Cold Tofu Salad with Tomato and Avocado
This Asian-style cold tofu salad with tomato and avocado is super refreshing and takes very little time to make! This dish has a salty, sour, and savory sauce that is easily customizable.
This cold tofu salad recipe is perfect for combatting the summer heat. Even though the most common salads have generous amounts of leafy green, this healthy tomato tofu avocado salad is definitely one you need to try. You can enjoy it as a side dish or on top of a bed of rice. It’s a quick and easy tofu salad that has minimal prep time and doesn’t require cooking!
Since this dish is so simple, there are many different ways in which you can customize the sauce for this dish and make it your own. Below, I have listed quite a few different ingredients that you can experiment with to try other flavor profiles.
How to Make Cold Tofu Salad with Tomato and Avocado
Begin by cutting the tofu, avocados, and tomatoes into equally sized pieces. You can choose to dice or slice these ingredients. If you choose to slice them, you can neatly arrange them in a pattern which can make the presentation a bit fancier.
Optionally blanch the tofu in boiling water for a few minutes.
Then, place the cut tofu, avocado, and tomato onto a large plate. Mix the sauce ingredients together and drizzle your desired amount over the tofu, avocado, and tomato. Finally, garnish with chopped scallion, sesame seeds, and furikake.
Is Raw Tofu Safe?
Raw tofu is technically safe to eat. Tofu is made from soymilk, which requires boiling soybeans under both low and medium fire. So, a raw tofu salad like this one is safe to consume since the soybeans were already cooked before packaging.
You may find the taste of raw tofu to have a strong bean flavor. If so, you can optionally boil the cut tofu for a few minutes to remove that taste and improve the texture.
Does this need to be a silken tofu salad?
Even though I specified the tofu in the ingredients as silken tofu, this dish doesn’t need to specifically be a silken tofu salad. I think silken tofu is the best type of tofu to eat “raw.” However, I’ve made this dish with medium and firm tofu as well. With medium and firm tofu, it may be more advisable to take the optional step of boiling the tofu to improve the flavor.
Customizing the Sauce for Cold Tofu Salad
The sauce for cold tofu salad is very flexible and easily customizable to your tastes. You can choose to change just one component of the sauce or the entire sauce. For example, you could substitute salt, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil for an Italian-inspired flavor.
For Saltiness: soy sauce, salt, fish sauce (be careful with fish sauce because it does have quite a strong flavor)
For Sourness: Chinese black vinegar (Chiang Kiang vinegar), rice vinegar, apple cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, balsamic vinegar, citrus juice (e.g. lime or lemon)
For Savoriness: sesame oil, extra virgin olive oil, infused oils (e.g. garlic oil, chili oil, or Sichuan peppercorn oil for numbing heat)
For Sweetness: sugar, honey, agave
For Spice: white pepper, black pepper, chili flakes, fresh chilis
Cold Tofu Salad with Tomato and Avocado
Ingredients
- 1 block silken tofu 14 oz
- 2 small avocados
- 2 small tomatoes
Sauce (See post above for customization recommendations)
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp black vinegar
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 1/2 tsp sugar
- 1/4 tsp white pepper
Toppings
- 1 scallion chopped
- sesame seeds
- furikake Japanese rice seasoning
Instructions
- Cut the tofu, avocados, and tomatoes into equal size pieces. You can choose to dice or slice these ingredients. If you decide to slice them, you can neatly arrange them in a pattern.
- Optional: blanch the tofu in boiling water for a few minutes for improved flavor and texture.
- Place the cut tofu, avocado, and tomato onto a large plate.
- Mix the sauce ingredients together and drizzle your desired amount over the tofu, avocado, and tomato. Garnish with chopped scallion, sesame seeds, and furikake.
