Tofu Salad

One thing led to another while making dinner last night, and one of the things was TOFU SALAD. One of my sons was making guacamole, and I had gotten a green salad ready — adding radishes, arugula, chives, sorrel, mizuna, baby kale, and cilantro from the garden to a big head of red lettuce. 

I had cooked some potatoes for a potato salad, and the pan of hot water was still sitting there, so I threw some lamb’s quarters on top of the potatoes to steam. They volunteer in the garden and are a good substitute for spinach. They, like spinach and chard, do contain oxalic acid, which binds with calcium, so they are not my favorite green for that reason since I eat greens for their calcium content, but they are fine occasionally and are very mild tasting and not as slimy as spinach. I dressed the greens with lemon, olive oil, and salt.

I made a marinade for the potato salad, including olive oil, apple cider vinegar, balsamic vinegar, tamari, vegan Worcestershire sauce, yellow mustard, Smokey Serrano hot sauce, chopped onion, and celery. I mention this because I used some in the tofu salad, which I turned to making, next. 

For the tofu salad, I mashed a block of tofu together with some of the marinade, some chopped dill pickles and chives, and a dollop of vegan mayo. Since that is the extent of the “recipe,” I think I will just leave it at that. Use your own proportions. This tofu was a sprouted soybean variety — I think I would have preferred regular firm tofu. The sprouted tofu does have more protein and calcium, but it is higher in fat and calories.

I had to cool the potatoes down in a pan of cold water, since I had failed to make them earlier in the day. I even put them in the freezer for a while, after I stirred the marinade in — what was left of it, after I took out about a quarter to a third cup of it for the tofu salad. I added some vegan mayo to the potato salad when it was cold.

This meal was certainly healthy enough, and it was enjoyable to eat mostly all cold foods on a hot day. If you have any tofu salad left over, it makes a great sandwich filling for the next couple of days. There are lots of variations of tofu salad. This is just one I happened upon last night, more out of laziness than inspiration and by using what I had on hand.