Toss Your Tofu In Marinade Ahead Of Time For An Infusion Of Flavors

For those who are vegetarian or simply like to limit their meat intake, tofu is one of the best protein options. Despite sometimes having a stigma of being bland, tofu can actually be delicious — if you flavor it correctly. One of the ways to do this is to soak the tofu in a marinade prior to cooking. Essentially, a marinade — which may consist of ingredients such as soy sauce, various types of oil, maple syrup, and spices, amongst others — infuses the flavors into the tofu so that, after it's cooked, it will taste far from bland.

To marinate your tofu, start by pressing the tofu to get out the excess water, then cut the tofu into cubes to allow the flavors to more easily absorb. Next, coat the tofu in the marinade in a sealed container and let it sit in the fridge. Technically, you only need to let the tofu marinate for about two hours — but giving it more time will result in a stronger infusion of flavor.

For best results, you should marinate the tofu overnight, then cook it sometime the next day. You can even let it marinate for two or three days, but beyond four days, it should be discarded.

If you're convinced to try marinating your tofu overnight to ensure that your next tofu dish is packed with flavor, then it's time to start talking about marinade ideas. In Tasting Table's recipe for maple sesame tofu, the marinade is super simple: It consists of just sesame oil, maple syrup, and soy sauce.

Or, you could go for a jerk-style marinade, such as in our recipe for jerk-marinated grilled tofu, which brings in a longer list of ingredients to craft the perfect flavor. This marinade also consists of soy sauce and maple syrup, as well as onion, garlic, habanero peppers, lime juice, allspice, ginger, nutmeg, salt, and thyme — all of these ingredients are blended together to transform into a liquid marinade. For a Mediterranean take, you can look to our recipe for Mediterranean sheet pan tofu — this marinade contains olive oil, onion powder, oregano, cumin, coriander, thyme, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

For each of these ideas, you can either make the full recipe or simply steal the marinade idea and whip up a tofu dish of your own creation. Either way, you can rest assured that the tofu will be incredibly flavorful and tasty — all thanks to the overnight marinating process.