The Little Kitchen Tofu Tacos Recipe

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I love crispy tofu and I'm sure you do too! I'm sharing this tofu tacos recipe with you, it's an Asian taco with crispy tofu, pickled vegetables and a cabbage slaw. You need to make it ASAP!

Tofu Tacos Recipe from The Little Kitchen

This post is sponsored by Best Food Facts.

I actually grew up eating tofu. My mom cooked it all the time. I love it. A couple of years ago, I had crispy tofu tacos at a local Vietnamese fast casual restaurant and I was hooked. I loved getting to recreate this recipe at home!

I love working with Best Food Facts and learning about how we all can work towards sustainability when it comes to food. I participated in a Zoom chat with three registered dietitians: Dr. Ruth MacDonald is a food scientist at Iowa State University, Jennie Schmidt who is a farmer and Amanda Moder, who works for Hy-Vee.

I really enjoyed our conversation and I learned a lot! First, did you know that sustainability when it comes to food, is about more than the environment? Sustainability is the intersection of the environment, health, the economy as well as diversity and cultural sensitivity.

Why should we care about sustainability?

We should care about sustainability when it comes to food because we all want affordable food that tastes good. Some of us eat certain foods for health reasons, some of us value affordability over everything else and that's ok too. Sustainability allows food systems to flourish. Sustainability matters in food and farming because it helps farmers stay in business.

Dr. Ruth mentioned that we as consumers should be more thoughtful about our food choices. We should make informed choices based on science and not misinformation.

The biggest takeaway from our chat for me is how much food waste we have our in country. We all know it's A LOT. And I want to do better about not contributing to food waste. Having so much food waste is NOT sustainable.

And the most interesting point from Dr. Ruth was how if we don't do any processing of food (think canned foods, processed foods like tofu, frozen foods), we contribute to more food waste. Food waste is unavoidable if you only have fresh foods.

This reminded me of being in school and learning about humans utilizing preserving techniques before refrigeration was invented. Do you remember that?

How can we contribute to being more sustainable with our food choices?

Another big takeaway from Dr. Ruth for me was that we can do better and be more sustainable when it comes to grocery shopping by planning our meals.

Do you meal plan? Have you meal planned before?

This was eyeopening to me because I realized in the past when we did plan our meals, we spent less at the grocery store and most certainly wasted less food.

I don't know about you but when we let food go bad and have to throw it out, I feel guilty about. I think about the money wasted and the resources it took to make that produce, that meat or whatever food it was.

We started meal planning again recently and I found it so helpful! I don't plan exactly by the day and I leave a little wiggle room for having leftovers for dinner (which is really sustainable and is less waste!) and doing take out a couple of times a month.

And it makes it easier to solve the age old question, what's for dinner tonight?

You can use a notes app on your phone to meal plan. I use a grocery list app to keep track of things we need. After I plan my meals out, I gather the recipes and check out my pantry and refrigerator. Whatever I don't already have at home, I add it to my grocery list app!

I put together a little printable PDF if you to try your hand at meal planning! You can download it by signing up below. It has two different meal planners, one with a Sunday start and one with a Monday start. I also included a printable for a grocery list that you can print and put on your refrigerator too!

Free Printable!

Now let's make these tofu tacos. I show you how to make the crispy tofu, it's so good. It was hard for me to not just pop them into my mouth when I was making them!

Ingredients for Tofu Tacos

white vinegar
granulated sugar
salt and pepper
carrots
daikon radish
cabbage (I used purple cabbage)
olive oil
sesame oil
firm tofu
cornstarch
garlic powder
onion powder
grape seed oil
sriracha
mayonnaise (you can use vegan mayonnaise to make this recipe vegan, if you wish)
corn tortillas
cilantro

Can you make Crispy Tofu in the air fryer?

Yes, you can! I actually made it in my air fryer and my Ninja Foodi. I have instructions in the recipe card below for both!

How to make Tofu Tacos

First, make the pickled carrots and daikon. It's the same pickled veggies that you find in a Vietnamese banh mi! I cut the carrots into matchsticks.

And same with the daikon (which is a kind of radish).

Mix carrots and daikon with vinegar, water, sugar and salt. Cover and set aside for at least 2 hours.

Press the tofu for 20 minutes. I used this tofu press this time but you can also use a couple of plates and some cans. I show you how here where I shared my recipe for vegetarian dumplings.

Make the cabbage slaw but slicing up the cabbage and whisking together vinegar, oils, water, sugar, salt and pepper. You can add a little more pepper on top if you'd like as well!

Mix together sriracha sauce and mayonnaise with a small rubber spatula. Cover and refrigerate. (You can totally add more sriracha if you like it SPICY! I mean who wouldn't love spicy tofu tacos?!?)

Make this recipe vegan by using vegan mayo!

Remove the water from the tofu press and then remove the tofu from the press. Cut up the tofu in half and then continually cut into strips and then into cubes.

In a medium sized bowl or shallow dish, mix together cornstarch, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper.

Add tofu cubes to the cornstarch mixture.

And make sure each piece of tofu is covered in the cornstarch mixture.

Add grape seed oil to cover the bottom of a nonstick pan. Heat on medium high for three minutes.

Cooking in two batches, add the tofu to the nonstick pan. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes on each side.

Remove and place on a paper towel lined plate.

Heat tortillas in a cast iron skillet with just a little bit of oil on medium high. Heat them for 1 to 2 minutes on each side.

I know you'll love these tofu tacos! They are so so good with the crispy tofu. Obviously, this is more of an Asian taco recipe. I know your family will love it!

One other thing, if you don't have any corn tortillas, you can make this dish as a bowl and enjoy it that way! So the corn tortillas aren't necessary but the sriracha mayo is!