Crunchy Thai Tofu Salad with Peanut Dressing

🥗 Why We Love This Recipe

• So many flavors and textures: With an array of fresh, crunchy vegetables as the base for this Thai salad, plus crispy baked tofu and a creamy peanut dressing, it's absolutely loaded with flavor and texture.
• Plenty of vegetables: This Thai salad has bok choy, carrots, peas, bell pepper, radish, cabbage and more!
• Filling enough for a full meal: This Thai salad is plenty filling for either lunch or dinner. It's also great as an appetizer or side dish for a larger group.
• Vegan and gluten free friendly: This Thai salad is 100% vegan and can easily be made gluten free by using tamari instead of soy sauce. A great option for those with dietary restrictions!

🥬 Ingredients

Here's what you'll need to make this Thai salad:

Here's what you'll need to make the peanut dressing for this Thai salad:

📋 Ingredient Notes

• Tofu: You'll want to use extra firm tofu in this recipe. Be sure to press it well before baking to remove as much moisture as possible so it gets nice and crispy in the oven.
• Vegetables: We use a wide array of fresh vegetables in the base for this Thai salad, including bok choy, carrots, radish, bell pepper, cabbage and peas. If you would prefer, you can simply use two or three of those vegetables, or whatever you have on hand.
• Peanuts: Salted peanuts add extra crunch and nuttiness to the finished salad. You can also sub with cashews or a seed of choice.
• Peanut butter: Peanut butter is the base of the dressing, but if you're allergic, you can sub with sunflower butter, cashew butter, or tahini.
• Miso: We used white miso in this recipe. White miso and yellow miso are both mild and would work well in this dish, but we would advise against red miso, which is much stronger and could be overpowering.
• Soy sauce / tamari: We used tamari in this recipe to keep it gluten-free. Soy sauce works too if gluten isn't an issue.
• Chili garlic sauce: AKA sambal oelek. You can find this in just about any grocery store.
• Coconut sugar: You can also use brown sugar.

🔪 Step-by-step Instructions

(1) Preheat the oven to 375˚F / 175˚C. Drain the tofu well, pat dry and slice the block in half lengthwise, then wrap in a clean tea towel (or several paper towels). Set something heavy on top, like a cast iron skillet and press for 30 minutes.

Cube tofu into ½ inch pieces. 

(2) In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the oil, soy sauce, miso, and chili paste. Add cubed tofu to the bowl and stir gently to coat the pieces. Next, add cornstarch and toss again until all of the tofu is coated.

(3) Spread the tofu out on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and roast for 25-30 minutes. Be sure to give the tofu a gentle stir once or twice while baking.

(4) Whisk together olive oil, lime juice, garlic, ginger, coconut sugar, soy sauce, miso, peanut butter, and red chili paste in a medium mixing bowl. Pour dressing over salad and toss well to coat. 

(5) While the tofu is baking, toss bok choy, pea pods, carrot, cabbage, pepper, and radishes together in a large mixing bowl.

Top with crispy tofu, peanuts, green onion and cilantro and serve.

💭 Expert Tips and FAQs

• Grate the ginger: We add fresh ginger to the peanut dressing. In order to avoid getting big pieces of ginger throughout the dressing, we use a microplane (a fine grater) to grate the ginger. It's by far the best way to prep ginger for recipes like this! A microplane is a very versatile tool – we use it all the time for zesting citrus, grating cheese and more.
• Make it nut free: Swap peanuts with cashews or a seed of choice. You can also use a different nut or seed butter in the dressing – tahini and sunflower butter are both great options.
• Storage: We suggest storing the tofu separately from the salad if possible, otherwise it may get a bit soggy. You can store this Thai salad in the refrigerator for 2-3 days, but it tastes best fresh.
• Variations: Feel free to swap in other fresh vegetables, or just use 2 or 3 vegetables as the base. You can also top this salad with chicken instead of tofu if you're not vegan.

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