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Mapo Tofu Inspired Dumplings

My kids and husband can all attest to my unending love of dumplings, gyoza, potstickers, ravioli, and any other foods that include a filling stuffed inside of carbohydrates. For Mother’s Days, I often request a bag of premade dumplings and feast on them all day and night.

But the premade version could never compare to these!

This recipe was a combination of leftovers that needed to be used up (dumpling wrappers and mapo tofu) but I loved them so much I started making them regularly. These mapo tofu inspired dumplings combine all the spicy, sweet, and umami flavors I love about mapo with the comfort of a bite sized wheat wrapper.

As usual, I’m using my favorite Mori-Nu Silken Tofu for this. I love having their tofu on hand for dishes like this because it stays fresh on the shelf and it has the perfect texture for slipping into some crispy and chewy dumplings. Unlike water packed tofu, Mori-Nu Silken Tofu doesn’t require a lot of pressing or draining to cook which makes it more accessible and quicker to prep!

There are many types of wonton or dumpling wrappers you could use for this, just be sure to check the ingredients for eggs! If you can find round wrappers, those will work as well, just do a traditional crimping fold to keep them shut.

For my mapo tofu I always use ground Szechuan pepper and a spicy broad bean paste. My brand of choice is Lee Kum Kee, but there are many different options you can use-just adjust the taste based on your spice tolerance!

For folding these, it’s quite simple, just wet the edges of each wrapper, fold corner to corner, and then gently pinch the outside tips together (see above.) You can also look up videos on YouTube for different folding methods if you’d like another shape of dumpling.

Make sure to use a fully hot skillet and a neutral oil for cooking these. The splash of water in the pan helps steam the wrappers and gives them a soft texture, but will splatter everywhere if not covered. I love my cast iron skillet for cooking these because it holds so much heat and the bottoms crisp up perfectly.

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Tags: ad, asian, chinese, dinner, Dumpling, food, morinu partner, morinu tofu, plant-based, recipe, sponsered, szechuan, tofu, Tofu dumpling, vegan, vegetarian

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Categories asian, chinese, vegan

Sweetfire Seitan

14 Sep

Most people who know me know I worked in a famous Asian restaurant for well over a year. I was very limited in my meal options there; I pretty much exclusively ate white rice and vegetable spring rolls. Every once in a while I would cook my own meals using the ingredients available to me. One meal I ate regularly was vegetables cooked in their sweet chili sauce (which they called sweetfire.) I was never able to add a vegan protein to it there, but recreating it at home gave me that option.

I used seitan I had dipped in a soy/flour mixture and fried, because the recipe from my work used deep-fried chicken bites. You could easily sub tofu or unbreaded seitan as well. This recipe is extremely quick and easy, especially if you use premade sauce and seitan. Perfect for busy work nights or long days with a teething toddler.

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Tags: asian, chinese, copycat recipe, seitan, sweet chili sauce, sweetfire, vegan, vegetarian

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Categories asian, chinese, meat alternative, vegan

Mapo Tofu-Revisited

11 Aug

Mapo tofu is still one of our favorite meals here – it’s one of my go to dishes when I’m low on time, because it doesn’t require a huge prep time. I’ve improved on my original recipe a lot, specifically by adding the broad bean paste and szechuan pepper. The szechuan pepper adds an almost – citrus flavor that’s perfect for this spicy dish.

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Tags: asian, chinese, dinner, mapo, plant-based, recipe, tofu, vegan, vegetarian

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Categories asian, chinese, vegan

Sweet and Sour Seitan

3 Jan

One of my favorite meal growing up was sweet and sour meatballs. My mom used a recipe from the original orange Betty Crocker (you know the one, your mom had it too.) I love adapting old recipes, so here’s my version.

I use seitan instead of meatballs, but you could easily substitute tofu. Feel free to add different veggies, but the pineapple is essential.

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Tags: chinese, dinner, food, recipe, seitan, sour, sweet, vegan, vegetarian

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Categories asian, chinese, grains, vegan

Mapo Eggplant

3 Nov

This could easily be called sichuan eggplant, but I prefer to think of it as mapo eggplant, as that’s what inspired the recipe. I’ve expressed how much I love mapo tofu in my previous post and this dish runs a close second. I came up with this to use up our abundance of eggplant in our garden this year; my desire for spicy foods prevailed over traditional dishes like moussaka.

The eggplant gets a perfect soft and chewy texture when fried, and soaks up the sauce perfectly. I use mushrooms and seitan to mimic the pork in traditional mapo tofu and add some green onions for color. I usually grind my own sichuan peppercorns and make my own chili oil, but you don’t have to go through all that effort if you can buy them both. The fermented black beans and chili bean paste are key in this recipe; you can make it without them, but they add a depth you can’t get without them.