Looking for a fast and easy stir-fry? I took last week’s sauce and spiced it up a bit for this Spicy Air-Fried Garlic Tofu! And it was TASTY!
I’m always looking for different ways to flavor my Tofu. So it’s gotta be about the sauce. I mean there are only so many ways to cook tofu – right? Bake, fry, or air-fry?
So I took last week’s Yaki Noodle Sauce and spiced it up a bit.
No worries – I didn’t say I made it HOT. Trust me, my wife does NOT like hot. No hot sauce, no sriracha, no chile flakes on our pizza…. she can barely tolerate mild salsa.
She does not even like black pepper!
But she loves this. So if she can tolerate the spice, chances are so can you.
And what I used was a product known as Gochugaru – or Korean Chile Flakes. It’s the same thing I used to flavor my Vegan Kimchi.
In Korean – gochu means chile pepper, and garu means powder.
It has a sweet, kind of spicy, kind of smoky flavor that is really tasty and goes well on a lot of different dishes.
You may have seen Gochujang next to the Sriracha in your grocery store. Gochujang is a paste made from gochugaru, soybeans, and rice. Think of it as a spicy miso.
Gochugaru would be my preferred choice in this recipe, but if all you can find is gochujang it should still work.
Just remember: If you ARE sensitive to spice – add just a little and taste as you go. The amount I used in this recipe was just right for me, you may want less (or more)!
This recipe is pretty simple, we’ll make our sauce, air-fry our tofu, if you don’t have an air-fryer you can use your convection oven to bake it, and then we’ll stir-fry a whole bunch of garlic and add our sauce until it thickens, then fold in our cooked tofu.
Sound good? Then let’s get spicy!
Finally – the stir-fry.
I used a few aromatics like green onions and garlic along with some shiitake mushrooms, but this is a kitchen-sink kind of recipe…. meaning use what you got. Just don’t use too MUCH, because the tofu and the sauce are supposed to be the stars of the show.
I chopped 3 sticks of green onions, separating the green parts from the white. The white onions parts went into my saute pan along with about 6 cloves of minced garlic. And I searched for the largest cloves I could find.
I never use oil to saute – so I added a few splashes of low-sodium vegetable broth instead, just to keep everything from sticking. I had my pan on med-high (ish) heat until the onions started to turn translucent then added a red bell pepper I had cut into strips. Again, use what you have.
And because I like mushrooms, I added about half of a little 4 oz container of fresh shiitakes. If you are a mushroom hater – don’t use them – easy.
Once the mushrooms release their liquid and the peppers have softened, add the sauce. It will be thin at first, but it will thicken.
Then you just fold in your cooked tofu, turning and stirring everything so it gets completely coated in that wonderful sauce. When it has thickened to your liking – you’re ready to serve.
