I’ve been fascinated by spices since I was a small child – all the different smells, colors and shapes. My mom has this one spice rack that’s been around for as long as I can remember, I’m not sure where it came from – she hardly ever used it (it was filled with spices atypical of Chinese home-cooking).
Nowadays, I have a carousel type of rack, I love to spin that thing around looking for various spices. One day while spinning it around and around, it occurred to me that it would be fun to use a bunch of these different spices in one recipe. That was the inspiration for the 11 Herbs and Spices Baked Tofu, along with a certain famous “secret” fried chicken spice recipe.
While it was tasty, I think I prefer my Crispy Baked Tofu the best, simpler is sometimes better. Another thing is you can change up the spices to whatever you like, tofu is more than happy to soak in whatever you throw at it.
11 Herbs and Spices Baked Tofu
Makes 14 pieces
1 pound firm tofu
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
2 tablespoons unsweetened soy milk
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon onion granules
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon sage
1/4 teaspoon rosemary
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon parsley
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste
Cut the tofu into 1/4″ slices and wrap in paper towels. Place a weight on top for about an hour.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
In a shallow bowl, combine the nutritional yeast, breadcrumbs and the 11 herbs and spices and mix well. Dip the tofu slices in the soy milk and then in the breadcrumbs mixture, coat well on both sides, place the coated pieces on a oiled baking pan.
Bake for 12-15 minutes on each side.
Related Posts
Chicken Fried Tofu
Chinese 5-Spice Baked Tofu
Crispy Baked Tofu
I have been looking for a recipe exactly like this. I cannot wait to try it!
This meal looks ready for a gourmet magazine photo shoot.
You picked the right combo of 11 herbs and spices. Yummy!
Gosh, 11 spices! Just a quick question, as I am not familiar with tofu: why put a heavy weight on the tofy slices? Is that to extract potential moisture?
I like spices too. I remember my parents used to add chinese 5 spices to chicken before deep-fried it. Some recipes used chinese 5 spices and red frementated bean curd. I like frementated bean curd too :) The stir-fried long bean with frementeated bean curd is nice :)
Maybe, some days, i should tried to mixed them to tofu and then deep-fried it.
Cheers
Nikki – Thanks!
Lisa (Show Me Vegan) – Thanks, I’m just lucky the food happens to be photogenic. :-)
Jennifer – Thank you! It was yummy but I think I’m also going to try other spice combos too.
Colloquial Cook – Yes, I put a heavy weight to help squeeze out as much water as possible from the tofu.
Crystal – Chinese 5 spices is delicious, I bet that would be so good on tofu along with the red fermented bead curd and deep-fried would put it over the top. I’ve never tried cooking with red fermented bean curd before so that’s an very interesting idea. Thanks!
Very interesting, thank you!
omg… they are sooo gorgeous!