Vegan Fish

This vegan fish is soft, refreshing, juicy, lemony, and full of Mediterranean flavors. It’s oven-baked with Italian seasoning and wrapped in parchment paper to concentrate its aroma and keep it juicy.

It’s really a simple dish, that you can make in half an hour in the oven, as an everyday dinner. We serve this one as a fish replacement, and we cook it exactly like white fish is cooked in Italy.

Ingredients and substitutions

• Tofu: we use firm tofu. We don’t recommend using silken tofu or soft tofu.
  
• Nori seaweed (optional): the same that is used for sushi. You can find it in most supermarkets these days, or in Asian markets. Nori seaweed adds a very light sea flavor. It also looks a bit like the skin of a fish, which makes this dish even more realistic and suitable for non-vegans too.
  
  If you can’t find nori seaweed, or if you don’t like its taste, then you can just leave it out. The veagn fish will still be delicious!
  
• Cherry tomatoes: you can replace them with any other small tomatoes, like dates, or plum tomatoes.
  
• Lemon: since you can actually eat the peal after it’s baked, we recommend using an organic lemon.
  
• Olives: we like to use mixed black and green olives to make the dish more colorful. We like small olives with stone. But you can use any olives, even canned ones without the stone.
  
• Capers: they add so much flavor to this dish. You can use either pickled capers or the ones that come in salt. In this case, wash away the salt.
  
• Garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil: best if the olive oil is extra virgin.
  
• Parsley: fresh flat-leaf parsley is very common in Italy when cooking fish, and it works great with tofu too. You can replace parsley with dill, thyme, rosemary, or oregano.

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 360F (180C).

Cut 6 slices of tofu, 1/5 of an inch (0.5 cm) thin. Then cut 3 nori pieces. Each portion is made of 2 slices of tofu, and the nori sheet should be of the size of those two sizes of tofu put together.

Cut 3 thin slices of lemon, then cut each lemon slice in half. You should have 6 half-pieces of lemon.

Prepare 6 pieces of parchment paper. They should be large enough to accommodate all the ingredients. Half the size of a standard oven baking tray is enough.

Then, put a piece of nori sheet on top of 3 pieces of parchment paper and season it with salt.

Now add two tofu pieces on top of the nori sheet, then season them with salt, pepper, and olive oil.

Add 1 piece of lemon on top of each tofu slice. Then, for each portion, add 4 cherry tomatoes (cut in half), 10 olives, 7 capers, and 1 crushed clove of garlic.

Season each tomato with salt and pepper and a few drops of olive oil.

Cover each portion with the remaining parchment paper, and seal the edges, by folding and crushing the edge with your fingers. Put on a baking tray and bake at 360F (180C) for 30 minutes.

Serve the whole wrap on a plate. You can remove the top part before serving it, or let the person who eats it remove it themselves and have a surprise effect. I love to see the smile on people’s faces when they open the vegan fish wrap!

Serving suggestions

It’s no secret that we are tofu fans in our family! In fact, it’s one of our favorite choices for an easy dinner. That being said, if you want to make it a complete and healthy meal, check out these veggie-packed side dishes:

• Crunchy kale chips
• Roasted artichokes
• Steamed artichokes
• Cucumber and tomato salad
• Brussels sprout salad
• Lemon-roasted broccoli
• Roasted Brussels sprout
• Oven-baked veggie tray
• Bruschetta with tomato and avocado

Tips

Nori sheet: adding one piece of nori sheet under the tofu is a great way to recall the sea flavor. Also, the nori sheet looks a bit like the skin of a fish, making this dish super realistic in flavor, texture, and look.

Tofu: do not press the tofu before steaming. A lot of tofu recipes require that, but in this one, pressing is not necessary, as we need moisture in the tofu to create vapor while the tofu cooks.

Fresh herbs: I use fresh flat-leaf parsley, but feel free to use any other Mediterranean fresh herb, such as rosemary, oregano, or dill.

Do you love tofu as much as we do? Take a look at our weeknight-friendly tofu recipes:

• Pan-fried mushroom tofu
• Lemon tofu
• Tofu Cacciatore
• Fried tofu
• Easy Tofu cream cheese
• Tofu in pizzaiola sauce
• Scrambled tofu
• Spinach tofu pesto
• Crispy spinach cutlets

Isn’t tofu incredibly versatile? Let us know in the comments below how you like to eat tofu, we’d love to hear.