Looking for an easy way to take your salads to another level of deliciousness? Three words: tofu bacon bits. There are three main components to making tofu taste like bacon: smokiness, saltiness, and crispiness. The saltiness and crispiness are easy, all they require are salt and heat; but how do we get the smoky flavor? We simply combine two of our all-time favorite ingredients to produce a smoky punch: smoked paprika and liquid smoke.
If you’ve been reading our blog for a long time, then you probably already know how much we love these two ingredients. We use them in many of our recipes, however, we hardly combine them. Most dishes only need one or the other to attain the right level of smokiness, but we’ve found that a combination of them works best for this recipe. The liquid smoke soaks into the tofu and give it that deep, rich smoky flavor throughout, while the smoked paprika coats the outside, providing just a little extra smokiness while also giving the tofu a subtle red tint.
There’s one last important tip we’d like to share with you: when making tofu bacon bits, smaller is better. In fact, it’s probably safe to say you can’t cut your pieces too small. If you think they’re small enough, give ’em one more rough chop. The smaller the pieces, the crispier they get; and when they get a little charred around the edges, they really taste just like bacon. I’m embarrassed to admit many of the bits you see in these photos are actually a little too large. We’ve been making tofu bacon for years, so I should’ve known better. But those really tiny, crispy bits you can see on the salad are bomb. That’s what you want to shoot for.
Last update on 2022-10-07 at 10:55 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API