This scrumptious Chinese-inspired orange tofu is made by smothering crispy pan-fried tofu chunks in a sweet, gingery orange sauce. Serve it with rice and steamed broccoli for a delicious dinner that can be ready in a flash!
Often I find the best source of vegetarian cooking inspiration stuffed into my kitchen junk drawer. That would be a Chinese take-out-menu!
Crispy orange chicken is a dish that I see featured on lots of those menus, so I'm guessing it's a favorite. I decided to create a vegan version using tofu instead of chicken. As luck would have it, crispy orange tofu turned out to be one of my favorite dishes. It's really easy to make and incredibly delicious.
Watch out, because these sweet little tofu bites are pretty darn addictive. You may want to make a double batch!
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What You'll Need
- Tofu. I recommend using extra-firm or super-firm tofu for this recipe. Extra-firm tofu will need to be pressed before you start cooking.
- Orange juice. I usually just buy a couple of oranges and juice them myself. This allows me to use the zest from them as well.
- Cornstarch.
- Brown sugar. Be sure to use organic sugar to keep the recipe vegan.
- Soy sauce. Tamari or liquid aminos can be substituted.
- Fresh ginger.
- Garlic.
- Orange zest.
- Salt.
- Peanut oil. Any high-heat oil can be substituted.
- Fresh broccoli.
- Scallions.
- Sesame seeds.
- Rice. Just about any variety works. I'm a big fan of jasmine rice for this dish.
How to Make Orange Tofu
The following is a summary of the process for making this dish, along with some tips. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the post if you'd like to skip to the full recipe!
- To make the sauce, simply simmer orange juice, brown sugar, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and orange zest in a pot for a few minutes. To thicken the sauce, mix a bit more orange juice with some cornstarch, then add it to the pot. The sauce should thicken up as it simmers.
- While the sauce simmers, fry your tofu. Dredge bite-sized pieces in cornstarch, then fry them in a small amount of oil in a skillet. Fry the pieces for a few minutes on each side until they're crispy.
- Tip: Don't let your tofu pieces touch each other while they fry or they'll stick together. Consider cooking the tofu in batches, transferring each batch to a paper towel-lined plate to drain between batches.
- Pour the orange sauce over your cooked tofu. Toss everything to coat the tofu in sauce, and cook it for a minute or so, until it's nice and hot.
- Top your orange tofu with sesame seeds and chopped scallions.
- Serve it with cooked rice and steamed broccoli.
Leftovers & Storeage
This dish is best served right away, as the tofu won't stay crispy for long. If you do have leftovers, they'll probably be a bit soggy (but still tasty). Store them in a sealed container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Frequently Asked Questions
Sure! Just use gluten-free tamari in place of soy sauce.
Possibly. You could try leaving out the cornstarch and simply baking your tofu. Place it on parchment paper-lined baking sheets and bake for 20 minutes on each side at 400°F. You could also try making a reduced oil version by pan-frying your tofu without cornstarch using this method, or baking it using the method from this teriyaki tofu recipe.
Absolutely! Use your favorite steamed or stir-fried veggie, or a mix of them! Cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, bell peppers, and snap peas would all be great choices.
More Chinese-Inpsired Tofu Recipes
- General Tso's Tofu
- Kung Pao Tofu
- Pineapple Sweet & Sour Tofu
- Crispy Black Pepper Tofu
- Tofu Stir-Fry with Garlic Sauce
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📖 Recipe
Crispy Orange Tofu
Ingredients
- 1 (14 ounce or 400 gram) package extra-firm tofu, drained, pressed, and cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1 cup orange juice, chilled and divided
- ¼ cup cornstarch, plus more as needed, divided
- ¼ cup organic brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 teaspoon orange zest
- ¼ cup peanut oil (plus more as needed)
- 3 cups steamed broccoli (2 small crowns or 1 large)
- Salt, to taste
- 2 scallions, chopped
- Toasted sesame seeds
- Cooked rice, for serving
Instructions
- In small bowl or cup, dissolve 1 ½ tablespoons cornstarch in a few tablespoons of orange juice. Set it aside.
- Place the remaining orange juice in a small saucepan, along with brown sugar, soy sauce, ginger, garlic and orange zest. Stir everything together and place the pot over medium heat.
- Bring the liquid to a simmer, lower the heat, and cook the mixture for about 10 minutes.
- While the sauce simmers, coat the bottom of a large skillet generously with oil and place it over medium heat. Give the oil a minute to heat up.
- Place some cornstarch in a small bowl. Add a few tofu cubes and roll them around to evenly coat them with cornstarch.
- Place the tofu cubes in the skillet with the hot oil, repeating the process for as many cubes as you can fit without them touching each other.
- Cook the tofu cubes for about 5 minutes, flip and cook for about 5 minutes more, until crispy.
- Remove the tofu from the skillet and transfer it to a paper towel-lined plate. Repeat the process until all of the tofu is cooked.
- After the sauce has simmered for about 10 minutes, stir in the cornstarch and orange juice mixture. Bring the sauce back up to a simmer and let it cook for about a minute more, until thickened. Remove the pot from heat and season the sauce with salt to taste.
- Return all of the cooked tofu to the skillet and pour the sauce over it. Add the steamed broccoli and toss to coat.
- Sprinkle the tofu and broccoli with sesame seeds and scallions.
- Serve over rice.
Notes
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Such a great recipe! Better than takeout, you feel good after eating it.
Thank you for sharing!
Made this tonight. It is SO good. Served it over brown rice. I tend to cut the sugar in most recipes and I only used 1/8 cup and it still had a sweetness and the orange flavor was very nice.
My son is totally vegan and I am I suppose what you could call a flexitarian. LOL. I lean more toward vegetarian than anything but I have been making more and more vegan recipes. I loved this crispy orange tofu recipe! This is going to be one of my go to recipes in the future for sure!
I have made a lot of your recipes but this is the first time I actually commented on one. So anybody out there wondering about this one make it because you will love it!
This was delicious. I needed a recipe to use up some tofu and broccoli, did a Google search, and landed here, at one of my favorite veg recipe sites. (Next time I’ll just start here!)
The only thing I’d change when making this again - and I will be making it again - is to increase the amount of sauce. It was so good, but there just wasn’t enough of it!
Good call on the cornstarch coating for the tofu as well.
Yay! I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Thanks Karen!
So which cornstarch goes where....?
Use 1 1/2 tablespoons to make the slurry for thickening the sauce (step 2), and the rest is for coating the tofu - use as much as you need for that. :)
I just realized I've been using this recipe for years, & it definitely deserves a review! This is not only one of my kid's favorite foods, it also helped me figure out the best way to make tofu crispy. AND I didn't even have to adapt it when my kid was diagnosed with Celiac (just use Bragg's or Coconut aminos instead of soy sauce).
Because I like to make things easy, I just put the cornstarch in a gallon bag with some S&P, add the tofu, & shake it up. Then I stir fry the broccoli in whatever oil is left in the pan. Also, I always double the recipe it & add the sauce to individual bowls, so the tofu stays crispy if there are any leftovers (IF!).
Yay!! I'm so glad you and your family are enjoying it! Thanks so much for the review!!
My 6 year old typically doesn’t like tofu, but love this dish. Great recipe! I also roasted the broccoli
I'm so glad it was a hit! Thanks Amy!
i’ve been vegan for only 2 weeks and cooking with tofu seamed scary hearing it doesn’t have a lot of flavor but this dish came out so good! definitely a good recipe for people new to cooking with tofu
Yay!! I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Thanks Alex!
Roasted the broccoli instead of steamed, and use lemon zest. This is a go to recipe for my famjam now! Thank you :)
I'm so glad to hear that! Thanks Marlo!
I'm making this now - the brown sugar really doesn't seem necessary (or it's at least an excessive amount), as the orange juice already adds so much sugary sweetness.
You could certainly cut down on the amount of brown sugar if you'd like.
I just made this recipe. It was delicious! Thank you for sharing!
Glad you liked it!!
Just made this for dinner tonight, FABULOUS! Thank you for this great recipe.
Glad you enjoyed it!
I think this recipes has the potential to be really amazing for me, but my main struggle with this and many tofu recipes is that I want some flavor from the tofu itself. I tried marinading ahead with some ginger, garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, and red chili paste, then I shook it with cornstarch to coat. It still ended up not bringing anything extra to the dish. I want to try is again, because aside from that issue i really like it. Any suggestions on how to ramp up the flavor of the tofu?
Hi Rebekka! I wouldn't recommend marinating tofu in a dish like this, as the moisture from the marinade makes it difficult to cook up nicely, and often the marinade doesn't get fully absorbed anyway. You might want to try baking the tofu instead, basting it with your marinade ingredients. Place the pieces on parchment and bake in a 350 degree oven for 30-40 minutes, flipping at least once and brushing with your seasonings a few times. You'll get a nice dense texture and lots of flavor. After it's baked you should be good to prepare it according to the recipe instructions, or you could even just throw it in as-is. Another option is to try something like seitan or tempeh in place of the tofu. I hope that helps! Let me know how it works out if you try any of these options.
I used frozen tofu for this dish since I had some in the freezer. What I did was take it straight out of the freezer and simmer for 10-20 minutes in salted water. This had the effect of really penetrating the tofu. You could try simmering it in broth or marinade instead to get even more flavor. Another benefit to using frozen tofu is it really sucks up the sauce.
i didn't notice kat's reply! i like the simmering in salted water suggestion, i will be definitely be trying that in the future!
lots of salt and pepper on the tofu and then cook and add your sauce. you can also try draining your tofu really well and then soaking it in vegetable stock and then just sort of draining it.
I've basically read through almost your whole entire blog this weekend (I'm currently at this post) and pinned loads of delish looking things! I have to ask, as a Philly resident, what restaurant is this you are talking about?!
I'm so happy to hear that! I did the same thing upon discovering a bunch of my favorite food blogs too, so hearing that someone did it to my site totally makes me smile. Thank you for all the pins!
There are actually a bunch of Chinese vegetarian places in Chinatown. Singapore and New Harmony are the two that I frequented the most. My favorite one though is outside of Chinatown - Su Xing house. The menu is a little different - dishes aren't actually called "duck" or "chicken" like at the other places, but the food is amazing. I highly recommend checking it out! :)
This looks amazing! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Anne!
I love Chinese vegan restaurants. So good. Now I'm having a craving... I'll have to make this.
Yeah, Chinese vegan places are the best :) I hope you enjoy this one!!!