Noticed something different?
Long overdue, the ol’ blog finally has a new look. Google made me do it with all that mobilegeddon talk (nothing like a deadline to get me off of my bum). Please excuse the ongoing work while I continue updating and tweaking, and if you see anything wonky, please let me know.
Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, I have a bounty of freshly picked backyard lemons to use up. As I’m not a big lemonade drinker, I figured I would make lemon tofu. It’s basically roasted tofu cubes tossed in Chinese lemon sauce.
I’m a huge fan of roasted tofu, I’ve used it many times with various sauces, from buffalo style to leeks and black bean to pesto. It only takes 1 teaspoon of oil so it’s a bit healthier than pan-frying. I also made the lemon sauce lighter and not super sweet but you can easily adjust both to your own taste.
All of that worked out well, but wouldn’t you know it, the recipe uses up a grand total of one lemon. One. I still have to figure out what to do with the rest of them lemons.
Roasted Tofu in Lemon Sauce
Serves 2
1 14-ounce block of extra-firm tofu
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1 green onion, chopped for garnish
Sesame seeds for garnish
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
In a bowl, combine the oil, salt and paprika. Cut the tofu into cubes and gently toss to coat with the mixture. Place each tofu cube in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Roast for 15 minutes on one side, flip over to the other side and roast for another 15 minutes for a total of 30 minutes. While the tofu is roasting, make the lemon sauce.
Lemon Sauce
1 teaspoon oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
1 cup vegetable stock
1 teaspoon lemon zest
Juice of 1 lemon, about 4 tablespoons
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon agave nectar or to taste
Salt to taste
1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 1 tablespoon water
Heat a wok to hot and add the oil, swirl to coat the wok. Add the garlic and ginger, and stir-fry for a few seconds. Add the vegetable stock, lemon zest and juice, brown sugar, agave nectar to taste and salt to taste, bring to a boil. Turn down the heat and let simmer until the sugar is completely dissolved. To thicken the sauce, slowly add in the cornstarch mixture until it’s the desired thickness. I rarely use all of the cornstarch mixture as I prefer my sauce to be on the thinner side.
When ready to serve, transfer most of the sauce to a bowl. Then add the tofu to the pan and spoon as much sauce as desired onto the tofu and toss until thoroughly coated. Garnish with the green onions and sesame seeds and serve immediately with white rice and a side vegetable such as broccoli.
Related Posts
Buffalo Style Roasted Tofu
Roasted Tofu with Leeks and Black Bean Sauce
Roasted Tofu Lollipops With Pesto
LOVE the new look!! great branding. Yay!!
That lemon marinade looks amazing. Need to get me some tofu!
xx
Thanks! It’s been a long time coming, still have plenty to do though. :-)
YUM this sounds so good! I have never tried lemon with my tofu, I think I need to though!
Lemon goes great with tofu and the sauce is good on the broccoli too. :-)
Very nice new look – the bunny totally wins it for me!
That lemon marinade looks gorgeous. That’s the joy of tofu for sure – so many delicious things you can do with it. I’m very jealous of anyone with enough good weather to have lemons in their backyard!
Thanks! I’m constantly amazed how much better tasting backyard produce is compared even to the stuff at the farmer’s market.
The lemon sauce sounds delicious. I am going to make it to go over vegetables. And I love the new blog design. :)
Thanks! The sauce makes a pretty good dip for vegetables. :-)
The blog looks beautiful! I love the design. I’ve thought of redoing mine, but I can’t stand the thought. The lemon sauce over roasted tofu sounds wonderful, and it’s making me hungrier than I already was. As for lemons, I add half a lemon skin and all (no seeds) to my smoothie. It’s good for you and tastes great.
Thanks Andrea! It’s still a work-in-progress, I just wished I haven’t put it off for so long. Interesting idea to drop a lemon into a smoothie, I’ll have to give that a try. :-)
I made this tonight and it is absolutely delicious! I used soft tofu because that’s all I had, and it worked perfectly. I omitted the agave because I had none and the cornstarch because I forgot to add it. No matter, because it was incredible. Thanks so much for sharing this recipe. It’s an instant fave. Oh, and it looked just like the photo.! :)
Thanks for trying out the recipe, so glad that you liked it even with the changes. Good to know soft tofu works too, I used firm tofu before when I didn’t have extra firm but haven’t tried the soft tofu. :-)
The sauce on this is fantastic, and I made some stir-fried boy choy and onions to go along with it. The roasted tofu, though… I think I did something terribly, terribly wrong. Out of the oven, it was a dark golden brown, but the small piece I tasted was incredibly crunchy! I cooked it in the sauce a bit and then tried another. It was the texture of a cheese curd or something similar — tough, chewy, and squeaking in my teeth. :(
Any tips for a second try? I feel like I should apologize for bungling your recipe!
Rachel,
Sorry to hear your attempt with the tofu didn’t go well. From your description, it sounds like maybe your oven runs hotter than mine? How did it look at the halfway mark when you flipped them over? It should still be on the soft side, the last 15 minutes in the oven is when they start to really firm up and turn golden. Maybe keep a closer eye on the cooking time and pull them out of the oven before the full 30 minutes.
Glad you like the sauce, I like eating it with bok choy too. :-)
Yes, definitely sounds like I overbaked it. My best guess is that I cut it too small… the cubes were around 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch. Thank you for your help! I’m definitely making this again. :)
Yup, smaller pieces require less time. If you make them that size again, just adjust the cooking time. Happy cooking! :-)
This was so good! We just added a little drizzle of tamari when served. Added a bunch of stir fried veggies on the side – broccoli, bok choy and snow peas. Really tasty sauce…thank you!!
Thanks for giving the recipe a whirl and glad you liked it! :-)