Tofu, Broccoli and Chinese Mushrooms in garlic sauce is a light and bright stir fry that is a wonderful contrast to sweet and spicy dishes often found on a Chinese menu. Get the recipe below.
Vegetarian stir fry recipes
After spending 3 weeks in China, eating some of the best vegetarian food I've ever had, I'm on a mission to show you how easy it is to recreate these dishes at home. Tofu is perhaps an obvious choice for vegetarian, Chinese cooking, and it's the base of this stir fry.
I cook it hard and fast in sesame oil to get it nice and crisp before adding in tenderstem broccoli and shitake mushrooms. The sauce is a light and bright, white stir fry sauce made with plenty of garlic, ginger, and spring onions - the three cornerstone ingredients in Chinese cooking.
The best thing about cooking your favourite Chinese recipes at home is that you can be sure they don't include any fish or meat. When travelling we often had to check that they hadn't used fish sauce or pork as seasoning. These days it's possible to buy vegetarian fish sauce and vegetarian oyster sauce in most good supermarkets so you don't have to worry.
What is garlic sauce?
My garlic is sauce is a white stir fry sauce. What I mean by this is that it's light in colour. This is mainly due to the fact it doesn't include any soy sauce. Instead, it gets all of it's flavour from fresh garlic, root ginger and spring onions as well as a little white pepper, Chinese rice wine vinegar and vegetarian oyster sauce.
Fun fact: vegetarian oyster sauce is actually made from mushrooms!
This garlic sauce has a more delicate and subtle in flavour than lots of other stir fry sauces. But don't be fooled, this is a delicious, an authentic Cantonese style dish. Although I use some sesame oil to fry the tofu it's quite a light dish overall.
Which mushrooms should I use?
One part of this dish you don't want to skimp on are the mushrooms. If all you can get your hands on are regular white cup mushrooms that's absolutely fine. But I prefer to opt for something that's more traditional in Chinese cooking: the shiitake mushroom.
Mushrooms are really common in Chinese cooking so most varieties would feel at home in this dish. You could re-hydrate dried shiitake mushrooms if you can't get fresh. Alternatively you could use wood ear, chestnut mushrooms or oyster mushrooms!
Either way you want to use something full of flavour for my Tofu, Broccoli and Chinese Mushrooms in garlic sauce.
The recipe
My favourite thing about this recipe for Tofu, Broccoli and Chinese Mushrooms in garlic sauce? It is super quick to cook making it the perfect mid-week meal.
Tofu, Broccoli and Chinese Mushrooms in garlic sauce
Ingredients
For the garlic sauce
- 500 ml vegetable stock
- 1 teaspoon cornflour
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 1 inch root ginger grated
- 1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine vinegar
- 1.5 teaspoon vegetarian oyster sauce
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 pinch white pepper
For the stir fry
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 280 g firm tofu
- 200 g tenderstem broccoli
- 150 g shiitake mushrooms fresh
- 120 g bamboo shoots drained weight
- 8 spring onions
- 1 tablespoon sesame seeds optional, to serve
Instructions
To make the sauce
- Add just a splash of the vegetable stock to the cornflour and mix until a smooth paste has formed. Continue whisking as you add the rest of the stock to make a smooth sauce.
- Next add the garlic, ginger, oyster sauce sugar, rice wine vinegar and white pepper and mix well. Place to one side why you make the rest of the dish.
To make the stir fry
- Add the sesame oil to your wok or frying pan and heat on high. Add the tofu to the wok and cook on a high heat until the edges of the tofu are beginning to crisp up.
- Add the broccoli to the pan and cook on high for another 5 minutes until they are just softened before adding the mushrooms and spring onions.
- Cook for another 5 minutes until all the veggies have softened and are piping hot.
- Add the sauce to the pan and keep the vegetables moving as the sauce bubbles and thickens.
- Once the sauce is at the desired consistency, serve with a sprinkling of sesame seeds (optional).
Nutrition
Serve with...
Tofu, Broccoli and Chinese Mushrooms in garlic sauce tastes good with noodles but even better with fluffy white rice. If you're vegetarian then why not serve with my egg fried rice, for a vegan option try my vegetable fried rice.
More stir fry recipes
More recipes inspired by China
If you want to find out more about eating vegetarian food in China then check out my post here.
Agness of Run Agness Run says
What a great combination of flavours and colours, Emma! I would love to have this for tomorrow's lunch!
Emma Walton says
Thanks Agness! This is one of my favourite stir frys. I've been meaning to remake and take some new pictures!