BBQ Tofu & Kale Salad

Tofu. I've been eating a lot of tofu since becoming vegan last year. Before turning vegan, the only tofu I enjoyed eating was the sweet ginger tofu dessert you get at dim sum. Other than that, tofu's texture turned me off. Not only that, but there seemed to be no flavor at all to tofu.

But, everything changed once I turned vegan. I learned how to prepare and cook tofu so there is a nice texture and flavor. I learned that the secret to properly prepping tofu is to drain out all the liquids (as much as possible). The other secret is using the right type of tofu for your dish. Since I use tofu as my meat replacement, I buy mostly the firm or extra firm tofu to use in a stir fry or a baked recipe. I like tofu crisp on the outside.

Tofu is so versatile. It absorbs flavors easily. What I usually do with tofu for a weeknight dinner is either bake it or pan fry it. I use my cast iron skillet most days. I lightly oil the pain, season the tofu with salt and pepper and fry the tofu until it is crisp on all sides. Then, I will add the sauce. For this particular dinner, I simply heated up some Stubb's BBQ sauce and poured it on the cooked tofu. As simple as it is, you'd be surprise at how easy and fast and tasty it is.

I served it with a stir-fry Kale Salad.

Kale Salad

For this salad, I used mushrooms, carrots, snap peas and onion. I drizzle some olive oil to the kale, massage the kale and tearing it up into bite size pieces for a few minutes. Simply sautee the vegetables. Once the veggies are cooked, add the kale last and only for a couple of minutes. Just letting the kale get a bit soft, but still crispy. You don't want to lose the crunchiness from the kale. I like to taste my food, so I typically only use salt and pepper. This is a quick, simple, easy and healthy vegan weeknight dinner.