Hoisin Tofu Tacos – No Meat, Some Potatoes

Tacos, tacos, tacos. Are you happy SEO?

This post is extra-self-promotional because it’s based off a request from my (sole) Patreon supporter. This lovely anonymous person donated to my page and unlocked the reward of picking a recipe for me to make. Their reward also includes me feeding them that recipe, but they didn’t seem interested.

This internet stranger asked for a tofu dish and my first thought was of TaKorean, a Korean taco place which serves amazing hoisin tofu tacos. I love hoisin sauce, it’s basically the reason I eat pho, but I’ve never cooked with it or even purchased a bottle. Now that I have the bottle in my possession, I’m about to cook with hoisin so often that I inevitably end up hating it. These tacos combine sweet hoisin tofu, salty slaw, cool lime sour cream, and spicy sriracha. It’s everything you could possibly want in a little corn container!

Ingredients:

Corn tortillas
Extra firm tofu
Cabbage
Corn
Hoisin sauce
Soy sauce
Rice wine vinegar
Cilantro
Sour cream
Lime juice

First, prepare the tofu by slicing it into rectangles.

Next, lay the tofu on a paper towel over a towel to soak up the extra moisture.

Wrap the tofu up like a soy present. This towel looks really gross, but I promise it’s been washed. I think my roommate used it to clean up an intoxicated-cooking-burned-food situation.

gin weighing down some tofu — Recycling bin alley, covered in snow

Weigh down the tofu with whatever you have lying around. Ideally the tofu will dry for an hour, but I usually only hold out for fifteen minutes.

TaKorean’s slaw does not have corn in it. There was a ton of frozen corn burning a hole in my freezer, so in it went.

Cabbages are not designed for unmarried folk. Even if I were married, I’d have to have like seven children who were willing to eat cabbage to get rid of it all. Why didn’t God think about me when designing this vegetable?

Chop up about 1/30th of the cabbage.

Prepare the slaw dressing. About two tablespoons of soy sauce, two tablespoons of rice vinegar, and 1 tablespoon of hoisin. I also added chili powder but the sauce did not get spicy. No worries, we will add sriracha later.

Stir everything together. Full disclosure, this slaw isn’t that great on its own, but it works in the taco. Also this is way too much slaw for the ideal slaw:tofu ratio. I guess maybe buy one cabbage and split it among your town?

Cut the tofu into smaller pieces. Then coat them with a ton of hoisin, 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, and 1 tablespoon of rice vinegar.

Heat up peanut oil and then drop in the tofu. I used a ton of oil accidentally, but that’s probably why it ended up tasting so good.

Don’t fuss with the tofu too much, just let the edges get crispy and the sauce caramelize. The oil may splutter a bit, so don’t stick your face in there.