Freeze Your Tofu (2024)

To open my freezer door is to ask for trouble. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to catch the bag of frozen dumplings or compost scraps as it tumbles from the precarious perch atop a lumpy bag of ice. If you’re not so lucky, the batch of 50/50 martinis you made for the party will launch itself from the frozen cannon I’ve inadvertently created and detonate on the tiled floor, as my friend Gabe learned a couple of months back.

I’ll freeze just about anything. Bread, tortillas, broths, from-scratch beans, dredges of canned tomato paste and chipotles in adobo, vegetable scraps and even some cheeses go straight into the ice box.

And I freeze my tofu. Doing so accomplishes a few things, as Eric Kim wrote this week. Freezing tofu not only extends it past that stamped expiration date, but doing so also removes enough moisture to create a delightfully crisp exterior and pleasantly spongy interior when fried or roasted. “Perhaps best of all,” Eric writes of freezing, “it also concentrates and accentuates the comforting taste of soybeans.”

For his crispy tofu (above), you don’t need panko or cornstarch. Just drain your tofu and slice it into slabs, then freeze it. When you’re ready to cook, pat and lightly press the tofu to get only some of the water out (squeeze out too much and the final product will end up too dry) before oiling, seasoning and roasting.

Crispy Tofu

View this recipe.