Vegan Menemen, Turkish Scrambled Eggs Made with Tofu

Scrambled eggs with…chilli pepper and lots of olive oil?! Menemen, a Turkish scrambled egg dish, sounded weird to me when I first heard about it. But it’s delicious, made with silken tofu for a soft, fluffy texture. While I normally make scrambled tofu with firm tofu, vegan menemen calls for silken. Something about the lighter, fluffier texture of silken goes well with the copious amounts of olive oil and the padron peppers.

Treat yourself this weekend to a big breakfast of vegan menemen. Crusty bread never goes amiss but it’s especially great with menemen, where you can use it to soak up any extra spice-soaked olive oil leftover on the plate. Menemen comes together surprisingly quickly so you won’t be slaving over it while starving.

Apparently onions are traditionally added when menemen is served as a main rather than at breakfast, so feel free to leave out the onion. However, I like onion in most things and I feel it adds a nice additional flavour to the dish so I’ve included it here.

Vegan Menemen

Ingredients

• Olive oil
• 1 small onion, finely diced
• 100g padron peppers, shishito peppers (or bell peppers if you can’t find the above), finely diced
• 1 block (about 400g) soft silken tofu
• 100g diced tomatoes (fresh or tinned)
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp chilli powder, optional
• 1 tsp pul biber/Aleppo pepper, optional
• Chopped fresh parsley
• Salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Heat oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until translucent, then add the peppers and cook for 2-3 minutes, until they’ve softened slightly.
2. Season with salt, pepper, paprika and chilli powder and pul biber/Aleppo pepper (if you’re using), then add the tomatoes and cook for 3-4 minutes until the tomato mixture has deepened in colour.
3. Remove half the mixture and set aside. Add the silken tofu and stir gently until the tofu begins to break into pieces and is heated through. Fold in the rest of the mixture you set aside earlier.
4. Remove from the heat. Top with extra olive oil and parsley.

Looking for more tofu scramble recipes? This basic tofu scramble can be made in 10 minutes!

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