I had first attempted making lemon fried tofu chicken back in July (see our Vegan Mozzarella post for it’s first honorable mention). It turned out really well but we ate it so fast there was no time to photograph it for the blog! Needless to say, we both love this recipe so much we felt it was time to share it with our readers, so, we made it again.
Ingredients for marinade:
- 1/4 cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1/4 cup of olive oil
- Water
- 1/2 teaspoon of dried parsley
- 1 teaspoon of sea salt
- 1/4 teaspoon of ground black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder or 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1/4 teaspoon of dried thyme
- 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger powder
- 1/2 Tablespoon of poppy seeds
- 200 grams (7 ounces) of tofu ripped or cut into nugget sized chunks
Ingredients for frying the Lemon Fried Tofu Chicken:
- 1/2 cup of rice flour
- 1/2 cup of corn flour
- 1 teaspoon of finely ground sea salt
- 1/2 Tablespoon of poppy seeds
- Sunflower oil
Instructions for marinating:
- Combine all ingredients except the water and tofu into a bowl large enough to hold all the tofu chunks. Whisk until mixed completely.
- Add the tofu chunks.
- Pour enough water in bowl until all the tofu chunks are submerged. Stir it gently, cover with a lid or saran warp and refrigerate for 24 hours.
Instructions for frying the Lemon Fried Tofu Chicken:
- Whisk the rice flour, corn flour, sea salt and poppy seeds together until mixed thoroughly.
- Removed the marinating tofu from the fridge. Dip each tofu chunk into the dry mixture and roll it around until all sides are covered with flour. Do this until all the chunks have been dipped into the dry mixture.
- We fry our tofu in small batches using a small to medium sized pot on the stove. Pour enough sunflower oil in the pot to allow a few tofu chunks to be submerged and float when ready. Place pot on stove over medium-high heat.
- Once oil is hot enough, fry each tofu nugget for 30 seconds or until a nice golden color emerges from the outside. If it is taking longer than 30 seconds to achieve this the oil may not be hot enough yet.
- Line a plate with some paper towels. Remove each nugget from the hot oil when ready and place on this plate so the paper towels can absorb the excess oil. Do this until all the tofu has been fried.
- Serve while they are still hot and enjoy!
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Congratulations MASTER chef Jake!!!
Thank you!
OMG,this looks amazing!I have everything except corn flour can I sub some other flour?Oh and how are you guys?
Hi Julie! Thank you! We are doing great, how have you been doing?
We have not tried to make this recipe with any kind of flour besides the rice flour and corn flour mixture. I am not 100% sure if anything else would work since we have not tried it but I imagine using all rice flour or a 50/50 mix of rice flour and another flour would yield similar results. If you do try it, let us know what you used and how it turned out!
I’m doing ok and would love to have some lemon tofu chicken.I think I will give it a try with the all rice flour.I will let you know. how it goes.I can’t wait!
We wish we could send you some lemon tofu chicken over the internet!
Thanks,I will let you both know how everything turns out.
These were very good!I just made them and used all rice flour.That’s the only thing I changed.Thanks,I enjoyed them with some white rice and broccoli.
Awesome! We are so happy they turned out ok without corn flour! Thanks for letting us know!
You are welcome!I will be adding this to my permanent recipes and will most likely be making them again soon.One of the best recipes of tried lately and I try a lot.
Wow, that makes us both smile from ear to ear! Thank you very, very much!
this looks amazing. what kind of tofu should I use. I haven’t had any luck making tofu taste good. I see a recipe for fried tofu and I go out and buy it, then I never end up using it. I usually buy tofu at he prepared foods counter, and it tastes so good. I can never mimic the textures of it at home. The food lay told me that they bake it first, but I haven’t tried it.
Thank you! To make this particular recipe we used firm tofu. It is sometimes referred to as wet firm tofu as well since it comes in liquid usually. Some people like to squeeze the liquid out of the tofu a bit as well to allow it to absorb flavors easier. Silken tofu does not work well for recipes like this as it just kind of falls apart.
There are many ways to make tofu have better flavor, some people think marinating is the way to go, others like to grill it along with herbs and spices first. There is never really a wrong way to do it in my opinion however I do find different methods work better for different recipes. For this lemon tofu recipe I prefer the marinating route because it gives the tofu time to absorb the lemon juice along with the flavor of it. Adding the flour coating on top of it after marination to fry it makes it even tastier!
awesome, thank you much for the tips. I can’t wait to try it.I’m so glad I came across your blog, I found other amazing looking recipes.
You’re welcome and thank you so much for the compliments and comments!
How would you adapt recipe to bake instead of fry?
Hello Debi,
We have made this exact recipe by baking it in the oven instead of frying it. It works, however, because there is no oil absorption (when baking instead of frying) the lemon tofu came out very dry and was not as enjoyable to us. It can be done though. If I remember correctly I baked it on sheets of parchment paper at about 150° C (302° F) until the flour turned into a nice “breading” like texture. I hope this information helps!
Thank you
You’re welcome!
I have had success in baking tofu if I spray Pam or some other type of oil spray on it first. You just have to spray it well on all sides. Honestly, it doesn’t taste quite as good as fried, but it’s healthier and still good.
Hi Wanda! We completely agree, thank you for your comment!
Can you substitute the poppy seeds with chia seeds, or just leave them out?
You could try it but in our experience chia seeds are very absorbent! So, although we have not tried it, the end result could be a bit dry if you try using chia seeds instead of poppy seeds. Even so, it just might work since there are so few seeds used in this recipe. If you do try it, let us know how it turns out!