Tofu bánh mì with quick pickles and sriracha mayo
15 min · 19 g protein · 354 cals / serving
Golden, crisp-edged slabs of tofu in a sticky garlic-soy glaze, packed into crusty baguette with quick-pickled carrot and radish, cool cucumber, jalapeño, a fistful of cilantro and a creamy sriracha sauce. The Vietnamese sandwich, all vegan, with the pickles made while the tofu fries and the extra served on the side.
Ingredients
Quick pickles
- 3 cups bought matchstick carrots carrot, or julienned by hand
- 1 bunch red radishes (about 12) radish, thinly sliced (or daikon matchsticks)
- 3 tbsp rice vinegar
- 2 tsp granulated sugar, beet or organic cane sugar if you need it strictly vegan
- 1/4 tsp salt
Glazed tofu
- 1 block (16 oz) prepared extra firm tofu, blotted very well (a 14-oz block works too)
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 2 tsp canola oil
- 1 tbsp reduced sodium soy sauce
- 2 tsp brown sugar, beet or organic cane sugar if you need it strictly vegan
- 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 2 tbsp water
Sriracha sauce
- 3 tbsp unsweetened soy yogurt, plain, unsweetened
- 1 tbsp vegan mayonnaise
- 1 tbsp sriracha hot sauce
- 1 tbsp lime juice
Sandwiches
- 1 slim baguette (about 9 oz), cut in 4 baguette
- 2/3 English cucumber cucumbers, thinly sliced lengthwise
- 1 jalapeño, thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup sprigs fresh cilantro
Steps
- Toss the carrots and radishes in a bowl with the rice vinegar, sugar and salt and leave them to pickle while you cook, tossing now and then.
- Blot the tofu hard with a clean towel, cut it into 8 slabs about 1/2 inch thick, pat them dry again and dust both sides with the cornstarch.
- Heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat and fry the slabs 3–4 minutes a side, until golden and crisp. Meanwhile stir the soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic and water together in a cup.
- Turn the heat to medium, pour the glaze over the tofu and turn the slabs for about 1 minute, until the glaze turns sticky and coats them.
- Stir the soy yogurt, vegan mayo, sriracha and lime juice together. Split the four pieces of baguette (warm them in a toaster oven or a dry pan first if you like), pull out about a fifth of the soft crumb to make room, and spread both sides with the sriracha sauce.
- Fill each one with two slabs of tofu, a handful of drained pickles, cucumber, jalapeño and cilantro, and serve the pickles and cucumber that do not fit on the side. Eat straight away; leftover pickles keep a week in the fridge.
Good to know
Can I make it milder for children?
Yes: leave the jalapeño out of theirs, and spoon some of the soy yogurt and mayo into a cup for them before you stir in the sriracha.
Can I skip the bread?
Make it a bánh mì bowl: everything over two pouches of rice instead of the baguette, at about 59 instead of 55.
Can I get ahead?
The pickles keep a week in the fridge and the sriracha sauce 3 days, and the glazed tofu is good cold the next day, so a second round of sandwiches takes five minutes.
Alternative
Per
- Calories
- 92
- Protein
- (22%)
- 5 g
- Fat
- (27%)
- 3 g
- Carbohydrates
- (51%)
- 13 g
- of which sugar
- 4 g
- Fiber
- 2 g
- Sodium
- 209 mg
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Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. How
As written, 1415 kcal goes into the pot and 1659 g of ingredients comes out as about 1530 g of food: 92 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.