Being vegan, I don't miss meat at all. But I do miss chicken nuggets, southern fried chicken and other fattening, fast food things. Not because I want the chicken, its the crispy breadcrumbs and the fact that it's deemed unhealthy which makes me want it even more. Other than shop bought, fairly high calorie vegetable burgers, I haven't really eaten anything of this sort. Recently though, my boyfriend - who is annoyingly trying to put on weight as I try to lose it - has been eating at a lot of kebabs and fast food chains. The fact that I know I shouldn't eat fast food chips and veggie burgers as they are unhealthy has made me crave it.
This morning, I lie on my bed considering what I should make for my lunch - as the boyfriend still sleeps. I run through various options of Aldi vegetable burgers, stir fry, soup or falafel but with what carbs? Mash, rice, pasta, jacket potato, sweet potato? But I just don't want any of them, I can't be bothered to make them as I have no interest in them. I wanted fattening food, things I have black listed in my head. I wanted chips, vegetable burger wraps with heaps of vegan mayonnaise. You know the drill. It was on those mornings.
But as I thought about the tofu in the fridge that I need to use up, I had an epiphany - Tofu Nuggets!
I didn't want to look up a recipe for it as I knew it would involve ingredients I didn't have, or tell me to soak the tofu in egg. So, I thought about the ingredients I had and tried to conjure up a recipe that would work and be delicious. I read online that you can use butter, oil and milk (vegan options obviously) to bind the breadcrumbs instead of egg but all of those are fairly high calorie. I decided to try out my Orgran egg replacer and see if it worked. I didn't have a packet of breadcrumbs so I toasted my Tesco wholemeal bread and scrapped at it so the toasted crumbs fell off. This took a little while as I had to keep re-toasting the bread so I could get more crumbs out of it, so feel free to just use shop bought crumbs if you don't want to spend the time making them yourself.
Making the Tofu Nuggets:
Use 100g of tofu (extra firm if you have it - I didn't) diced into nugget sized pieces and roll them in the binding mixture, cover them generously. I would suggest doing one piece of tofu through all of the breading stages at a time but it is up to you.
Your breaded pieces should look like this ---->
Once you've breaded all of your tofu pieces, freeze them for around 10 minutes to make sure all of the breadcrumbs stick to the tofu pieces. When ready, place them on a baking tray with some parchment paper and pre-heat your oven to 200 C. They will take about 15-20 minutes to cook but do keep an eye on them as you don't want them to burn! Turn occasionally so that all of the edges get cooked and go crispy.
Serving suggestion:
Serve with homemade chips and barbecue sauce. Don't feel the need to put oil or anything on your chips when you bake them, they will cook fine by themselves. Just cut them to shape, boil them for 5-7 minutes to soften them and then bake in the oven bare for 20-30 minutes, turning occasionally to crisp up all sides.
Less than 300 calories for the lot!
Tip of the Week:
Cut an extra amount of chips and freeze them. This way when you can't be bothered to make anything and fancy something 'naughty' you can get these straight out the freezer and cook them. I would suggest boiling them before freezing to save even more time, that way they can go straight into the oven and require only minimal attention.
This could also be done with the nuggets. Always make extra of everything!
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