Vegan Tofu Musubi

Spam Musubi was something that I grew up enjoying at L&L and at family gatherings. Any type of musubi is so comforting, but there is something about spam musubi that really hits home for me. Now that I don’t eat spam anymore, I found tofu to be an excellent substitute in musubis. To be honest all you need is a good sauce and tofu will taste good with anything.

You can get really creative with this recipe too, and add vegan egg, avocado, furikake, or even tempeh. I decided to keep it pretty basic and let you decide on what you put inside. I hope you enjoy this recipe, please let me know in the comments below if you try it out :)

Ingredients

1 block Tofu

¾ cup Soy sauce

¼ cup water

½ inch Ginger, minced

1 clove Garlic, minced

¼ cup sugar Sugar

¼ tsp Better than Bouillon “Beef” paste (vegan)

1 tablespoon Canola oil

1tablespoon Cornstarch + 2 tablespoon water

3 Uncooked cooked Brown or White Rice

Seaweed (Nori) Sheets

Equipement

Musubi mold (required)

Rice cooker (recommended but not required)

Nonstick pan (not required, but highly recommend to cook tofu)

Procedures

Wash and cook the rice either over the stove top or in a rice cooker. I prefer to cook my white rice in a rice cooker with a 1 to 1 rice to water ratio. For brown rice I prefer a 1.5 to 1 water to rice ratio.

Cut the tofu into rectangles that can fit your musubi mold, then pat the tofu dry with a paper towel. In a nonstick pan heat 1 tbsp of oil to medium high heat. Sear tofu until golden brown. Cook the tofu in batches so they can cook evenly and place the cooked pieces of tofu on a clean plate.

In a small bowl or cup add the cornstarch and water and whisk together to make a cornstarch slurry. Set the slurry to the side until needed later. In a medium bowl, combine the garlic, ginger, sugar, bouillon paste, water, and soy sauce. Whisk the soy sauce mixture until completely combined.

Pour the soy sauce mixture into the nonstick pan and cook on medium low heat for about 10 minutes. Add the cornstarch slurry and whisk until a smooth sauce forms. Add the tofu to the sauce and cook for about 5 to 10 minutes on low heat just to coat and flavor the tofu. Next, turn off the heat and remove the tofu from the pan and pour the excess sauce into a small bowl or container.

Now it is time to assemble the musubis. Using a musubi mold, form the nori sheets, tofu, sauce, and rice into musubis. Watch my video tutorial to see how to form the musubis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRFB26ilLHo ). Cut the musubi into hand held portions and serve. Best enjoyed fresh, but can be kept in the fridge to preserve.