Tofu Alternatives For Your Favorite Vegan Dishes

If you’ve spent time in a vegan kitchen, you know that a wide range of foods are open for enjoyment. However, it is true that a lot of vegans tend to load up on tofu. For those of us who have had enough of it lately, are allergic to soy, or are just looking to eat more varied sources of protein, here are some great tofu alternatives you can use in your favorite vegan dishes.

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Breakfast Scrambles

Tofu scramble is a great staple dish to know how to make. It’s really simple: just sauté some veggies with tofu and add turmeric to make it yellow, plus the added anti-inflammatory miracle that turmeric offers. You can create an incredible soy-free scramble using chickpea flour, which is also packed full of protein! If you have agar agar on hand (a type of seaweed), you can mix it with plant milk to make an egg-like scramble too. Find this recipe at Nouveau Raw here!

 

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Beyond Meat Beefy Crumbles, Swedish Meatballs, and Beyond Burger

Beyond Meat is one of the few companies which makes soy-free meat alternatives. It doesn’t hurt that it’s also darn tasty and convincing enough to fool the carnivores in your life. You can easily use these in recipes which call for tofu, meat, or any dense protein element.

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Stir-Fry

Stir-fry is a versatile meal and can be adjusted based on whatever veggies you have in the house. Instead of using tofu for the stir-fry, just add another high-protein element such as seitan, lentils, beans, or a soy-free meat analogue. Click here for this stir fry zucchini noodles recipe by Veggie Inspired!

 

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Grilling Recipes

Having a BBQ? You don’t have to throw tofu on the grill or your kebabs. You can, of course, grill up all sorts of vegetables instead – portobello mushrooms are particularly meaty. Don’t forget to experiment with grilling fruits too. Instead of a soy-based veggie burger, you could eat the 100% soy-free Beyond Burger. Also, you can always make your own plant burgers out of beans, lentils, or chickpeas.

 

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Creamy Desserts

Silken tofu is commonly used to make vegan pudding, mousse, and other creamy desserts. Instead, you can use creamed banana (like in this banana pudding recipe from Fab Haute Mama), coconut cream (in this peanut butter mousse recipe from Minimalist Baker), chickpeas (yes, seriously!– in this recipe for Mousse au chocolat from Mouthwatering Vegan), or avocado (like this recipe for avocado chocolate pudding from The Pretty Bee).

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Dairy-Free Ricotta

You can veganize classic cheesy dishes by making plant-based ricotta. This ricotta can also be made easily without tofu using almonds. Just soak 2 cups of blanched almonds for 8-12 hours. Then drain and blend them with 1 cup of water and a pinch of salt. Check out the recipe here by Yup It’s Vegan!

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BBQ Dishes

Here is one which is sure to excite your palate. Try BBQ jackfruit, showcased in this pulled BBQ jackfruit recipe. Jackfruit has quite a meat-like texture and is fantastic when shredded to make a sloppy joe inspired sandwich, or just slapped right on the grill.

 

What are your favorite alternatives to soy? Share them with us!