Orange Marmalade Baked Tofu

Do you suffer from the “no cheese” blues?  If you’re dieting and lactose-intolerant, I’m sure you know what I mean.  Cheese is a high calorie food, and non-cow cheeses are high in cost.  Other people can grab some ordinary cheese for a snack while you and I just sigh with longing.

To counter these blues, you might consider baked tofu.  When you let the tofu bask in a tangy marinade before baking, you end up with a tasty, cheap, low-calorie, and easy-to-make protein alternative that you can grab as a snack or chop up and add to a salad.

Note: I also recently packed up some of this bake for an airplane trip to Florida.  Our plane from Ottawa was late to Newark, and we didn’t get a chance to have dinner.  We arrived in Florida at midnight and, thanks to tofu along with some fruit and pistachio nuts, we didn’t starve!

After experimenting with a number of recipes, I found that I liked those that were not only savoury but also had a sweet grace note. (Down, sweet tooth, down!).  I also really wanted to soak the tofu so I made more marinade than I needed for my 12 oz. (350 gm) package of tofu.  On the other hand, I now have enough marinade to do another package or two.  Feel free to cut the marinade in half.

Quantity note: I recently made this with almost 2 lbs. of firm tofu (which cooked down more than extra firm) using the quantity of marinade in the recipe.  The result was 47 tofu slices.  In other words, you can make a lot!

Printer-friendly recipe

Makes 10 slices

Ingredients

• 12 oz. (350 gm) package of extra-firm tofu (1 lb. would also be fine, but tofu isn’t sold that way here)
• ½ cup soy sauce (gluten-free)
• 3 tbsp. sugar-free orange marmalade
• 2 tsp. minced garlic
• 1 tsp. sesame oil
• ½ tsp. ground ginger or 1 tsp. minced ginger
• Cooking spray

Directions

1. Cut block of tofu into ½” wide slices.
2. Mix soy sauce, marmalade, garlic, oil, and ginger in a wide-bottomed bowl.
3. Lay tofu slices in the bowl and marinade for about 30 minutes, turning and moving the slices periodically so each one gets soaked on both sides.
4. Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray.
5. Lay slices on the tray and cook in a 350° F oven for a total of 30 minutes , turning slices over at the 15-minute mark. (You can brush on more marinade on the newly turned slices if you wish.)
6. Remove from cooking sheet.  Delicious hot or cold!

For Weight Watchers: The best way to calculate points is to figure out the point value of the tofu you have used and divide by the number of slices you have.  You can forget the sauce which, spread over so many slices, has not point value at all.  

(Two major sources of inspiration for this recipe was “Easy Baked Tofu” at the Natural Noshing blog and “Broiled Tofu in Sweet Ginger Marinade” in Garden Cuisine by Paul Wenner.)

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