. There is a time and place for perfectly cubed tofu, but I almost always want the organic, shaggy edge of a broken firm tofu.

For the base, I season white jasmine rice with fresh lime juice and salt. The rest of the rice bowl reacts to whatever is in season and in the fridge, but I nearly always add a fried egg, cilantro, and avocado. I will happily add quick-pickled red onion or radishes, scallions, and finely shredded cabbage with lime juice. For something creamy or tangy I like to add Kewpie mayo, cotija, or queso fresco. And of course, whatever is my favorite hot sauce at the time.  

---

Tofu Rice Bowl

Serving size: 

2 

Ingredients:

Tofu:
1 (14 to 16 ounce) package of extra firm tofu
2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil 
1 ½  tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon Louisiana-style hot sauce, like Crystal or Frank’s Red Hot
1 teaspoon mild chili powder, like gochugaru 
Salt
Pepper

Rice Bowl: 
100 grams (1/2 cup) white rice 
1 lime, quartered
2 large eggs
1 avocado, sliced or chopped 
A few sprigs of cilantro, washed and stemmed 
Kewpie mayo (or cotija or queso fresco) 
Hot sauce of choice

Instructions:

1. Press tofu between two weighted, kitchen towel-lined dinner plates for 15 to 20 minutes. 

2. Cook rice in preferred manner. (I use a rice cooker.)

3. While the rice cooks, heat oil over medium-high heat in a medium frying pan. Once oil is hot, pull apart tofu into rough 1-inch cubes and place in pan. Give tofu a quick stir in the oil. 

4. Sprinkle the soy sauce, hot sauce, nutritional yeast, chili powder, and salt and pepper evenly over the tofu pieces and stir again.  

5. Fry the tofu, adding more olive oil if needed, for 8-12 minutes, or until crispy and dark brown. I like to use a spatula while it cooks, flipping it every few minutes until tofu is evenly crisped. The tofu may break into smaller pieces, which is OK. You want a diversity of shapes. 

6. Once the tofu is crisp, push it over to one side of the pan and fry eggs in the remaining oil. 

7. Squeeze lime wedges over rice and top with tofu, fried egg, cilantro, avocado, and mayo. 

Notes:

• I buy most of our tofu from Precycle, a local business that offers reusable packaging. For another local (but non-reusably packaged) option, I like Fresh Tofu Inc. Asian grocery stores will sell high-quality tofu, sometimes even package-free. If those aren’t an option for you, the organic options from House Foods are certainly satisfactory! You can also use firm tofu if that’s all you can find. 

• I don’t bother measuring the soy sauce, nutritional yeast, hot sauce, and chili powder anymore—don’t worry about being terribly accurate.

• This meal refrigerates well and is a solid packed-lunch option. If I’m cooking for myself, I eat half for dinner and save the other half for lunch the next day. 

Did you make this recipe? Tag @karahaupt on Instagram.