Homemade Tofu – vegan friendly

You guys asked for it, so here it is. This is my how to made Tofu, homemade from scratch!

Tofu is probably one of the easiest things I make, you will seriously be shocked at how simple this is, not to mention cost effective. It requires 2 piece of “special” equipment. Cheesecloth, muslin cloth, or a cut up flour sack and a tofu press. You can get the ” old fashioned” small plastic types, they’re about 10-20 dollars on the internet and thats what I used for many years or you can buy what I’m using, its called the Tofu-Xpress (not a sponsered ad but if you guys are reading this, we could work something out LOL), I like this because it does the “hard” work for me, plus it cuts the pressing time  by over half.

Ingredients:

6 cups of FRESH HOT soymilk, plain
2.5g magnesium chloride, gypsum, nigari, or epsom salt

Tofu press
cheesecloth or the like
Weights** if not using spring press**
glass container to set tofu in & plate to fit ontop

Directions:

The first thing you need to do is brew up a fresh batch of soymilk. Its very important that it be plain soymilk (water and soybeans nothing else!) aswell as HOT. If you just got done using a soymilk machine it will be hot enough, otherwise somewhere around 180 degrees farighheit is about right.

Strain your milk of its pulp, don’t throw the pulp out there, save it and we’ll make stuff with it later, its called Okara and its tasty stuff!

Add your coagulator. This can either be sodium choloride (like what I used) , nigari, gypsum, or epsom salt. If using epsom salt dissolve it completely in 2 tablespoons of nearly boiling water. This your coagulator in quickly, give it no more than 5 quick stirs and set a lid ontop of the container.

Let it sit anywhere from 20-30 minutes to firm up. If using epsom salt you might require up to 60 minutes, it just depends. You want your soymilk to seperate into “curds and whey” the curds being what gets pressed into tofu, and the whey meaning the yellowish liquid you can discard when you’re done, or some people water their plants with it (I personally don’t advise this as I killed a house plant doing this once.. too much salt)

After your milk has seperated, remove the plate, and ready your mold. Line your tofu mold with a piece of cheesecloth thats atleast 2 inches wider than the mold is high on all sides, this is a good estimate for size. You want to make sure you have enough cloth or you’ll spill the curd and waste a batch of unpressed tofu. Gently scoop the soymilk pudding into your mold until its full. If you can’t fit it all in at once thats fine, just press out some of the liquid, drain, and keep filling the mold until its full of curd. Pay attention to how you fold your cloth, fold the two long sides down first, then the two short and make sure to reverse the order correctly, this help with less curd sticking to the cloth (less waste). This took me 3 batches, however yours will vary.  After you’ve got all the curd in, set your tofu up for the final press.

Depending on the type of press you’re using, you’ll either let its spring push against the tofu or you’ll need to place weights ontop, usually 5-10lbs of weight is good enough. Now you’ll need to let this set at room temp until it reaches your desired firmness. I like mine firm so I let mine press for about 30 minutes in my press (a non-spring press is about 2-3 hours)  however you will need to adjust it. If you want silken tofu you’ll want to press for maybe 10-30 minutes and put in the fridge.

Once your tofu is done pressing, remove it from the mold and admire its beauty. Once done admiring, put your block of tofu into a container and cover with cold water, and store in fridge.  Fresh tofu will last anywhere from 7-21 days. Most people would say 7 is the max however I’ve had mine store MUCH longer.

Makes : ABOUT 7 ounce block of extra firm tofu, results will vary. Preparation:  30-60 minutes + Press time

Dietary notes: vegan friendly, gluten free, high protein, low calorie, does contain soy (obviously)