I love mapo tofu from a small child and my mother always cooked this at home with her self-made red oil doubanjiang (chili bean paste). This is a vegetarian (vegan) version developed from the traditional mapo tofu recipe.
In recent years, vegan and vegetarian diets have been more and more popular. We got lots of restaurants focusing on vegan dishes. Most of them are quite yummy with very little difference from regular dishes with meats. Among all of these vegan dishes, I love vegan mapo tofu the best. Traditional mapo tofu calls minced meat (pork or beef) as the main side ingredient to enhance the flavor. Tofu itself is quite plain and tasteless. But comparing and clashing make tofu dishes more interesting than other ingredients. First, you taste some extremely strong flavors, either hot or savory, and then followed by the very faint taste of soybeans.
If we skip meat, the dish may seem a little bite plain and that’s why I use shiitake mushroom to replace meat. Shiitake mushroom is one of the key ingredients for vegan stocks because of the large group of amino acids.
Usually, mapo tofu is cooked with minced pork or sometimes with beef. I make this vegetarian version so that vegetarian food can also enjoy it. However, I replace the meat part with chopped shitake mushrooms. Why do I have to do that? Here is the story.
It is recorded that there is a couple who own a restaurant mainly selling vegetarian dishes. The wife, also the cook, gets some pock (麻子in Chinese)on her face. Her tofu dishes are quite popular among the guests. However, some guests told her that they want to eat some meat rather than just tofu. So she bought some beef and cut it into granules and added the beef to her tofu. Then the tofu dish with beef become more popular and her guests gave the name: Mapo tofu.
Cook’s Note
1. For the tofu, I recommend using regular tofu not firm tofu or silken tofu. The taste of firm tofu is not so tenderer but silken tofu is too easy to break. Choosing the right type of tofu is a key point here.
2. Blanching tofu in hot boiling water can remove the raw taste of tofu and avoid the cubes from breaking in the later cooking process.
3. When stir-frying the tofu cubes, only back push the cubes otherwise the texture might be broken.
4. Recommend using fresh grilled Sichuan peppercorn powder. I highly recommend using a grinder to grind the peppercorn, not blending. You can see from the following picture, the white hard parts have no flavors at all,
Steps
- Cut tofu into square cubes (around 2cms). Bring a large amount of water to a boil and then add a pinch of salt. Slide the tofu in and cook for 1 minute. Move out and drain.
- Add oil to a wok and fry doubanjiang for 1 minute over slow fire until the oil turns red then add garlic, scallion white, ginger, and fermented black beans to cook for 30 seconds until aroma. Then fry mushrooms until soft.
- Add water to the seasonings and bring to a boil over a high fire. Gently slide the tofu cubes. Add light soy sauce and sugar. Slow the heat after boiling and then simmer for 6-8 minutes. Then add chopped garlic greens.
- Stir the water starch and then pour half of the mixture into the simmering pot. Wait for around 30 seconds and then pour the other half. You can slightly taste the tofu and add a pinch of salt if not salty enough. By the way, if you feel it is too spicy, adding some sugar can milder the taste. But be careful as the broth is very hot at this point.
- Transfer out when almost all the seasonings stick to tofu cubes. Sprinkle Szechuan peppercorn powder (to taste).
Vegetarian Mapo Tofu with Mushrooms
Ingredients
- 450 g soft tofu
- 4 middle size shitake mushroom , sliced
- 1.5 tbsp. Doubanjiang ,chopped
- 1/2 tbsp. fermented black beans , chopped
- 2 tbsp. cooking oil
- 2 shallot white , chopped
- 2 cloves garlic , chopped
- 1 inch ginger ,chopped
- 2 tbsp. oil
- 1 tbsp. light soy sauce
- 2 cups water
- 1/4 tsp. sugar
- 1 tsp. sesame oil
- fresh Sichuan peppercorn powder
water starch
- 2 tbsp. water
- 1 tbsp. sweet potato starch , or 1.5 tbsp. corn starch
Instructions
- Slice mushroom, chop garlic, ginger, spring onion white, doubanjiang and fermented black beans.
- Cut tofu into square cubes (around 2cms). Bring a large amount of water to a boil and then add a pinch of salt. Slide the tofu in and cook for 1 minute. Move out and drain.
- Fry doubanjiang for 1 minute over slow fire until the oil turns red and then add garlic, scallion white, ginger and fermented black beans to cook for 30 seconds until aroma. Then fry mushrooms until soft.
- Add water to the seasonings and bring to boil over high fire. Gently slide the tofu cubes. Add light soy sauce and sugar.Slow the heat after boiling and then simmer for 6-8 minutes. Drizzle some sesame oil.
- Stir the water starch and then pour half of the mixture to the simmering pot. Wait for around 30 seconds and then pour the other half. You can slightly taste the tofu and add pinch of salt if not salty enough.
- Transfer out when almost all the seasonings stick to tofu cubes. Sprinkle Szechuan peppercorn powder (to taste).
Sorry, chicken stock must be omitted to make this vegetarian
Brian, you can use pure water as noted. I am not sorry that I am not vegetarian so I am not so strict with the ingredients.
Brian should know, as a vegetarian, what can be substituted for chicken stock. Brian, your reply came across as harsh. Maybe thank her and ‘offer’ a suggestion. I’m NOT a vegetarian, but I cook vegetarian food for my daughter who’s 17 and I don’t know much…but when a recipe calls for things my daughter won’t eat, I just substitute.
There are also plenty of places that make vegetarian chicken stock, and Massel does vegetarian chicken stock cubes. Really, chicken stock is very easy to substitute in and it be wholly vegetarian.
Thanks for the information Foxy. I am not a vegetarian or vegan so I might make some mistake. Thanks for all the tolerance.
Hi Elaine,
I just want to thank you for the detailed information. I cooked my first mapo tofu at home and it was so great. Good Job! Please keep the excellent recipes coming.
Hi Li,
Thanks for the feedback. And I glad you that have started cooking your own mapo tofu now.
Hi there,
I just finished this recipe and it turned out great! The texture with the mushrooms is spot on. I rounded the meal with steamed broccoli and snow pea tips. What other dishes would you recommend to serve with this one?
G
Hi Gaun,
Thanks for trying my recipe and your feedback. Just for your information, we usually serve this with steamed rice or bread. I understand this is very Chinese way. But sauce tastes really great with grains and cereals.
I just tried this and I really like it! I ommitted the Sichuan peppercorn because I didn’t have it, though, and I used dark soy sauce (I know you said not to, but I had nothing else)…
But my dish doesn’t look like the picture, it’s much drier, and mostly it doesn’t look red like that. So I’m wondering, is this because of the soy sauce I used? I feel like even without the brown soy sauce it would not have looked that red… Or do I need more water?
Thanks for the recipe anyway, I’ll try again, with the right ingredients next time 😉
Hi Maria,
If it looks direr, add a little bit more water. The red color comes from the chili sauce–Doubanjiang. Which brand are you using? And yes, dark soy sauce will influence the appearance. That’s the reason I call light soy sauce in this recipe.
Hello,Elaine
I noticed how different your vegetarian and non-vegetarian mapo doufu-recipes are. For example, there was ginger in the vegetarian one, but none in the non-vegetarian one which had rice wine and douchi while the vegetarian one had no rice ine and no douchi. Why is that?
Best wishes, and thanks for all of these great recipes! I really appreciate your work. 🙂
Hi Bjarni,
Thanks for your kind words and trust. For douchi, I am not sure whether it is vegetarian sincerely. And rice wine is not so essentially for mapo tofu. I am quite sorry for the lack of precision. This vegetarian version is not the traditional version, just a creation of myself.
Ah, ok. Anyway, thank you very much for such a good and quick reply. Best wishes to you! 🙂
I would love a recipe for doubanjiang ! Your recipes are the best, finally I don’t have to go out to have amazing Sichuan food!
Yes, Elena. I have the plan to post a detailed information about homemade Doubanjiang. But there is still several months to wait as we make Doubanjiang in Winter.
Thank you for sharing this!! we love Mapo Doufo and we are vegetarians so it’s great to learn your recipes with a vegetarian/ vegan twist. Thank you!
You are the most welcom, Dany.
Your recipes are awesome
Thanks!
Elaine, this recipe is perfect! I love mapo tofu, but never thought it would be so fast and easy to make. Thank you for all the tasty recipes.
Thank you Pamela for your lovely comment!
Once again another success!
Soft, tender tofu and chewy mushrooms and spiciness…
Thank you Elaine
(we also had the eggplant salad, with tiny eggplants from the market! Delicious! And I could make it ahead of the rest of the meal! )
Thank you Michelle!