We have three words for you: panko crusted tofu. Imagine this: crispy panko crusted tofu, marinated in a garlicky umami seasoning, topped off with a creamy tangy sauce, a heap of crunchy sour pickles, sandwiched between fluffy steamed bread.
Ladies, gentlemen, people, we introduce to you our panko crusted tofu gua baos. A recipe that ensures a fool-proof method that ensures your panko crumbs stick to the tofu and a quick and easy glaze that’ll add another layer of flavor.
Aside from that, we’ll also talk about a few things along the way like:
Ready for our favorite tofu bao buns? Let’s dive into it and start with gua bao buns.
What Are Gua Bao Buns?
Gua bao buns originate from China. They are made from wheat, water, salt, and yeast. These Asian buns have been around for quite a while -not as long as their predecessor baos or baozi. They are a popular street food. Traditional baos are steamed buns that are round and have some sort of filling.
Gua baos look like a semi-circle or half-moon and act as burger buns. So think of this as a sort of crispy tofu burger. Scratch that, honestly, they’re more like hot dog buns because like hot dog buns, they’re connected at the bottom. Okay, forget what we said about hot dogs or burgers, they’re just crispy tofu bao buns.
Traditionally, these buns are filled with pork belly but the world is your oyster and we love finding new flavor combinations to fill our buns. This recipe is one of them and we have to say tofu panko bao buns are a winner.
What Is Panko
Panko is sort of like Japanese breadcrumbs. They’re made from wheat and help achieve that crispy exterior for this tofu bao recipe. You can find panko at the Asian section of the grocery store but if you can’t get a hold of it, no worries. We’ve got you covered with some substitutes below.
Substitutes For Panko
So you want to make this panko crusted tofu recipe but alas, there is no panko to be found. Maybe your grocers don’t stock them or they’re just sold out. We’ve been there folks. And guess what? No panko, no problem. You can easily make this tofu bun recipe without panko.
Regular breadcrumbs work just fine but they lack that crispiness panko gives. A good crispy tofu recipe panko substitute we have found is puffed rice or cornflakes. They do a great job being a suitable substitute for panko crumbs. Bonus points for these two options being gluten-free!
Simply take your cereal of choice and turn it into a crumb by smashing the bejeezus out of it with a pan or rolling pin. Alternatively, you can skip the manual labor and use a food processor to blitz it up into a crumb.
Now onto the real reason we’re all here; how to make these crispy tofu steamed buns.
How To Make These Baos
We love making these bao buns because they’re easy to make (even on a lazy day) and they’re absolutely delicious. The downside of this recipe is that they’re highly addictive and we have trouble stopping at just one.
These vegetarian bao buns are comprised of four components:
- Baos
- The tofu: marinated, battered, fried & glazed
- Sauce
- Pickles
In this section of the post, we’ll walk you through each component of the recipe, and by the end of it, you’ll have a delicious bao bun.
Baos
The easiest part of this recipe is the bao buns, that is if you’re buying them frozen. If that is the case, then all you have to do is steam or microwave them according to the instructions on the package. Ours took about 10-12 minutes in a steamer.
Aisha loves making bao buns from scratch. It may seem intimidating but honestly, the dough comes together within minutes with a machine or by hand. The majority of the time that comes when making baos from scratch comes down to waiting for the dough to rise.
Here’s a fun fact: ‘bao’ is a short form for the word ‘baozi’ in chinese. ‘Bao’ literally means bun. So, when we say bao buns in English, we’re actually saying bun bun.
The Tofu: Marinated, Battered, Fried & Glazed
The tofu filling in this recipe goes through 4 steps. The first is marinating, followed by battering, frying, and glazing. Let’s have a look at each step.
Marinate
This tofu is a little labor of love, we start first slicing the tofu like so:
And then leaving the slices to marinade in ketjap or kicap manis (equivalent to thick sweet soy) regular soy sauce, and a pinch of pepper. Once this is done, we move on to the next step: battering the tofu.
Batter
To make this crispy tofu filling, the three-step process of flouring, battering, and crusting the tofu is crucial. Placing the marinated tofu in the flour allows the batter to stick onto the tofu:
This batter is made with an egg, flour, water, and salt. Looking for a tofu panko vegan recipe? You can easily turn this panko crusted tofu vegan by switching this batter out for our vegan batter used in this low FODMAP vegan eggplant recipe.
The battered tofu then becomes the perfect vessel for the crunchy panko crumbs to adhere to.
Frying The Tofu
We use the term frying lightly. Feel free to whip out your deep fryer if you have one. We don’t own a deep fryer so we filled a pan with a good amount of oil to shallow fry the tofu slices.
When the tofu is cooked, remove the oil from the pan. Add the tofu back into the same pan and then move on to covering it with the glaze. The residual marinade is thinned out with some water to pack even more flavor into these deep fried tofu nuggets. It’s poured over the crispy tofu to encase it with a sticky, sweet and salty glaze. As you can see below, it fumes out a bit but be sure to cook it until the liquid has evaporated.
The whole process of battering and coating the tofu filling for your vegan tofu bao buns can be tiresome. The panko crusted tofu baked in the oven at 180c will give you baked teriyaki tofu in 10-12 minutes. Perfect for sandwiching in between your bao buns. With the filling done and dusted, let’s move on to making the sauce!
Sauce It Up
The sauce for this bao bun recipe is similar to our low FODMAP vegan eggplant recipe simply because it’s our go to sauce for bao buns on days when the creative juices just won’t flow. It’s easy, quick, and never fails to pair with anything we stuff our buns with.
We use 200 grams of our favorite mayo in the Netherlands -which happens to be vegan- and add 13 grams of ketchup to it. You can swap out the ketchup or add Sriracha to the mayo and you’ll get an absolutely delicious mayo that is tangy, rich, and has a little kick.
Pickles
The final component of this tofu bao bun recipe. You can make it days in advance. Like our mayo recipe, the pickles that go into this tofu bao is our go-to pickle recipe.
Start by making the brining liquid and adding warm water to sugar. Make sure to dissolve the sugar by stirring the mix. When the sugar is dissolved add the vinegar.
The next step can be executed two ways: using a vegetable peeler to make cucumber and carrot ribbons or simply slicing the vegetables thinly. Whichever way you decide to cut your vegetables, submerge them into liquid and let the pickling process begin.
Let the vegetables sit in the plicking liquid for a minimum of 10 minutes to impart some flavor into them if you don’t have too much time on your hands.
Tip: Before assembling the baos, make sure to drain the pickles on a paper towel. This will remove the excess pickling liquid that would otherwise turn the crispy exterior of the tofu soggy.
Assembling The Baos
Now that you’ve successfully ticked off every element that makes this panko tofu recipe, we’re going to show you how we assembled ours. Think of this instructional as a recommendation after one too many messy eating situations.
These baos are great for parties because you can place all the components on a table and let your guests assemble their own buns but if you’re making these to serve, then here’s what we recommend:
Start by slathering a healthy amount of mayo onto your already steamed buns. Add the sauce. Sandwich your sticky glazed crispy tofu into the folds of the bun. Finally, top it all off with those tangy pickles and there you have it. Easy peasy lemon squeezy bao buns tofu, pickles, and sauce sorted in roughly 35 minutes.
We absolutely love this panko crusted tofu recipe. Especially when we aren’t bothered to cook anything and still want to enjoy a delicious meal. What do you think of this recipe? We’re thinking of posting our quick cucumber kimchi recipe with a braised pork belly bao bun. Is that a recipe that piques your interest? Let us know in the comments below.
While we’re on the topic of bao buns, why not check out our other panko recipes vegetarian:
Vegan & Low FODMAP Eggplant Bao
Wondering about vinegar and FODMAPs? Check out this post!
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