Tofu Manchurian
use the sauce for meal prep
My family is Hakka. In Chinese, hakka literally means “guest families,” because the Hakka people don’t have one central region that they occupy. Instead, Hakka communites are dispersed throughout Southern China and more generally East Asia.
But for the longest time I didn’t realize there were Hakka people in India! When I first moved to Toronto, new friends would say “You’re Huk - a? I love Huk - a food!” pronounced with an emphasis on the first syllable (compared to the Haak - kah that I say), and they would describe dishes I had never heard of.
I have since learned:
Hakka restaurants are common in Toronto.
These Hakka restaurants serve Indian-Hakka food.
In India, Hakka is pronounced Huk-a.
And the food is delicious!
This Manchurian sauce is popular in Indian-Hakka cuisine. It’s a perfect mix of tangy, sweet, and spicy. You’ll see it commonly used on chicken, or cauliflower.
I like it because it uses similar ingredients to the Cantonese style sauces I usually make, yet it tastes quite distinct.
I like to make a triple batch to save in my fridge for meal prep.
We’ll focus on serving the sauce over tofu, but you can mix it in with:
chickpeas
cauliflower
stir fried veggies in general
vegan meatballs
Tofu Manchurian
Serves: 2 - 4
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes
Tools:
A frying pan
Ingredients
Manchurian Sauce
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp chili sauce (like Lee Kum Kee, Sriracha, or your favourite chili sauce)
2 tbsp ketchup
2 tsp brown sugar
1 tbsp white vinegar
Tofu
1 pack medium-firm or firm tofu (about 450g), cut into cubes
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 inch of ginger, peeled and minced
1 large white onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 stalk of green onion, sliced thinly, separate the white and green parts (optional)
2 - 4 tbsp neutral oil for frying (depends on your preference for oil)
Method
Add oil to a frying pan. Add in the tofu. Fry for a few minutes until the tofu is brown enough for your liking.
Once the tofu is browned remove it and place it on a plate. Set aside for now.
Add a bit more oil to the frying pan. Add in the remaining dry ingredients: garlic, ginger, white onion, bell pepper, and the white parts of the green onion. Fry for about 5 - 10 minutes until the vegetables have a bit of brown on them.
While the vegetables are frying: prepare the sauce. In a small bowl, mix the soya sauce, chili sauce, ketchup, brown sugar and vinegar.
Once the vegetables have browned, add the tofu back into the pan. Add the sauce to the pan. Give everything a good mix.
Serve the tofu over rice, or noodles, or whatever you like. Top with the remaining green onion, if using.
Enjoy!
Link to printer version.
Meal prep the sauce! Use it with:
Chickpeas (I do this often)
Cauliflower (“gobi manchurian”)
Steamed veggies
Stir fried veggies
Noodles
Vegan meatballs
Meal prep everything: Prep is the most time consuming part about cooking. When I made this recently I chopped double the amount of veggies, so I was able to mid-week make a second batch of Tofu Manchurian in 20 minutes.
Make tahini “bang bang” sauce: Mix together 3 parts tahini with 1 part manchurian sauce. It’ll come out deliciously creamy with a bit of spice and sweetness like this:
Ketchup: Use equal amounts of tomato paste.
Rice vinegar: Equal amounts of white vinegar, or even apple cider vinegar.
White onion: Red onion.
Green pepper: Any pepper you enjoy, like red or yellow pepper. Or sub another green vegetable like broccoli.
Soya sauce: If you want, you could use miso paste in a 1:1 fashion. I don’t recommend using table salt as a replacement.
Brown sugar: White sugar, or whatever sugar you have on hand.