Breaded Tofu and Beet Salad
This salad is my take on a salad I had at a restaurant in the Denver airport years ago. When I found the marinated beets at Trader Joe’s I knew it would be the perfect dressing to make that salad I had before while traveling. The thing that takes the most time is the tofu. Everything else takes minutes to prep. You can use a variety of sub-outs for this salad depending on what you have. Use whatever greens you have, switch out the walnuts for pine nuts, or pecans, and test out different vegan cheeses. The main thing with the cheese is to find one with a tame flavor and with the similar taste and texture to goat cheese. This time I used Violife Feta cheese which has a very mild taste considering it is supposed to be feta. It tastes more like a goat cheese with the texture of a soft mozzarella cheese. It was good but I also really like Treeline soft cheese in this as well.
The key to making tofu tasty, is to press out all the water and season well. Tofu is a blank palette until you season it to make it whatever you want. So many times, I see restaurants making tofu plain and just toss it in a dish. It tastes like a wet sponge if you leave it plain and I understand why people fear it. You can always make a tofu press by using two plates, a couple dish towels, and some books to get all the water out. There are plenty of sites that show how to do this, but I would recommend a tofu press if you planned on making tofu often. They are like $15 on Amazon and totally worth it.
I’m a texture person and love how the different items play so well with each other and make for a completely satisfying salad. Every ingredient seems to complement the next and I always feel so great after eating this. This is definitely a meal I do the happy food dance while I am eating it. I hope you like this as much as I do and let me know in the comments if you have had it.
Thanks for reading,
Jessica
Breaded Tofu and Beet Salad
Ingredients
- 1 large head of lettuce or one bag of whatever mixed greens you have on hand.
- 1 block of extra firm tofu (firm will work but extra firm obviously holds up better to battering and cooking)
- ½ cup walnuts roughly chopped (you can sub out for pine nuts or pecans)
- 4 ounces of whatever tame, soft vegan cheese you want (I like Violife Feta block, Treeline Creamy Scallion soft cheese)
- 1 cup Trader Joe’s marinated beets diced up
- 5 ounces of the beet marinade as the dressing on the salads
- 2 teaspoons TJ’s 21 seasoning salute (one for the flour and one for the breadcrumbs)
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 2 teaspoons herbes de Provence (or Italian seasoning. One tsp for the flour, one for the breadcrumbs)
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- ½ cup flour (you could sub out the flour if needed)
- ½ cup breadcrumbs (you could sub gluten free breadcrumbs if needed)
- 2 TBSP olive oil to dredge the tofu
- 3 TBSP oil for cooking (I use olive oil, but you can use what you want)
Instructions
- First start by pressing the block of tofu to get all the water out of it. You can do this by using a tofu press or by taking two plates, dish towels, and books to make a tofu press at home. Google homemade tofu press if you need more instruction.
- While the tofu is being pressed, chop up your head of lettuce, beets, and walnuts. If you are using a block of cheese like the Violife Feta, I would dice it up now, otherwise you can just drop little scoops of whatever soft cheese you use like Treeline. I like to out everything in the bowl other than the tofu and just drop that in at the end. I then drizzle the dressing on top.
- Make a plate with the flour and season with one teaspoon of the 21 seasoning salute, onion powder, garlic powder, one teaspoon of the herbes de Provence, sea salt, and black pepper. Mix evenly and set aside. Pour the two tablespoons of olive oil into a bowl to toss the tofu in after coating it in flour. Make a plate with the breadcrumbs, 21 seasoning salute and herbes de Provence. Mix evenly and set aside.
- Once tofu is pressed, cut the block up so you are left with about 1 inch cubes. I find cutting the block in half, than those pieces into three long pieces, then dice the rest up to be the easiest way to do this. You don’t want them to be too small, more like decent sized croutons.
- Make an assembly line to dredge the tofu. It should be the flour plate, oil bowl, breadcrumb plate, then empty plate to store finished tofu. Take a piece at a time and tip it in the flour to cover all sides, then the oil, then the breadcrumbs. Make sure to turn the tofu on all side so everything gets covered. Do this until all the tofu is covered.
- In a large skillet or sauté pan, heat up the 3 tablespoons of oil to medium-high heat. Once heated, gently lay as many of the tofu bites into the skillet. You don’t want to crowd them, so do them in batches if needed. It’s okay if these aren’t served piping hot. Keep an eye on them and turn over after about 3-4 minutes on each side. You are trying to brown these up like you would any other breaded protein you were pan cooking. The nice thing about the tofu is it doesn’t need to be cooked to an internal temp like meat, so as long as each side is nicely browned and crispy, you are good. Lay the cooked tofu onto a paper towel lined plate to soak up some of the oil.
- Top the salad with the tofu, than drizzle the beet marinade all other the salad and toss. The marinade is thin so some might settle on the bottom of the bowl. That’s okay because it still coats everything well and can easily be re-tossed if needed.
- You can refrigerate any leftover tofu you might have that didn’t make it onto the salad in a sealed container for up to a week. I find they are best served soon after cooking them, but they wont go bad if you need to save them.
