Sloppy Tofu Arepas
I wouldn’t call this the healthiest thing that I ate in the past few months, but it was still pretty good for me and followed the main 3 rules of my diet, to eat much much less wheat, meat, and dairy. The best thing about it though, was it satisfied one of my biggest and most constant cravings- ground beef smothered in a hearty sauce. Honestly, I don’t understand why I always crave that. Even when I am eating meat all the time. Even when I had bolognaise for lunch, I still want tacos for dinner. And chili as a late night snack!
I followed Marc’s method for turning the tofu into a nice ground beef texture. I have tried to make “ground beef” out of tofu in the past and it came out good, but this method definitely stepped it up a notch.
Carrots, onions, cauliflower, and red pepper with the tofu and canned tomato.
Tofu in first.
Then the rest of the veggies.
Keep going until everything turns a little brown and loses about 3/4 of it’s size. Then dump in the spices and tomato.
A quick sear on the grill for the arepas. They are as easy as mixing water with the harina PAN and making the patties.
Oh man these were soooooooooooo good. And I don’t break out the extra “o”‘s that often. Maybe it’s just because i’m starving.
I actually was able to eat it with my hands! By the last few bites, most of the filling had fallen out, and I just scooped it up with the remaining bread.
Prepare your vegetarian “ground beef” like this.
Sloppy Tofu Arepas
A gluten free and vegetarian take on sloppy joes served in arepas.
Ingredients
- 14 Ounces Extra Firm Tofu prepared according to linked recipe above
- 1 Carrot diced
- 1/4 Head Cauliflower diced
- 1/2 Onion diced
- 1 Small Bell Pepper diced
- 2 Cloves Garlic
- 1 Tablespoons Curry Powder or Taco Spice
- 28 ounces Canned Tomato
Instructions
- Then chop some carrot, cauliflower, onion, and bell pepper. About a cup and a half of each. Start browning the tofu like you would ground beef with a little more oil than you think you need. Stir often and cook about 5 minutes. Add the carrot, cauliflower, onion, and pepper and stir well. Add a little more oil and of course salt and pepper and keep stirring. You are going to need to be almost constantly scraping the bottom of the pan to keep it from burning. Keep going, adding oil if needed, until the veggies begin to brown and they have pretty much quartered in size. Toss in some garlic and seasonings ( I used a homemade curry powder, but a more Mexican approach would be awesome too) and stir. Cook 1 minute before adding a can of crushed tomatoes. Simmer about 10 minutes, just to tighten everything up a bit. Meanwhile, make your arepas to the package instructions. It’s just harina PAN mixed with some water and seared on a dry grill. Split the arepas and load it with filling! So good!
I can’t believe I’ve never thought of crumbling tofu to be like ground beef. It looks so good in the pan with all those veggies! The recipe looks great – I found a tutorial for making your own tofu in a book called Health on Your Plate, and I can’t wait to try it with this recipe. Thank you!