Homemade Tofu

Steve and I made tofu yesterday!

This is the tutorial that we used: How to Make Tofu [Video]

It took about 3 hours to make, but that included cleaning up boiled over soy milk and pressing the tofu for half an hour. We used a 6 quart stock pot to cook the soy milk. It is the largest we have. But after pouring in the blended soy milk, the foam was almost to the top. It quickly foamed over the top once the soy milk started boiling.

The soy beans have to be cooked in some way. In my Vitamix cookbook, their recipe for soy milk says to soak the beans overnight, then steam the beans, then blend it in the Vitamix and strain. No other cooking is needed after it is blended. It sounds MUCH easier to cook whole soybeans instead of cooking foaming (unstrained) soy milk. We're going to try that next time.

The video said to use liquid nigari. Instead, we used 1 1/2 tablespoons of Epsom salt dissolved in 1/2 cup of boiling water. Yes, the same stuff that you pour in the bath to help sore muscles. It worked! And it's much cheaper than nigari. There also aren't any stores in my town that sell nigari, and I didn't want to order a huge bag of it online if it turns out that we don't like making tofu. I think I may order powered nigari though, as it's cheaper than liquid nigari and I've read that it makes tofu taste better than Epsom salt. And if we can have an easy way to make soy milk that doesn't involve purchasing a $130 soy milk maker, I'm going to be making tofu more often.

Here is our finished product!

We used 8oz of organic soybeans, and got a 12oz block of tofu. For a comparison, we pay $2.50 (regular price) for a 12oz block of organic tofu at Giant Eagle. The cost of 8oz of organic soy beans (ordered from Amazon) was $1.13. The only other ingredients are water and a bit of Epsom salt. This is very cost effective! And we have okara (soybean pulp) leftover from the soy milk. I may try to make that into veggie burgers.

We had our fresh tofu for dinner last night. I made pistachio-crusted maple Dijon tofu with avocado risotto and roasted green beans. It was delicious!