General Tso Tofu Recipe That's Deliciously VEGAN - Instant Veg (2024)

A vegan take on the beloved American-Chinese takeout classic, General Tso's Chicken.

Ingredients

  • 2 13 oz blocks extra firm OR firm tofu $2.40

Tofu Marinade

  • 6 tsp minced garlic $0.06
  • 4 Tbsp soy sauce $0.03
  • 2 tsp chili flakes $0.01
  • 2 Tbsp beer (can sub water)
  • 1 tsp ginger powder $0.03

For The Sauce

  • 4 Tbsp sugar $0.02
  • 2 Tbsp white vinegar $0.01
  • 4 Tbsp soy sauce $0.09
  • 1 tsp aji-no-moto (optional) $0.02
  • ½ cup water
  • 2 tsp corn starch $0.06

For Cooking

  • 4 Tbsp corn starch $0.11
  • 4 Tbsp vegetable oil $0.09

Other Ingredients

  • sesame seeds (for garnish)
  • cooked rice
  • steamed veggies

Instructions

  • Drain tofu for 30 minutes by setting it in a colander. Set a plate with a heavy can on top for extra weight to help it drain.

  • Marinate the tofu – In a large bowl, add the minced garlic, soy sauce, chili flakes, and beer.

    Cut drained tofu into bite-sized cubes and gently mix it into the garlic sauce until tofu is completely coated. Sprinkle with ginger powder and gently stir. Cover and let rest in fridge for 1 hour.

  • General Tso's Tofu Sauce – In the meantime, make the sauce. Mix all the sauce ingredients together EXCEPT the cornstarch. Cover and let rest in fridge until you're ready to cook the tofu.

  • Bake the tofu – Heat oven to 400° Fahrenheit (200°C). Sprinkle 4 Tbsp cornstarch over the tofu and shake to coat evenly (or gently stir). Spread marinated tofu cubes onto a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes.

  • Sauté the tofu – Heat 4 Tbsp oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the tofu from the oven and stir to coat in the hot oil.

  • Add the sauce – Remove sauce from fridge and whisk in 2 tsp cornstarch. Pour into the skillet and stir gently until sauce is boiling, then turn off heat.

  • Serve & Enjoy – Garnish plated tofu with sesame seeds and serve with steamed veggies and rice.

Video

Notes

  • Aji-No-Moto is MSG, which is sometimes added to recipes to add the flavor umami. It’s what makes takeout so mouth-watering! If you prefer not to use it, just leave it out. The difference is subtle, but I always use it at home in this dish.
  • To make a low-sodium version, replace soy sauce with coconut aminos.You can buy it on Amazon here.
  • This is not a health foods recipe, it’s a veganized version of American Chinese takeout. You are the expert when it comes to making substitutions based on your dietary needs! 🙂

Course Vegan Dinner Recipes

Cuisine American, Chinese

Keyword general tso tofu, tofu recipes, vegan general tso, vegan general tsos chicken, vegan recipes

Prep Time 30 mins

Cook Time 20 mins

Additional Time 1 hr

Total Time 1 hr 50 mins

Servings 8 servings

Calories 228

Author Shannon Hakala

Cost $3.01 recipe / $0.38 serving

Nutrition

Serving: 1g | Calories: 228kcal | Carbohydrates: 36g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 7g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Sodium: 424mg | Potassium: 160mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 7g | Vitamin A: 290IU | Vitamin C: 21mg | Calcium: 29mg | Iron: 1mg

Print Recipe

If you’ve ever wanted to make your favorite takeout-style General Tso Tofu at home, look no further. This recipe tastes out of this world with spicy marinated tofu and a tangy, sweet sauce that you won’t be able to get enough of!

General Tso’s Tofu (a vegan version of General Tso’s Chicken) is one of my all-time favorite tofu recipes. This recipe is one of the most popular ones on my blog and for good reason – it’s delicious. A perfect recipe for anyone new to eating tofu, because it’s so flavorful.

It’s also quite spicy, probably too spicy for most kids. If you want to make this recipe kid-friendly, one way you could do it is to omit the red pepper flakes and add them at the end, only to the plates of the people who want the extra heat. Or add your favorite hot sauce.

How To Make General Tso’s Tofu

Here’s the gist of my General Tso Tofu Recipe. You can see the summarized recipe card if you keep scrolling.

Ingredients

Here are all the ingredients I used to make this dinner. I served my General Tso’s tofu with rice and steamed broccoli.

General Tso Tofu Recipe That's Deliciously VEGAN - Instant Veg (1)

For this recipe, you will need:

  • tofu (two blocks of firm or extra firm)
  • garlic
  • soy sauce
  • chili flakes
  • beer (just a splash – totally optional but helps with the marination. You can also use vinegar or white wine)
  • ginger powder
  • sugar
  • vinegar (I use white vinegar, ACV and other light vinegars work fine)
  • aji-no-moto (optional, read note below)
  • water
  • corn starch
  • vegetable oil
  • rice and steamed veggies to serve it with

Cooking Tips

Take your time – To make this recipe, you’ll need a little over an hour. First you’ll prepare the tofu and sauce and let them marinate (separately) in the fridge. Adding chili flakes to the marinade and giving it enough time to marinate is what gives it the best spicy flavor.

Takeout flavor optional – In this recipe, aji-no-moto (MSG) is what gives the sauce that mouth-watering flavor that you get from the restaurant. I recommend using it if you have it (you can get it on Amazon or at a grocery store that sells Asian foods), but the recipe will still be good if you decide to leave it out. Some people can get adverse symptoms when they eat something containing a lot of MSG, so if you’re worried about it, just leave it out.

Alcohol helps the marinade – The purpose of alcohol is to help the chili flakes’ flavor penetrate the tofu. That’s why you don’t need very much. This isn’t one of those recipes where you make 4 pounds of marinating sauce and have to throw it all away. A little marinade will go a long way.

Step 1 – Drain The Tofu

To start, drain your tofu for about 30 minutes. There are different ways you can drain excess water from tofu – either by pressing it like I’m doing here, or by wrapping it in a paper towel and giving it a GENTLE squeeze. Or you can do both. Here’s what my setup looked like:

General Tso Tofu Recipe That's Deliciously VEGAN - Instant Veg (2)

Once the tofu is drained for a bit, cut it into bite size pieces. These pieces are about 1″ on all sides. Sometimes I cut them to half that size so that I get more pieces. More pieces = more bites!

General Tso Tofu Recipe That's Deliciously VEGAN - Instant Veg (3)

Step 2 – Marinate the tofu

Dice the garlic finely or use a pre-minced garlic. You don’t want any big bursts of garlic taste when you eat the final result.

General Tso Tofu Recipe That's Deliciously VEGAN - Instant Veg (4)

How to make the tofu marinade – In a large bowl mix together the garlic, soy sauce, chili flakes, and beer (optional, can sub with wine or water). It’ll look something like this:

General Tso Tofu Recipe That's Deliciously VEGAN - Instant Veg (5)

Then, add in your tofu chunks and stir them gently since uncooked tofu is delicate and breaks up easily. Make sure all surfaces of the tofu are coated in the marinade.

General Tso Tofu Recipe That's Deliciously VEGAN - Instant Veg (6)

Next, sprinkle in about a teaspoon of ginger powder, and again gently stir the tofu to incorporate it.

General Tso Tofu Recipe That's Deliciously VEGAN - Instant Veg (7)

Cover the bowl and let it rest for one hour in the fridge. I simply put a plate over the bowl, since I hate wasting plastic wrap. If you ever worked in a restaurant, you know how much plastic wrap goes to waste every single day… it’s scary. So I always try to use a plate to cover stuff now. A Tupperware container or pyrex with a lid works great, too.

General Tso Tofu Recipe That's Deliciously VEGAN - Instant Veg (8)

In the meantime, you can prepare the sauce.

Step 3 – Prepare the sauce

This General Tso sauce itself is actually not spicy – only sweet and tangy. The spiciness comes from marinating your tofu with a red chili flakes in the previous step.

To make the General Tso Sauce, mix these ingredients together well:

  • 4 tablespoons sugar
  • 2 tablespoons white vinegar
  • 4 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 1 teaspoon aji-no-moto (msg) *optional!
  • 1/2 cup water

Later, we will add 2 teaspoons of corn starch to thicken the sauce. For now, cover the sauce mixture and let it rest in fridge until you’re ready to cook the tofu. I usually let my sauce rest in the fridge for about an hour, since it gives the ingredients time to blend and “get to know one another.”

Step 4 – Bake the tofu

We’re going to be baking the tofu a little bit, so heat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (which is about 200 C).

Take the tofu from the fridge and sprinkle 4 tablespoons of cornstarch over it. Cover and shake to coat evenly (or gently stir). The cornstarch is what will give the tofu a bit of a crust for sauce to get absorbed into for that intense flavor. However, it can be omitted if you don’t have it.

Spread the marinated tofu cubes onto a baking sheet (you can line it with parchment to reduce sticking, but on a well-seasoned baking sheet they shouldn’t stick very much) and bake for 20 minutes. They look something like this when they come out of the oven:

General Tso Tofu Recipe That's Deliciously VEGAN - Instant Veg (9)

Step 5 – Sauté the tofu

Heat about 4 tablespoons of vegetable oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the tofu from the oven and stir to coat in the hot oil.

Step 6 – Add the sauce

Remove the sauce from the fridge and whisk in 2 teaspoons of cornstarch, being sure to mix thoroughly so there are no lumps.

Pour sauce over the tofu in the frying pan and stir gently until the sauce is boiling. Turn off the heat and continue stirring another minute or so, to let the sauce cool down and thicken a bit more.

General Tso Tofu Recipe That's Deliciously VEGAN - Instant Veg (10)

Step 7 – Serve & Enjoy

Garnish plated tofu with sesame seeds and serve with steamed broccoli and rice.

General Tso Tofu Recipe That's Deliciously VEGAN - Instant Veg (11)

My husband and I LOVED this general tso tofu recipe. Just like with the original, General Tsos Chicken, we kept wanting to eat more even though it was quite filling.

General Tso Tofu Recipe That's Deliciously VEGAN - Instant Veg (12)

Biting into each piece is a satisfying experience of sweet, tangy flavors combined with the heat of the red pepper, and the perfect tofu texture that’s not too soft and not too chewy.

If you try this recipe, please let me know in the comments how it turned out or what you did differently. I really hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Other Tofu Recipes You Might Like:

  • Vegan Orange Chicken – Orange Tofu
  • Vegan Palak Paneer – Palak Tofu
  • Butter Tofu (Vegan Butter Chicken) Easy Instant Pot Recipe
  • Chipotle Lime Tofu With Roasted Corn Side Dish
  • Tofu Sofritas – Vegan Taco Meat

Like this vegan general tso tofu recipe? Please share it on Pinterest!!

General Tso Tofu Recipe That's Deliciously VEGAN - Instant Veg (2024)

FAQs

What not to mix with tofu? ›

What to not serve with tofu? According to studies, a high volume consumption of tofu and spinach together can increase your risk of kidney stones. Tofu and spinach contain calcium and oxalic acid respectively and the combined can form kidney stones.

How to make tofu taste amazing? ›

Here are a few ideas:
  1. Marinate it: Tofu can be marinated in a variety of flavorful sauces or spices. ...
  2. Press it: Firm tofu can be quite bland if eaten straight out of the package. ...
  3. Fry it: Fried tofu can be crispy and delicious. ...
  4. Add it to stir-fry: Tofu can be added to stir-fries for extra protein and texture.
Apr 6, 2023

What is General Tso tofu made of? ›

Ingredients and Substitutions

tofu – Use firm or extra firm tofu, and make sure to press it for the best results. pepper – White pepper and red pepper flakes season the tofu. cornstarch – To crisp the tofu and thicken the sauce. You can use other starches, like potato or tapioca starch instead, if needed.

Is General Tso tofu good for you? ›

For every serving, you get 9g of protein, 4g carbs and 3g fat (2.5g unsaturated, 0.5g saturated). Frying the tofu adds more fat but also adds a ton of flavor. Worth it! We love this as a quick weeknight dinner.

Why can't you eat spinach with tofu? ›

- It is said that tofu cannot be eaten together with spinach at the same time. As tofu and spinach contain calcium and oxalic acid respectively, the combination of the two will form kidney stones. But in fact, only prolonged and volumionous consumption of tofu and spinach at the same time will pose this risk.

Why can't you eat a lot of tofu? ›

Still, tofu and other soy products also make some people wary because isoflavones function like a weak form of the hormone estrogen. But concerns that soy can cause infertility or other problems in men are "not based on science at all," Sun said. Similarly, the American Cancer Society sees no dangers from eating soy.

What should I season tofu with? ›

Toss the cubes with olive oil, tamari or soy sauce, and sriracha. If desired, you could also add cornstarch to make the cubes extra crispy. Finally, bake! Transfer the baking sheet to a 425°F oven and cook until the cubes are browned around the edges.

What is the secret to cooking tofu? ›

Tofu contains a large amount of water when it comes out of the package. In order to bake, fry, or scramble tofu, it's best to press out as much water as possible before cooking. The longer you press your tofu, the firmer the texture will be and the easier it will be to achieve a nice crispy texture.

What is the best way to eat tofu for the first time? ›

Pan-frying is the easiest, least fussy way to cook up a batch of ultra-crispy cubes of tofu. After pressing and draining as much liquid from the block as possible, cut the tofu into cubes, sticks, or wedges, then toss it with cornstarch until all the pieces are well-coated.

What is Chinese tofu called? ›

Firm tofu (硬豆腐) – aang dou fu

Firm tofu (aang dou fu) is known as “regular” tofu in northern Chinese cuisines, and as its name suggests, is firm in texture and holds its shape even when pressed.

Should you marinate tofu? ›

Tofu has very little flavour itself but soaks up almost every flavour you add to it. When you put tofu in a stew or simmer it in a broth, you don't need to marinade it beforehand, as it absorbs all of the flavours during cooking. But for all other types of preparations, it's better to marinate the tofu first of all.

What is the flavor of General Tso? ›

General Tso's Chicken is that perfect combination of sweet, savoury, spicy and tangy with crispy Chinese chicken bites. It's a Chinese takeout favourite that just pushes all the right buttons!

How to make tofu taste nice? ›

Simply press firm tofu and use your hands to break it up by smashing it between your fingers until it mimics the texture of scrambled eggs. Then season with turmeric, black pepper, garlic powder, black salt (for an “eggy” flavor, or use sea salt or Tamari instead), and add in your favorite cooked veggies.

Why do Chinese eat so much tofu? ›

This probably coincided with the spread of Buddhism as it is an important source of protein in the vegetarian diet of East Asian Buddhism. Li Shizhen, during the Ming dynasty, described a method of making tofu in the Compendium of Materia Medica.

Is tofu healthier than chicken? ›

Tofu nutrition. This meatless option is a staple for vegetarians, and rightfully so. It boasts more fiber, calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc and folate than chicken and contains fewer calories.

What cannot be eaten with tofu? ›

2. Spinach and Tofu. Another pairing that I love eating together: spinach and tofu. However, it turns out that spinach contains oxalic acid which binds with calcium in tofu and makes it indigestible for our stomach.

Is tofu a high inflammatory food? ›

While people with inflammation should generally avoid dairy, soy protein products like tofu and tempeh have been found to reduce pain in joints according to a study from Oklahoma State University. An easy way to add soy to your diet is using soy protein powder. Spices.

Can we eat tofu and egg together? ›

Yes, you can eat eggs and soya chunks together. Both eggs and soya chunks are good sources of protein, and consuming them together can help meet your daily protein requirements. You can add boiled or scrambled eggs to your soya chunk curry or stir-fry for a balanced meal.

Does tofu affect your stomach? ›

Soy sensitivity can cause a number of symptoms including gas, cramping, bloating, abdominal pain, or diarrhea (a.k.a. nothing pretty).

References

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