I’m wrapping up my tofu-themed recipe week with this recipe for Spicy Tofu Burritos (pun intended!). I love a good burrito, and I’m always down for spicy food, so this sounds perfect for me. Burritos are frequently on my menu list, but they usually have chicken in them along with rice, beans, and various toppings to change things up. This recipe promises a spicy tofu filling wrapped in a flour tortilla stuffed with my favorite toppings. I can’t find anything wrong with that, so let’s get to it!
These Tofu Burritos are simple and easy to make PLUS they’re great for meal prep! Throw them in the freezer for lazy meals later!
The Ingredients
These Spicy Tofu Burritos have quite a few ingredients even without the toppings. My pre-shopping check revealed several ingredients in my pantry. I had olive oil, broth, sea salt, cumin, chili powder, smoked paprika, apple cider vinegar, and garlic. That still left me with a good-sized shopping list, but it was no problem.
I found everything I needed for the burritos plus plenty of toppings. I have to admit I went a little wild with the toppings LOL. I added remain lettuce, sour cream, guacamole, salsa, and fresh tomatoes. I even added some cilantro at the last minute!
The Process
This Spicy Tofu Burritos recipe is broken down into manageable sections, so the long list of ingredients felt less intimidating.
Pressing the Tofu
I tried a tofu recipe the day before I made my Spicy Tofu Burritos, so I used that method. Here’s how I did it:
- Place the sheet pan onto a table.
- Put the cutting board under one of the short ends of the sheet pan so it’s slightly elevated. Mine was about 3/4″ thick.
- Place the tofu onto the sheet pan, preferably near the elevated end. Cover it with a paper towel (I folded mine into a square first).
- Put the cast-iron skillet on top of the paper towel-covered tofu and leave it for 15-20 minutes. No cast-iron skillet? Just use any skillet and add 1-2 cans of food to weigh it down.
The slight tilt the cutting board created funneled the liquid away from the block of tofu so it didn’t sit in the liquid. I left it for 15 minutes while I prepped sofritas sauce.
Prepping the Sofritas Sauce
Talk about easy! This part was mostly adding ingredients to a blender and pressing a button to make the sauce. And what a lovely sauce it was!
I also diced the onion and added the oil to the skillet to preheat. I wasn’t sure how delicate tofu is, so I opted for a large 12-inch nonstick skillet.
Cooking the Sofritas
Once the tofu finished draining, I crumbled it into large pieces. The recipe does warn that it breaks up during cooking, and it was right about that. The large pieces did break into smaller, more bite-size bits.
Cooking them was a simple process. I let the tofu sit for 3 minutes and flipped it. I repeated that 3 times for a total of 9 minutes. The tofu had browned and the onions were softened when it was done. The final step of cooking for the sofritas was to add the sauce and cook for another 2 minutes.
Assembling the Spicy Tofu Burritos
Talk about colorful! I had the rich reddish-orange sofritas with so many vivid shades of green and red toppings plus the bright white sour cream. The cream-colored burritos made a wonderful canvas to show off the variety of colors and textures.
My only worry was if I would be able to roll the burritos, but it wasn’t difficult at all since I was pretty sparing with each item. This is definitely an extra large tortilla kind of recipe, though! I had enough of everything to make 4 large burritos, and 1 was enough for a filling meal.
Timing
This recipe lists a total time of 40 minutes. It doesn’t break down the times, but I did that as I tracked my progress. I took a touch longer than the time listed, but I did add a ton of toppings. Here’s how my time was spent:
- 15 minutes to press the tofu
- 5 minutes to make the sofritas sauce
- 2 minutes to dice the onion
- 17 minutes to cook the sofritas
- 5 minutes to assemble 4 burritos
- 44 minutes total
