Bulgogi Tofu Burgers Predict of an Invite to Your BBQ

Marinades are on the total a one and done deal. Whether or no longer it’s Easy-to-Love Rooster Thighs or Chinese language-Barbecue-Vogue Pork Chops, you’ll frequently salvage one thing in weird and wonderful: They uncover you to discard the marinade after use. So when I seen that partner meals editor Kendra Vaculin uses a marinade no longer one, no longer two, however three solutions in her recipe for Bulgogi Tofu Burgers, I become as soon as stunned.

How is that probably? Because tofu is the ideal protein at play on this burger—no raw meat right here—the marinade also can simply also be extinct in extra than one purposes with out having to distress about scandalous-contamination. That arrangement we can marinate the tofu, then use the leftover marinade for a basting sauce, then use even extra leftover marinade for a burger condiment.

A Korean barbecue favourite, bulgogi is on the total defined by thinly sever, generously marbled crimson meat, soaked in an umami-packed marinade, and grilled over charcoal till smoke scents the outside. Vaculin explains, “Bulgogi depends on gochugaru for warmth and pear for sweetness, which is seemingly to be spacious for the snide layer on the tofu.” The warm chile flakes and tangy ripe fruit are blended with ginger, garlic, soy sauce, brown sugar, rice vinegar, and oil till sleek and aloof.

On this vegetarian riff, the tofu is pressed for a minimal of quarter-hour (a spacious time to work on the the rest of the recipe) to delivery its excess moisture, making arrangement for the overachieving marinade. After being squished, the protein acts love a sponge—soaking up the sauce, taking it from wallflower to lifetime of the occasion.

The marinade has two extra stops on its run: “After taking away the tofu, we amp up the combination with gochujang—no longer a outdated ingredient of bulgogi—which adds a little bit of funk and further sugar, to be lag exact char marks,” Kendra told me. Whereas you happen to don’t bear a grill, a ridged cast-iron pan will construct correct elegant. The gochujang-bolstered mixture gets brushed onto the tofu as it cooks, increasing a scorched glaze.

That final step in marinade transformation is adding a pair heaps of classic mayonnaise to the the rest of the mix. Swirling this together creates a zesty burger condiment with a cozy sweetness. As a mayo superfan, this is what I’d beg Vaculin to bottle and promote in shops. But till that occurs, I’ll be fortunately making it at dwelling.