salt & pepper tofu skewers
what makes a great vegan BBQ dish apart from just vegetables? Well this. This works.
The @plantboiis and I had a big old BBQ recently and this is what I made for them.
MAKES 8 SKEWERS
TIP: if you don’t have a BBQ, you can use a skillet pan or the grill setting in your oven on a high heat. Cook until golden and until you get slight char.
10 min prep + 20 min cooking = 30 minutes
INGREDIENTS:
2 blocks (540g) extra firm tofu
5 spring onions
1 red chilli
3 cloves garlic
2 bell peppers (any colour)
2 tsp Chinese five spice
salt & pepper
6 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp maple syrup
metal or wooden skewers soaked in water (to stop them burning)
1 lime
fresh parsley to finish
METHOD:
Start by chopping the bell peppers and tofu into cubes then pop them in two separate tupperware dishes. The peppers, once chopped, can be left for later, but the tofu needs to be in a bigger tupperware.
Chop up the spring onions, garlic and chilli into thin slices and fry on a medium heat with olive oil until golden and starting to crisp. Chuck the spice in as well as a good season of salt and pepper and let that go fragrant. We’ll then pour in our soy sauce and maple syrup and lower the heat. Reduce the mix down until you’re left with a sticky sauce.
Once the sauce has cooled, pour that into the tofu and massage gently so all the cubes are coated. You can let that marinate for about 10 minutes or overnight for maximum flavour. Now get to a BBQ.
Skewer your tofu and peppers in an alternating pattern (basically tofu, then pepper, then tofu, etc.) and fit around 3-5 blocks of tofu per skewer depending on how big you want them. Spray the tofu and pepper skewers with a little bit of oil before whacking on the BBQ. Cook and keep turning the skewers every minute or so until everything’s properly cooked (obviously) and you start to get nice char.
Serve as part of a BBQ feast, and finish with a squeeze of lime juice over the top of each skewer along with some picked leaves of parsley to make it look a bit more fancy.