Cold Silken Tofu Dish (Inspired by Liangban Tofu)

This super quick cold silken tofu (inspired by Liangban Tofu) is such a refreshing side dish that takes mere minutes to throw together!

I was first introduced to this Chinese tofu dish from one of my favourite Asian vegan bloggers, Liz Miu! She’s a delightful human with a huge heart, and a great taste for delicious vegan food. She shared this dish on her Instagram highlights and once I tried it, I couldn’t stop eating it. She mentioned that it’s a dish she grew up eating with salted egg yolk (1000 year old egg) but the vegan version is nearly the same, just without the egg.

You could probably steam some hulled (yellow) mung beans and season with pink salt to get a similar, egg yolk texture, but I’ve never tried that! I might try that sometime soon though, I’ve been really craving a similar texture for cháo because I grew up eating that with salted eggs.

Liangban tofu reminds me a lot of Agedashi tofu (just not fried), but upon further research, it has the most similarity to Hiyayakko tofu. The cold silken tofu is just so refreshing, especially with that salty and pungent dressing that brings the blank canvas of tofu to life. There are many variations of the dish that either include or exclude chili oil, broad bean paste, sugar, and black vinegar, but almost all of them require soy sauce, toasted sesame seed oil, then smatterings of diced scallions and toasted sesame seeds on top.

There are also versions of this dish where the tofu is steamed to be nice and hot and then cubed or cut to be bathed in that dark, salty dressing, but out of sheer laziness, I think I prefer it cold!