Turmeric Tofu Scramble
Firm tofu crumbled and fried hard, with turmeric for colour and black salt for the sulphurous note that reads as egg.
Nutrition Info (per serving)
- 340
- Calories
- 24g
- Protein
- 20g
- Fat
- 16g
- Carbs
Ingredients
- 400 g firm tofu
- 1 onion
- 1 red pepper
- 100 g mushrooms
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp kala namak (black salt)
- 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- Large handful spinach
- Black pepper
- Toast, to serve
Instructions
- 1Drain the tofu and press it between two plates with a weight on top for 15 minutes, or wrap it in a tea towel and squeeze firmly. Wet tofu steams in the pan and never browns.
- 2Crumble the pressed tofu with your fingers into uneven pieces, from small crumbs to 2 cm chunks. Even dice looks wrong and eats wrong; scrambled egg is irregular and so should this be.
- 3Dice the onion and pepper, slice the mushrooms and mince the garlic.
- 4Heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a large frying pan over medium-high. Cook the onion, pepper and mushrooms for 6 minutes, until the mushrooms have released their water and it has evaporated.
- 5Push the vegetables to one side, add the remaining 1 tbsp oil, and add the crumbled tofu to the empty half.
- 6Leave the tofu undisturbed for 3 minutes so it browns on the underside, then stir and cook for 3 minutes more. Stirring constantly gives you pale, wet tofu.
- 7Add the garlic, turmeric and cumin and stir everything together for 1 minute.
- 8Take off the heat and stir through the nutritional yeast, the kala namak and plenty of black pepper. Add the black salt off the heat — its sulphur compounds are volatile and cook away.
- 9Fold in the spinach until just wilted and serve on toast.
Tofu scramble is not trying to be scrambled eggs, but two ingredients get it surprisingly close, and one technique decides whether it is good on its own terms.
Press it, then crumble by hand
Firm tofu is packed in water and holds a lot of it. In a pan, that water has to boil off before anything can brown, and in the meantime the tofu sits and steams.
Fifteen minutes under a weight removes a surprising amount. A tofu press is convenient; two plates and a tin of beans works identically.
Then crumble it with your fingers rather than cutting it. You want irregular pieces of varying size, which is what gives the finished dish the look and mouthfeel of scrambled egg.
Let it sit in the pan
Three undisturbed minutes gives the tofu browned, slightly crisp faces. Those browned surfaces are where the flavour is — tofu itself is close to neutral.
Constant stirring, which is correct for real scrambled eggs, is wrong here. Tofu does not set; it only browns, and browning needs contact time.
Kala namak is doing the heavy lifting
Black salt, or kala namak, is a volcanic rock salt from South Asia with a high sulphur content. It smells strongly of egg — genuinely, unmistakably — and half a teaspoon transforms this dish from savoury tofu into something that reads as an egg breakfast.
Add it off the heat. The sulphur compounds are volatile and largely cook away if it goes in early.
It is inexpensive and available in any South Asian grocer or online.
Turmeric for colour, nutritional yeast for savour
A teaspoon of turmeric gives the yellow. More than that and it turns bitter and slightly medicinal.
Nutritional yeast brings a cheesy, savoury depth and, in fortified brands, a useful amount of B12 — which matters if you are eating this instead of eggs regularly.
Nutrition
Around 340 calories with 24 grams of protein, which is comparable to a three-egg scramble. Tofu is a complete protein and a good source of calcium when set with calcium sulphate, as most firm tofu is.
Check the nutritional yeast label if B12 matters to you — not all brands are fortified.
The scramble keeps for three days and reheats well in a pan, which is unusual for anything egg-like.
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