Sweet and Sour Tofu & Chickpeas
A Cantonese classic
Sweet and sour pork was always one of my favourite dishes. I loved eating it a restaurants, and I loved eating it at my grandparents’ house. It’s one of those dishes I still miss, even after 15 years!
Fortunately, it lends itself well to being veganized: Instead of pork, use tofu. Or chickpeas. Or cauliflower. Or whatever.
I feel satisfied whenever I eat the vegan version of this dish.
I’m always reminded that when someone stops eating meat, it’s not usually the meat itself that they miss. It’s the sauce, the spices, and everything that is used to flavour the meat.
This Sweet and Sour Tofu & Chickpeas is a great example of that.
This is a family recipe, and yes, the recipe does traditionally call for ketchup. The first time I shared this on TikTok I got a lot of hate from people who couldn’t believe this!
I know it may seem strange, but trust me, you either won’t notice or won’t care that there’s ketchup in the sauce.
Sweet and Source Tofu & Chickpeas
Serves: 2 - 4
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes (but you can prep while you cook)
Tools:
A frying pan
Ingredients
Sauce
3 tbsp ketchup
5 tbsp white sugar
3 tbsp lemon juice
4 tbsp hot water
1 tbsp cornstarch
Stir Fry
1 package firm tofu (about 350 g)
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed, or about 1 3/4 cups cooked
1 onion, cut into chunks
1 green pepper, cut into chunks
1 red pepper, cut into chunks
1 carrot, sliced into chunks
1 - 2 tbsp vegetable oil
Method
Prepare the vegetables. Chop all the vegetables — the onion, green pepper, red pepper, and carrot — into the same chunky size, about 1 - 2 inches large, depending on what you enjoy. Set aside in a bowl.
Prepare the tofu: cut into bite sized chunks.
Heat up a frying pan over medium heat. Once it’s hot, add a tablespoon of oil to the frying pan (or add more oil if you prefer).
Fry the tofu: add the tofu chunks to the hot and oiled frying pan. Fry for about 5-10 minutes, or until golden brown.
While the tofu is frying, make the sauce.
Mix together ketchup, white sugar, and lemon juice in a bowl.
Dissolve the cornstarch into the hot water. Add it to the ketchup mixture. Mix together.
Once the tofu is done, add it to a bowl, and set aside.
Cook the vegetables: Add a tablespoon of oil to the frying pan once again. Add in the onion, green pepper, red pepper, and carrot. Fry for about 5-10 minutes, or until the vegetables start to look slightly browned. The vegetables should be cooked, but still have a bit of crunch.
Add the tofu back to the frying pan.
Add the chickpeas to the frying pan.
Add the sauce to the frying pan. Fry for another few minutes or until the sauce has reached your desired consistency. The longer it fries, the thicker it’ll be.
Link to printer version.
Make it saucier: The sauce to ingredient ratio outlined above results in a light coating of sauce. If you’d like more sauce, then I suggest you use 1 less vegetable, or double the sauce, or add chopped tomato instead of carrot.
Meal prep this! I like making a triple — or even quadruple — batch of the sauce, without the cornstarch.
So, this means I mix together 9 tbsp of ketchup, 15 tbsp of sugar, and 9 tbsp of lemon juice and put it in a jar.
Then when I want to cook mid week, I fry up my vegetables and protein (usually tofu) then add the sauce, and a corn starch slurry (water and corn starch) bit by bit until the sauce has reached a sticky consistency.
Add more protein: Double the amount of tofu, or chickpeas. This could go well with tempeh, too. If you’re open to a less sauce-y dish, then by all means add as much protein as you’d like.
Use mock meat: You could use the sauce and vegetables with a vegan meat of sorts to mimic this in its original form: sweet and sour pork.
Sweet and sour cauliflower: Do everything the same, except instead of using tofu and chickpeas, you can use breaded cauliflower to really make it a meat substitute.
Serve with rice, noodles, salad, or eat as is.
Carrot: Instead of the carrot shown in this version of the recipe, try using a tomato. It helps make the dish saucier.
Tofu/chickpeas: As mentioned above, you could use tempeh or cauliflower. Or just use tofu, or just use chickpeas.
(White) onion: Red onion.
Vegetables: Substitute any of the vegetables with the following:
Broccoli
Green beans
Snow peas
Zucchini
White sugar: Any sugar should work in general, but white sugar is best.
Ketchup: You could use tomato paste, but I recommend sticking to ketchup.
Lemon juice: Sub white wine or lime juice.