Stuffed Tofu

Cubes of tofu stuffed with a light and savory pork filling. This dish is steamed and served with a soy sauce-based sauce. Onolicious!

Stuffed Tofu

You might have had different versions of stuffed tofu in Chinese restaurants before. This is the version we make at home. It's simple, clean, and very fun to prepare!

This dish features cubes of tofu stuffed with a savory pork filling. It's steamed and finished with a delicious sauce made from the liquid that's naturally released when you steam the tofu.

This dish consists of three parts:

• Tofu
• Filling
• Sauce

Let's take a closer look at each part...

Tofu

We love tofu in Hawaii and tofu is featured in many recipes on Onolicious (check out our recipes for Tofu Poke, Goya Champuru, Avocado Tofu, Chicken Tofu, and Hot Sesame Oil Tofu).

If you visit Hawaii, you might want to check out Aloha Tofu Factory which is a very popular local tofu factory. I also love getting fresh soy milk from them.

I noticed that boxes of local tofu in Hawaii come in 20 ounce servings. But on the mainland they range from 14 to 16 ounces. All these sizes will work for this recipe, you'll just have slightly larger or smaller pieces of tofu. No need to adjust the filling amounts.

To prepare the tofu, cut the tofu block in half horizontally. Then cut each half into four even blocks. They're like rectangular cubes ^_^

Lay each cube on a cutting board and use a small spoon (I use a little dessert spoon) to scoop out about 1-2 teaspoons (depends on how big your tofu block is) of tofu.

Note: save this "leftover tofu" that you scoop out because we are going to use it for the pork filling. Nothing goes to waste.

Scoop it big enough so that you can fill it with the ground pork filling. But don't scoop so big that you break the edges or can see the bottom of the tofu.

Then fill each tofu brick with the filling. Mound the excess filling over the surface of the tofu...kind of like a mushroom cap.

Filling

The filling costs of 8 (good luck number!) basic ingredients:

• Ground pork
• Tofu - Use the "leftover tofu" you have from scooping out each piece.
• Ginger, minced
• Garlic, minced
• Oyster sauce - Look for the Lee Kum Kee Premium oyster sauce.
• Soy sauce - We use both the Aloha and Kikkoman brand soy sauce in Hawaii. Either will work, and you can also use low-sodium soy sauce.
• Sesame oil - Kadoya is our go-to brand.
• White pepper - This is optional, but makes a beautiful difference. We use white pepper in many recipes, so it's worth keeping a bottle in the pantry.

Just mix all the above ingredients together in a bowl. Split the filling up into 8 portions, and stuff each tofu piece with the filling.

Sauce

The sauce is a key part of this dish. After you steam the stuffed tofu, there will be some liquid (about a few tablespoons) left in the dish.

Remove the tofu pieces to a serving plate. Pour the leftover liquid into a small saucepan. This liquid will become the base of your sauce.

Bring that liquid to a boil, then turn the heat to low and add equal amounts of oyster sauce, soy sauce, and sesame oil. (This is the same "trio" of ingredients that we used to season the ground pork filling.)

Next, make a cornstarch slurry. Combine cornstarch and spoonful water, mix to dissolve the cornstarch. Pour the cornstarch slurry into the liquid and cook for another minute. This cornstarch slurry will help to thicken the sauce.

Use less cornstarch slurry for a thinner sauce, and more cornstarch slurry for a thicker sauce. How thick or thick you make the sauce is entirely up to you. For this dish, I like it on the lighter, thinner side (but many people love it as a thick gravy). Pour the sauce over the tofu and it's ready to eat!

Tips and Questions

Stuffed Tofu Recipe

See below and enjoy ^_^