I often feel like I’m in a rut with meal options that cater to our food allergies, have also been deemed “yummy” by my son, are nutritious, and easy to make, and just end up serving the same safe meals. Lately I’ve been experimenting with different dishes, and in particular with new ways to make tofu, and wanted to share the most successful one so far – my recipe for vegan shnitzel.
This vegan shnitzel recipe is sort of a mashup of different recipes and random experiments, but is inspired by the tofu served at Toronto’s Fresh restaurant, where I ate one of my favourite tofu dishes.
With this variation, I started by slicing the tofu into 1/2-3/4″ thick pieces and marinading for at least an hour (longer is better) it in a mixture of soy sauce, sesame oil, olive oil and silan (date honey), turning the pieces a few times to get good coverage.
In a broad bowl I mixed bread crumbs (simply use gluten-free bread crumbs if you want to make this gluten-free) with some vegetable soup spice blend, salt, paprika and dried parsley, and used this to coat the marinated tofu pieces. The crumbs easily stick to the tofu.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and lay the pieces out. You can drizzle the shnitzel strips with more silan (date honey) or leave as is. Bake in the oven until crispy and nicely browned (12-15 minutes) and serve with salad and home fries or baked sweet potato.
Ready to try it? Here’s the recipe.
- 1 package of tofu, sliced into strips
- 2 Tbsp low sodium soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp Tamari sauce (optional)
- 1 Tbsp sesame oil
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp silan (date honey - you could substitute another sweetener if preferred)
- ⅓ cup bread crumbs (add more if needed)
- 1 Tbsp vegetable soup seasoning
- ½ tsp paprika
- ½ tsp dried parsley
- ¼ tsp salt
- Preheat the oven to 180 C.
- In a large bowl combine the soy sauce, tamari, sesame oil, olive oil and silan.
- Add the tofu and leave to marinate for 1 hour or longer (you can do for less, but the tofu will not absorb much of the flavour from the marinade).
- In a separate bowl mix the remaining (dry) ingredients.
- Coat the tofu in the dry ingredients and place on a lined baking sheet.
- Bake for 15 minutes, or until nicely browned and crispy.
Welcome!
These look delicious. Going to give them a try!