Thai Tofu Stir Fry (Vegan)

You just can't beat a weekend jaunt to your local Asian grocers. Trust me. There's always new and exciting things to try out and today's blog post is brought to you by "Thailand's Number 1 Mushroom Vegetarian Sauce" - my new favourite!

I really recommend you go and find your own local Asian supermarket but if not you can get it online or you can swap for black bean sauce (found in most supermarkets these days).

So what's it like? It's rich, it's savoury, it's sticky, it's truly delicious. Think of it as an umami bomb added to the dish. It's also great for those vegetarian or vegan people in your life. As for the rest, it's a classic stir fry with the holy trinity of chilli, garlic and ginger, noodles of your choice, plus whatever veg you like (I went with spring onions, red peppers and sugar snap peas) as well as some soy sauce and toasted sesame oil. Flavour on flavour on flavour.

Thai Tofu Stir Fry (Vegan)
Serves 4

oil

200g vermicelli rice noodles

280g firm tofu, drained and cut into cubes

1 red chilli, finely chopped

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

7g fresh ginger, finely chopped

6 tbsp mushroom sauce or black bean sauce

6 spring onions, sliced 

2 red peppers, deseeded and sliced

250g sugar snap peas, roughly chopped

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp toasted sesame oil

Cook the noodles in boiling water for 5 minutes then drain and rinse with cold water. Set aside.

Meanwhile, heat around half a tablespoon of oil in a large frying pan or wok over a medium-high heat. Pat the tofu with kitchen towel until dry then fry (in batches if needed) until brown on one side. Flip and brown the other side then tip onto kitchen towel to drain. Set aside.

Return the pan to a medium heat and add a little more oil. Add the chilli, garlic and ginger and stir fry until fragrant. Pour in the mushroom or black bean sauce with 100ml of water. Bring to the boil then pour into a heatproof jug.

Return the pan to the heat and add the spring onions and pepper. Turn the heat to high and stir fry until softened and starting to char. Add the sauce mixture to the pan with the sugar snap peas. Cook for around 4 minutes until the peas are tender.

Add the cooked noodles and tofu followed by the soy sauce. Toss everything together to coat and cook until heated through. Remove from the heat and stir in the sesame oil. Divide between shallow bowls and serve.