Can you get the marinated kind in the grocery stores where you live? It's very good and convenient and easy. I can get Thai, Italian and other types of marinated tofu. I add the Thai to stir fry, and the italian to pasta dishes. You can also make your own marinated tofu to do the same things. A marinade will not really be "absorbed" by tofu, but you can bake the tofu in the marinade, which firms up the tofu by evaporating out some water, and sort of makes a marinade flavor crust on the outside of the tofu.

I also use tofu in dips and spreads.

Another thing I like is tofu pudding mix, basically a flavoring sugar mix that you add to tofu to make it taste like pudding. I don't eat it much due to it's high sugar content, but it is nice for fancy desserts for company that's not tofu-adverse. You can also find recipes for this kind of thing online if you can't find the mixes in the stores. I'm lucky because in addition to a health food grocery just up the street, my local Wegmans has a whole health food grocery within the larger grocery. I get a lot of tofu stuff there.

I also do tofu sloppy joes from time to time. That and a few casseroles is about my tofu repertoire. I am basically a hash cook and I usually just add tofu to my usual hack dishes like pasta or rice.

One of the main things I do with tofu is to slice it into about 1/8" thick strips and sautit lightly in butter or olive oil. It can then be put into enchiladas, lasagne, or many other dishes, but I also make sandwiches with the strips. I first had tofu sandwiches in Santa Cruz in 1972, and they were made with whole wheat bread, sautéed tofu strips, slices of avocado, Jack cheese, tomato, alfalfa sprouts, and mayo. It makes a very good sandwich.

You can add tofu to scrambled eggs or omelets and use less egg. In many recipes, you can substutite tofu for ricotta or cottage cheese, especially baked casseroles. You can add it to quesadillas also. It works really well in Mexican, Italian, and Greek recipes that are heavy on spices.

Lars

I can't add to being helpful...
But can I share?
When trying out a new Thai recipe I sliced up a bit of tofu and fried it til just crispy, then topped it with a wonderful red sauce. Did it ever look good!
Plated it and served it to DH, he took one bite and said, and I quote "What the double H is this"!?
I normally get rave reviews from him...oh, and he hardly ever uses swear words...so I knew. I knew very well that I'd better wait a good long time before I tried slipping it in again :)

deborah that story is HILARIOUS! My husband would have the same reaction thus the reason why I don't buy it. I love it in Asian food.

Deborah, that's really funny. My DH refuses to eat what one considers healthy food, he calls it "hippy" food. But I slip tofu into casseroles, soups, stir fries. It picks up the flavors of companion foods. And he loves wonton soups which often have tofu cubes in them. I've only fried it in butter, not great, but I think frying it alone seals it to absorb additional flavors; eaten by itself you have to like eating raw potatoes.

Lars said just what I would have said. It's great smashed up and used in any dish that calls for ricotta or cottage cheese or eggs. Enchiladas, lasagnas, and any dish that calls for a soft cheese filling. I run it through the blender and add it to regular scrambled eggs or omelets. I don't use it by itself, but stretch the fillings or eggs with sometimes up to half tofu. Once it's blended, it can also be used in any kind of patties or loaves you make -- vegetable, meat, grain, and bean. It's a good extender. You can add some to smoothies without changing the texture or flavor too.

These are great ideas. I don't buy it often because I have trouble using it up before it goes bad. Now y'all are giving me good ideas of how to use it all up.

Sally

Besides stir frys, I use it in hot and sour soup. You can put it in anything where it will pick up other flavors. If Deborah had soaked hers in soy or something before frying I bet her husband would have liked it.

I've recently started watching a PBS show where lots of Tofu is cooked. Some of the recipes looked really good.

Here is a link that might be useful: Christina Cooks

I like tofu because it's healthy and relatively inexpensive, and as folks have said, it's a good extender to add protein to well seasoned dishes. But I have several friends who won't accept dinner invitations from me unless I promise them I won't sneak tofu into any of the dishes, lol! I have been known to do that, as Jessy and Annie are aware!

Does a Tofu Spinach Pie interest you? It might take a bit of work to dig up the recipe, but I'd be happy to do it if you want it. I used to make it a lot, and last week spoke to an ex from like 9 years ago who happened to mention she's still making it so I guess she likes it, too.

I just made some pasta tomato sauce from scratch today in the crockpot. Standard kinds of ingredients such as onion, bell pepper, celery, jalapeno, parsley, garlic, dry sherry, Italian seasoning, tomatoes, tomato paste, yada, yada.

45 minutes before serving, I scooped out two cups of the mixture into my food processor, added a 12 oz block of soft silken tofu, pureed both together and poured it back into the crockpot to heat up for serving.

Bottom line: spaghetti sauce is a great place to puree or mix in tofu with your normal sauce.
My husband said it was the best spaghetti I have ever prepared.

My husband likes tofu. I have used the hard block of tofu after freezing and thawing. The freezing and thawing gives it a meaty texture. Then I squeeze the water out of it (literally taking a cut off piece of tofu in my hand and sqeeezing hard over the sink. I then slice it thin with my food processor, toss it with some soy sauce and olive oil sprayed from the can and then put it on an oven tray (lined with tin foil to avoid messy cleanup) and roast for about 25 minutes at 350 degrees. Results can be added to any casserole, salad, or stir-fry to add protein and it tastes good too, at least DH and I think so. You can also just cut the block in tiny cubes instead of slicing. Lots of ways to do this.

Different people prefer different textures. Some are turned off by soft tofu but like it when it's chewy, more "meaty."

In that case, freezing and pressing or pressing alone for an extra-firm tofu can get around some of the distaste. Freezing and/or pressing also expels the water and the tofu absorbs the flavor of marinades better.

Carol

Thanks! These are great ideas!!

fenworth, Ben LOVES spinach, so yes, please, if you can find the recipe that would be great. I think specific recipes will help me to get more familiar with tofu.

I'm pretty good at creating dishes ad hoc with whatever is on hand, but my lack of experience with tofu makes it harder for me to be imaginitive with it. This will definitely help.

I use tofu a lot and my kids and husband, luckily, love it.

Slice it about 1/8 inch thick and put on a baking sheet. Sprinkle heavily with soy sauce and then broil for 10-15 minutes. Use for sandwiches (Tofu, lettuce & tomatoe - TLTs) or as a snack (my kids love to eat it like this).

Bread slices and then bake in oven for 30+ minutes and serve with spaghetti sauce and noodles - Tofu Parmesean.

Cube and then sautee' with soy sauce and brewer's yeast and serve with veggies and brown rice - yum.

Add tofu cubes to almost any soup - very good with curry.

Tofu picks up flavors of anything you cook it with - so I tend to use it with stronger sauces. It has a LOT of water in it so it takes quite a while to broil/bake/sautee. You almost can't overcook it. I always buy the extra firm.

I got home tonight to the latest issue of Eating Well magazine and they were featuring tofu! I thought of this thread - it looks like there are some very good recipes... here's a link to one:

Here is a link that might be useful: Kung Pao Tofu

LM, that "Eating Well" link is great. There are a lot of fantastic recipes on that site as well, plenty of tofu, and other great ideas. I like that magazine.

Lowspark, what kind of food does you son like? The reason I ask is I have a lot of tofu recipes but it's hard to know what kind of dishes people like. Asian is so classic with tofu, yet I tend to use it in more mediterranean type dishes, which is definately fusion! I just tend to like that type of cooking. I also have a couple of tofu dessert recipes, like one for lowfat chocolate mousse pie.

Here's one that would be great for lunches, with a crusty bread and tomato soup.

Tofu "Tuna" and White Bean Salad (serves 8)
2 cups cooked canneli beans (1 16 oz. can)
8 oz. package of italian style marinated tofu
1/3 cup chopped black olives (I prefer kalamatta, or another cured type)
2 large stalks celery, diced
1/2 cup diced red onion
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 TBLSP EVOO
Juice of one small or 1/2 large lemon
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients and marinate for 1 hour or more. Serve on a bed of fresh green and red lettuce leaves.

My favorite tofu recipe is very simple...

Open contain of tofu.

Pour tofu into the trash.

Order a meat lover's pizza.

As much as I've always wanted to I can't really warm up to tofu except in VERY limited circumstances, such as in Hot and Sour soup.

Great links!! I'm going to look over all those recipes this weekend.

Pink,
He doesn't like hot-spicy foods, but he loves garlic and italian, likes mexican (as long as it's not too hot), likes asian, anything with noodles. He eats eggs, cheese, beans, salads. Loves spinach, cauliflower, broccoli. Won't eat squash or eggplant or beets.

The recipe you shared sounds wonderful, I'll make that for sure, just gotta look for the marinated tofu at the grocery store. But if they don't have it, maybe I can just marinate my own in italian dressing?

Last night I made tofu sloppy joes. Just chopped up the extra firm tofu and added in a sloppy joe sauce recipe I found on the net. The sauce wasn't that great, but the joes turned out pretty good anyway and all three of us (including DH) thought it was not bad. I think I could make that again with a better sauce recipe. I'm going to try substituting tofu for ground beef in spag sauce, too.

These ideas and recipes are great! Any others you can post will be great!

kframe - LOL. I guess the stuff isn't to everyone's liking. The funny thing is, Ben just never really liked meat very much, so I knew he'd become a vegetarian someday. He's been one almost three years, and I'm just to the point where I need to expand my vegetarian cooking for him!

You're a nice mom Lowspark! Here are some of my recipes. I've stayed away from the asian ones, since there are a lot on that EAting Well Web site. Be forwarned that I usually find those "low fat" recipes manage to be low fat because they have about half as much yummy sauce as you would want, so you might need to double the sauce ingredients. Tofu isn't that low calorie, although they do sell lowfat tofu, if you can find it.

The reason I mention different techniques and ingredient amounts is I try and use as many lowfat techniques as I can, and some people do not like this kind of cooking, so you can adjust to suit your taste, just as I usually adjust regular recipes to make them lower in fat. Like in the tofu parmesearn recipe below, I'd use less parmesean cheese.

Hopefully living in a metro area you can get the commercially marinated tofu. It is so convenient. The brand I get is "White Wave" and also "Tofu Kan." There's one other brand I get at Giant but I don't know the name of it. I'm not sure how they process it to get it so flavorful, but it's definately an art. You really can't just marinate tofu without baking it, it won't be that flavorful. I googled "baked marinated tofu" and came up with lots of groovy recipes. Here's how I'd do it if I was going to make the tofu salad above.

Buy a tub of regular tofu, the kind that comes packed in water, not the silken tofu. Drain it and rinse it and then slice it into 1/2 inch slabs (or slightly larger). Make a "tofu press" by putting some paper towels on a tray, then laying the tofu out on the tray, then topping with more paper towels, then put another tray on top. Can use large plates for this. Then, put some heavy cans or books on top of the press to make it "press" down on the tofu. Use about 3 layers of paper towels. Enviro me uses clean dishtowels, you're just pressing water out of the tofu so it's not going to stain the towels and they can be washed. You don't have to press the tofu, but it presses water out and cuts down on the baking time. Press for about 15 min.

Next, get some good italian dressing (I like Ken's brand or Newman's Own). Put a little bit in a shallow baking pan, then layer in the tofu, then cover with more dressing. You can use lowfat dressing. Bake in an oven. The temp can vary from 350-400 degrees, depending on how closely you want to watch it. I would say maybe 375. You want to bake it until the tofu dries out and is coated with the marinade. It will take 40-60 min. Turn halfway through.

This baked marinated tofu will keep a few days in the fridge and can be used in salads and other dishes, or in sandwiches. Frankly, as you can see it's bit of a pain to make this compared to buying it already done in the store! You can use other marinades, such as teriyaki sauce. You can make your own marinade from scratch too.

Here's a couple of my more traditional recipes. I've stayed away from the hard core stuff like curried tofu stew, lol!

Tofu Stuffed Bell Peppers
4 peppers
4-6 mushrooms
1 clove garlic or 1/2 tsp. minced garlic/garlic powder
1 small onion
4 oz. tofu (can use silken extra firm or water-packed firm)
2 cups tomato sauce
pinch oregano, basil, salt, pepper
1 TBLSP red wine (optional, could use maybe balsamic vinegar or leave out)
2 tsp olive oil
1 tsp. sesame seeds (to make sesame seeds digestible, I toast for about 10 min. and grind in the food processor, then keep in fridge for when I need them. Can leave out)
1 tsp wheat germ (or 2 tsp. if you don't have the sesame seeds)
1 cup cooked rice

Steam peppers for 4-6 min.
Put 1/2 of sauce in the bottom of a small baking pan.
Saute onion and mushrooms in oil, add spices, tofu, rice and wheat germ and sesame seed. Stuff gently into peppers, top with remaining sauce. (Can sprinkle some italian shredded cheese or parmesean cheese over the top)

Bake at 350 for 30 min.

Low Calorie Quiche
(use the crust below, which is a health food kind of thing, or whatever kind of quiche crust you like. As you know, I'm piecrust challenged so I usually use store bought, lol! I got this recipe from "Vegetarian Times" magazine, and have never made the crust, just the filling. It sounds good, and I have been known to make an oil-based pie crust.)

Crust: 1/2 cup rolled oats, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup white flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. baking poweder
1/4-1/3 cup canola oil
2 TBLSP lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp. honey
2-3 TBLSP cold water
1-2 tsp. sesame seeds (see above for how to prep. them)

Preheat oven to 375. Grind oats to coarse flour in a blender or food processor. Mix dry ingredients together. Drizzle in oil until the mixture looks like coarse sand. Add lemon, honey, and 2 TBLSP water til the dough forms a ball, add more water if necessary. Roll between two sheets of wax peper. Sprinkle sesame seeds to coat bottom of pie pan. Prick crust on sides and bottom. Bake 10 min., then remove from oven and reduce heat to 350 degrees.

Filling:
1 tsp. water or olive oil (I'd probably use at least 2 tsp. or 1 TBLSP EVOO)
1 cup diced onion
1 tsp. minced garlic (or less, I don't use that much)
3 cups broccoli florets (I often use frozen broccoli)
1-2 TBLSP water
2 large egg whites
10 oz. package soft, silken tofu
1 TBLSP prepared dijon mustard
1 tsp. dried basil
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. white pepper
1-2 TBLSP grated parmesean cheese

Heat oil in a skillet over med. heat. Add onion and sautee 3-5 min. until translucent. (you may need to add more oil or water, this is a low cal recipe, I probably use more oil than this). Add garlic and broccoli and water. Steam until broccoli is bright green, ~2 min. Drain veggies if necessary. Place in the pre-baked pie crust. Whip egg whites until frothy. Add tofu, spices and parmesean. Blend until smooth. Pour into pie crust. Garnish with strips of red pepper if desired.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 min.

Tofu Sloppy Joes - serves 5
6 TBLSP oil
1 large onion, diced
2 med. green peppers, seeded and diced
2 cans spanish style tomato sauce
1 1/2 TBLSP chili sauce/powder
2 TBLSP tamari or low salt soy sauce
1 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1 TBLSP prepared brown mustard
1 TBLSP brown sugar
1 1/2 lbs firm tofu, frozen, thawed and squeezed dry and crumbled

Saute onion and peppers in oil, Add tofu and soy sauce. Add tomato sauce and spices. Simmer over low heat until nice and thick. Serve on whole wheat hamburger buns with sweet potato fries and coleslaw.

Tofu Parmigiana
1 1/2 lbs. tofu
2 eggs (or 1 egg, 2 egg whites)
1 TBLSP tamari or low salt soy sauce
3/4 cup toasted wheat germ
3/4 cup grated parmesean cheese (or less, maybe 1/2 cup)
oil for cooking
1/2 cup onions, sliced
1 carrot, shredded
2 cloves garlic, minced or to taste (I use one clove)
1 cup fresh mushrooms, sliced
2 cups tomatoes, seeded and diced, or 2 cups thick tomato puree (I use canned crushed tomatoes)
1 TBLSP fresh basil or 1 tsp. dried
1 tsp. oregano
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
salt to taste
8 thin slices mozz cheese

Press tofu until dry, or use a marinated kind. Slice tofu into 8 thin slices. Beat together egg and tamari/soy sauce. Mix together what germ and 1/4 cup of the parmesean cheese and put in a pie plate or on a large dinner plate. Dip tofu in egg, then dry mixture. Refrigerate while you prepare the sauce. (Geez, I don't know why you have to do that, you could prepare the sauce in advance!).

Saute onion, carrot, garlicand mushrooms in oil. Add remaining ingredients. Simmer until thick and all flavors combined. Fry sliced tofu until golden.

Heat broiler. Sprinkle baking pan with sauce and 1/4 cup parmesean. Place browned tofu on sauce in a single layer. Tof tofu with mozzarella cheese slices. Pour on remaining sauce over and around the tofu. Top with remaining parmesean. Broil until bubbly. Serve over brown rice.
A fancy dish for special occasions.