How to Fry Tofu

How to fry Tofu – Tofu has soft texture, so if you want to frying it, you must slice in thick. Frying or shallow frying is a great method for cooking tofu because the hot oil dehydrates it, making it chewy in texture. But be careful when frying tofu, you will get lots of splatter. It's a good idea to press the tofu beforehand.

Frying can remove water from tofu. Another method for removing the water is frying the tofu on small heat to let the water to evaporate before marinating it. Use a Teflon pan with no oil. Fry it on both sides. This is a quick and very simple way.

There are some methods to fry tofu, such as:

Deep fry it. Fry thin slices of pressed and drained firm tofu in your deep fryer until light brown and crispy. Deep fry yield the tastiest fried tofu because the pieces are completely exposed to hot oil.  They’re easy, fast, and not overly dramatic tofu cooking methods.

Add it to a chilli or stew. After firm tofu is drained and pressed, it can be crumbled into pieces that are much like ground turkey or ground beef. Add crumbled firm tofu to a chilli or stew and cook through for at least 15 minutes at medium heat. If you marinated it fry it on oil to lock in marinated taste inside.

Make a cheesecake or custard. Silken tofu is great for making cheesecakes and custards. Replace cream cheese with tofu in cheesecake and custard recipes to create delicious, high protein desserts.

Pan-fry it. For about 5 minutes on medium heat on each side. Panfrying tofu does not create an even crisp texture all over the tofu pieces but you use less oil and can fry slabs that are a bit larger; however, too large of slabs (e.g., what you may put on a burger) can be unwieldy. Expect some sputtering when panfrying because the tofu is not quickly coated and sealed in hot oil. For that reason, be sure to blot excess moisture from the surface of the tofu pieces before panfrying.

Stir-fry it. Stir-fry chunks of pressed and drained firm tofu much as you would any other meat. The tofu will nicely absorb the flavours of the stir-fry oils and sauce.

When stir-fry tofu:
Use tender tofu and be gentle. For example, the dish at the top of this post is the ubiquitous mapo tofu, a spicy tofu with beef and Sichuan peppercorn preparation that’s ubiquitous on Chinese menus; see Asian Tofu, page 101, for the recipe.

In that classic, medium or medium-firm tofu (stuff that feels like the flesh between your thumb and index fingers; I often buy Trader Joe's regular organic tofu in the 20-ounce tubs but a firm tofu, such as Whole Foods' is fine) is cut into cubes, then soaked or blanched in hot water and drained. Exposure to hot water facilitates draining and helps the tofu to better hold its shape during the stir-frying.

You add the tofu to the pan and gently shake or stir it. You don’t vigorously move it around the wok with a spatula, lest it fall apart. There’s a fair amount of liquid and seasoning too so the tofu takes on the other ingredients. This is delicate stir-frying with some simmering involved. The results are creamy cubes of tofu with incredible flavor.

For non-spicy alternative, try the tofu with shrimp and peas (page 100). This is a dish that many Asian Tofu recipe testers made without being assigned to it:

Go for sturdier seasoned, pressed tofu. If you’re set on stir-frying super-firm tofu, try using seasoned pressed tofu that’s been simmered with seasonings (often times five spice and soy sauce), marinated, then baked. It’s called dou gan in Mandarin.

Fry the tofu first. Yep, it’s like double cooking. You can panfry, shallow-fry or deep-fry pieces of tofu beforehand – like up to 5 days in advance. Seriously. 

Frying tofu adds a rich fattiness and creates a lovely golden color. It also makes tofu that holds its shape during cooking. You can push, toss and move it around with ease.