Tofu Crumbles (use these everywhere!)

These easy tofu crumbles are so useful to batch prep and keep on hand to add to salads, soups, pasta, or just eat plain for healthy plant-based protein! My kids all love them, and so do I!

Just take it from Liz’s comment below:

“Another winner from Faith. I substituted apple cider vinegar for the rice vinegar (didn’t have any), and in the air fryer the crumbles took about 12 minutes. My tofu had been frozen, and I squeezed it almost dry before using it, so perhaps that’s all it needed. Faithful Plateful: making tofu great again!”

My Journey With Tofu

I used to be intimidated by tofu. I was vegetarian for a long time and had never bought it, until my oldest child was about a year old and starting to eat more solid foods. She was tiny and needed more calories, but mostly enjoyed low-calorie foods like fruit. She didn’t have many teeth, so I needed protein-rich soft foods. Calcium and fat would be helpful, too. Tofu was the perfect solution. It checks all those boxes.

But tofu is white, bland, and mushy. I didn’t know what to do with a package of it. 

I bought some and hoped for the best. 

And….It opened a whole new world. 

I remember the first time I made tofu scramble. I half expected to hate it and throw the whole pan away (and I almost never waste a bite of food). But to our surprise, it was really yummy on toast and totally filled the void of eggs. 

My baby loved it, by the way, and eight years later, tofu is still one of her favorite foods. 

How to Make Tofu Crumbles

Tofu comes completely cooked, so you don’t have to cook it. But it’s much yummier if you crisp it up a bit, in my opinion. Even if you’re a small family or live alone, I recommend baking up two blocks of tofu at a time. They shrink a lot and it’s handy to have them prepared in the fridge. You can even freeze them if needed. 

Purchase super firm or extra firm tofu. Super firm is my preference, but it isn’t available everywhere. The firmness simply means how much water has been pressed out of it. Very little water is left in super firm. 

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. 

Start by mixing the seasoning ingredients into a paste in the bottom of a large bowl. Then, after opening the packages and draining water off the tofu, crumble the blocks with your hands into the bowl. A variety of sizes of crumbles is delicious. Some get crispier than others. Your hands will be very cold doing this, but it won’t last long!

Stir the tofu into the sauce you made so it’s well-coated. 

Spread the crumbles out onto a baking sheet that’s either oiled lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. 

Bake for at least 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes or so. Bake it closer to 60 minutes if you want it to be even more dry and crispy. The amount of time will depend on if you are using extra firm or super firm tofu, too, since more water needs to cook out of the extra firm tofu.

Use the tofu immediately, or store in the fridge to add to your salads, soups, pasta, or eat on it’s own. 

Tofu is delicious in this saucy pasta:

Red Pepper Pasta with Tofu Crumbles

It’s also a beefy addition to this easy Lasagna Soup:

Lasagna Soup (Instant Pot or Stove Top)

I love tofu on these filling, flavorful salads:

Cobb Salad

Burger Bowl