Tofu scramble is the perfect breakfast and brunch recipe. Its texture is soft and creamy, just like really good scrambled eggs.
Our tofu scramble is easy to make with a few simple ingredients, and you can serve it with your favorite veggies, or even better on toast with avocado.
What to expect
Tofu scramble is the perfect recipe to replace scrambled eggs. You can prepare it with a few simple ingredients, in a few minutes, and make it yours by adding your favorite veggies.
Unfortunately, a lot of tofu scramble recipes yield a dry, hard-to-eat scramble, but if you follow our really simple tips, you'll be able to make a soft and creamy egg-free scramble in no time.
And yes, this is the ultimate vegan breakfast and brunch recipe, but you can definitely also eat it as a quick lunch or healthy dinner.
Thanks to the good amount of protein, this dish makes for a nutritious and complete meal, especially if combined with some good bread and some veggies.
Ingredients and substitutions
Essential ingredients
- Tofu: regular firm tofu is the best tofu for tofu scramble. Silky tofu won't scramble, no matter if firm or soft. It'll mash. Extra firm tofu is too dry for this recipe.
- Plant milk: I like to use unsweetened soy milk (organic and non-GMO). Other types of soy milk work too, as long as their flavour is not too strong. Good alternatives are cashew milk, rice milk, oat milk, etc.
- Turmeric: this yellow spice is for both colour, but also for a little taste. I think it fits perfectly this dish.
- Salt and black pepper: to add taste, like you would use them in normal scrambled eggs.
Optional ingredients
- Black salt: also known as Kala Namak, this Indian/Himalayan rock salt adds a really nice eggy flavour to this dish. You just need a couple of pinches of black salt to turn this dish from great to "best tofu scramble ever".
You can find it on Amazon or in Asian stores sold as Kala Namak, Black Salt, Hymalayan Salt, or Indian salt, depending where it's from and where you live. - Olive oil: we don't actually cook this dish with olive oil. There's no need. But we do like to add a drizzle of some good quality extra virgin olive oil on top.
- Parsley: the flat-leaf Italian variety is our favourite for this dish. It adds freshness and colour to the dish. You can replace it with chives or spring onions, finely chopped.
- Bread and avocado: we love to serve tofu scramble on top of toasted bread and sliced avocado. The toasted bread adds crunch, the avocado adds creaminess. They are absolutely perfect together.
- Oven-roasted veggies: to make this meal even more complete, I like to add some oven-roasted cherry tomatoes and portobello mushrooms. Again, optional but super easy and recommended.
Note: we prefer not to add nutritional yeast, garlic powder, onion powder, or any other spices to this dish, but you are free to do so if you like.
Instructions
Crumble about 9 ounces or 250 grams of firm tofu with your hands into a large skillet or nonstick pan. No need to pat dry, squeeze or press the tofu. Just crumble it.
Note: tofu blocks vary around the world, so don't worry if you don't find the exact weight that I use. This is a forgiving recipe, you can definitely add a little more or less tofu.
I do recommend however using tofu made from non-GMO soy and if possible locally farmed soy, to protect your health and that of the environment.
Add the plant milk of your choice, make sure it's unsweetened, and bring the pan onto medium-high heat and stir.
Don't worry if it seems like a lot of milk, it will cook fast on medium-high heat, making the tofu super soft and creamy.
Tip: for the best tofu scramble I recommend using unsweetened non-GMO soy milk.
Season with a quarter to half a teaspoon of salt, a couple of twists of black pepper, and add the turmeric - start with ¼ teaspoon and add more if you want more color.
At this stage, you can also add the black salt (Kala Namak) if you want a nice eggy taste.
Add just a couple of pinches or about ¼ of a teaspoon. You can always add more later.
Cook on medium-high heat and stir often with a spatula until the tofu has absorbed the plant milk.
It should only take about 5 minutes. Do not overcook or else your tofu will get dry. Taste, adjust for salt, and serve immediately.
Serving suggestions
Our favorite way of serving scrambled tofu is with a thick slice of toasted bread to add crunch, and sliced avocado on top of the bread to add that silky avo texture.
So, toast some bread, add half-sliced avocado on top of the toasted bread, season the avocado with a pinch of salt, and add 3 to 5 spoonfuls of tofu scramble on top of the avocado.
Drizzle with some good quality extra virgin olive oil, then sprinkle with some freshly chopped parsley (or chives, or green onions) and enjoy while still warm.
On the side, you can serve some roasted tomatoes and mushrooms. You just need to bake them for 20 minutes in a preheated oven at 390F or 200C.
You can also serve it with our confit tomatoes or with our oven-baked broccoli for a gourmet-vibe brunch.
Variations
Tofu scramble with sauté mushrooms
Finely slice about 10 ounces or 300 grams of white, brown, portobello, or other mushrooms, then sauté them on a large skillet or nonstick pan with a crushed clove of garlic and half a tablespoon of olive oil.
When the water from the mushrooms has evaporated and the mushrooms are almost cooked, crumble the tofu in the same pan, stir, add plant milk, salt, black pepper, black salt, and turmeric powder following our base recipe.
Taste and adjust for salt before serving with toasted bread and whatever veggies you like on the side. Hot sauce on top is delicious too!
Tofu scramble with spinach
Sauté about 10 ounces or 300 grams of spinach - fresh or frozen - in a large skillet or nonstick pan with a crushed clove of garlic and half a tablespoon of olive oil.
When the spinach is cooked and the cooking water has evaporated, crumble the tofu in the same pan and follow our recipe from here.
Taste and adjust for salt before serving with toasted bread and optionally with some hot sauce on top.
Common problems with tofu scramble?
If you have ever tried tofu scramble before, you'll agree with me on how terrible it is to have a forkful of dry, unswallowable tofu in your mouth.
To prevent this from happening and make the best tofu scramble:
- Do not pat dry, or worse, press the water out of your tofu.
I used to be guilty of doing this myself. Not sure why this practice got so popular in the west, it's a bit of a waste of time and I really think it makes the final dish worse, dry and rubbery.
Just pick the right tofu for the right dish (soft, silky, firm, extra firm) which in this case is regular firm tofu, and cook it.
If you want a meatier texture, then tofu is not the right ingredients, try seitan (wheat gluten) instead - like we do in our vegan steaks recipe.
Learn more about this topic here, it's a super interesting reddit conversation about Cultural differences in preparing tofu. - Add unsweetened plant milk to increase moisture and make the tofu scramble softer and creamier. It really works! I recommend using organic non-GMO soy milk.
Questions
Firm tofu is used for tofu scramble. Silken tofu is too soft, extra firm tofu is too dry.
To cook tofu scramble without oil you can use plant milk instead. Our recipe is without oil, follow our steps.
Yes. If cooked properly, without or with little oil, tofu scramble - especially one served with vegetables - is a very healthy and nutritious dish.
Read more about tofu and soy here:
- Soy Facts: Is Soy Healthy or Harmful?
- Soy video archive from nutritionfacts.org
Yes absolutely. You can make your scramble in advance and use it in your lunch box, in a sandwich, or in a burrito or just plain tortillas.
You can also reheat the tofu scramble in the microwave. It'll be nice and warm in about a minute.
I wouldn't meal prep it for more than a couple of days in advance though, as it's such an easy recipe to make, in just 5 minutes.
Storage
Tofu scramble leftovers last for up to 3 days in the fridge, best if in an airtight container so it doesn't dry out too much.
Warm it up in the microwave for a minute or two, or on a pan with a dash of unsweetened soy milk. Add some freshly chopped parsley, chives, or green onions on top after reheating it to bring back some freshness.
You can also freeze tofu scramble and keep it in the freezer for up to 3 months. Thaw in the microwave, in the fridge overnight, or in a pan with a dash of unsweetened plant milk.
But not sure why you would freeze it as it would take longer to thaw than to make it from scratch.
Similar recipes
If you're also a tofu fan, take a peek at our easy tofu recipes:
- Pan-fried mushroom tofu
- Lemon tofu
- Tofu Cacciatore
- Fried tofu
- Easy Tofu cream cheese
- Tofu with pizzaiola sauce
- Scrambled tofu
- Spinach tofu pesto
- Tofu and spinach cutlets
Yes, we get excited about tofu! If you do too, let us know in the comments how you like to eat tofu, we'd love to hear.
Recipe
Tofu scramble
Ingredients
- 9 ounces firm tofu (a tofu block around that size, not a problem if it's a little more or less)
- ¾ cup unsweetened plant milk soy, oats, cashew, etc
- ¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
- ½ teaspoon salt or more to taste
- 2 twists black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon black salt optional for an eggy flavor. Add more for more eggy taste.
Serving suggestions (totally optional)
- 1 ripe avocado
- 2 thick slices bread toasted
- 1 tablespoon olive oil optional to drizzle on top
- 1 tablespoon parsley, chives, or green onions finely chopped
Instructions
- Crumble the tofu with your hands and put it in a non-stick pan on medium-high heat.
- Add the unsweetened plant milk. The milk will make the scrambled tofu softer and moist, similar to scrambled eggs
- Add the turmeric powder to give the scrambled tofu a yellow color. Season with salt, black pepper, and optionally with black salt or Kala namak, a rock salt that tastes like egg.
- Cook on medium-high heat until the pan is dry. It should take about 5 minutes.
Serving suggestion
- We like to serve scrambled tofu on toasted bread. Add some avocado slices on the bread, scrambled tofu on top, some freshly chopped parsley, chives, or green onions. Then you can add some roasted tomatoes and roasted portobello mushrooms on the side, and a drizzle of olive oil to make it a complete and fulfilling breakfast.
Notes
Nutritional Values
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