You've never tried tofu like this! _ Delicious Vegan Meatballs.

Sweet chili sauce, pineapple, caramelization, and tofu meatballs that hold together just like our relationship. Today we're making sweet chili pineapple tofu meatballs with pan-seared tofu, charred broccoli, and caramelized pineapple all tossed together in a sticky sweet chili sauce. Let's talk about what we need. Green onions, garlic, fresh ginger, red bell pepper, broccoli, optional but recommended, water chestnuts, extra firm tofu, bread crumbs, cornstarch, nutritional yeast, soy sauce, pineapple juice, pineapple chunks, sweet chili sauce, rice vinegar, and some spices. Let's get all our ingredients prepped before anything hits the pan. Starting off with our green onions. These are going straight into the meatball mixture, so a fine chop is what we're after here. Next up, garlic. We're using three to four cloves. Some of this garlic will go into the meatballs and the rest will show up again later in the sauce. Now, our ginger, hmm, well mine was looking a bit old by the time I got to it, so I went ahead and shaved the skin off before using it. Normally I am all about leaving the skin on my ginger, but as it starts to get old, the skin tends to get more fibrous, and that can mess with all types of things in the dish. You know, the mouthfeel, the look, bottom line. If your ginger looks a bit tired, you know, do it a favor and give it a bit of a haircut. If not, skip this part entirely, as the skin has really good nutritional value in it. Hey guys, real quick, before we jump back into the video, I wanted to say a massive thank you for all the support you have shown this channel and my website, makeitdairyfree.com. This community, seriously, second to none. Because of your support, I wanted to create a way for you to get an even better experience on my website. It's called, wait for it, The Seed Squad. Oh, okay, okay, let me get a grip. It's completely optional, monthly membership that unlocks 100% free ad experience on the website, makeitdairyfree.com. If you love what I do and you want an extra way to support us, this is just one way on how you could do it. But, absolutely no pressure. I'm simply just grateful for having you here. If you find you want to join and support us in a different way, the link's in the description. Up next, we're going to prep our red bell pepper. You could do other colors. Red just happens to be a bit more sweet and really makes this dish stand out. Slice it into strips, set it aside. And behind that comes our broccoli. Cut the broccoli into florets. Nothing special here. Definitely don't throw away your stem. Either use it in the dish or set it aside for later. Wait, hold on now. I almost just put this away and forgot completely my water chestnuts in the recipe too. With this crisis averted, let's keep going. Give the water chestnuts a rough dice and set it aside. Are these 100% necessary? No. Are these 100% good in the recipe? Yeah, absolutely. All right, now the star of the show, the tofu. Here, we're going to remove the tofu from the press. Then, I want to pat it down to remove any excess moisture. We want as much of the water out of this tofu possible. The drier the tofu is, the better chance you have of developing that meaty, hearty texture once it's cooked and formed. So, if you skip this step or just don't do it well, you're going to be working against yourself the whole way through. Here's the method. We're going to place the tofu blocks into a large bowl. Then, simply mash it with a fork. We want to keep going until it reaches this like ground meat-like texture. When we get there, we're going to start adding our breadcrumbs, cornstarch, nutritional yeast, soy sauce, minced garlic, green onions, garlic powder, paprika, black pepper, and finally those water chestnuts. Stir this all together. You want this combined very well. I like to do this with a but you could do this also just by hand. And when you're ready, then we're going to do a little hands-on quality check. Reach into the bowl and simply squeeze a handful of that tofu mixture just to test its firmness, its glueyness to each other. Clinginess? If it feels dry, you know, crumbly, basically just falling apart, what you want to do is splash in some pineapple juice. Then keep trying again to see what it is finally going to form. If it's too wet, maybe it's uh, you know, just a bit loose, what you could do is add in some more breadcrumbs. Same idea, just a little bit at a time, testing after, just to make sure it forms into that nice solid ball. Basically looking for something that when you squeezed it together, it holds together in your hand, right? But you don't want it to be dense. Next, we're going to form our tofu meatballs. I'm going to break out an ice cream scoop just because I want to keep the size consistent on these. But you don't need one, your hands work fine too. The amount that you need or that this will make should be somewhere between, you know, like 18 or 20. If you get more, that's totally fine. But if you get less, not really gonna be okay. Okay, here's why. Fewer meatballs out of the same amount of mixture means that you have much larger meatballs, which also mean that they're going to take longer to cook through evenly, which that's not totally a downside, right? Like it's just not going to be heated through all the way evenly. It's like there's still an upside here because unlike traditional meatballs, every single ingredient in here is totally fine to eat raw. So if something doesn't cook all the way through, you are not in any danger. I'm just saying, traditional meatballs can't make that promise, you know? Quick way to check your firmness, give it a toss. Play a little impromptu countertop bowling if you want. If it falls apart on you, that ball goes right back into the bowl. For a little bit more breadcrumbs or even liquid, depending on if it's dry or too wet. Continue forming and testing meatballs, placing finished ones onto the baking tray. And no, we're not baking these today. We're going to pan sear them. That's because it was hot. So if you rather bake, and honestly I rather bake most of the time, I'll have a description in the recipe on how you can go through baking it instead of doing the Heat a large skillet that also has a lid over medium heat. Add some olive oil. If you want to make this a one-pot recipe, this part's important. Okay, real quick, I'm having a small crisis here. I went to grab one of my regular skillets, but I genuinely love the flavor of these meatballs cooked in my cast iron skillet. The cast iron skillet doesn't have a lid, and it holds heat too long for the rest of the recipe. So with one pot not doing it for me and the other pot just doing too much, you're about to witness me swap pans mid-recipe. For everyone watching at home, you don't need to do this. It's just me being particular. Cook the meatballs for about eight to ten minutes, turning occasionally until brown on all sides. When done, simply remove and set aside. Remember, you're going for color on every side here, not just the top. So take your time rotating and only crowd the pan with what you can handle. Our next step here is to cook our broccoli. I think it was just last week where we didn't plan to steam our broccoli. This time, we're probably going to go that route to make things a bit quick. With the broccoli in the pan, give it some initial contact time just to get a bit of that caramelization going. After about two minutes, we're going to carefully add about three to four tablespoons of water directly into the skillet. Cover it up with a lid and let that steam cook. Within a few minutes, our broccoli should be just about fork tender and ready to be placed to the side so we can move to the next step. Simply add it onto the same sheet that your meatballs are on. And now, this next part, not necessary, but I really like it. It elevates the dish. We're going to char and bring some of caramelization out on some chunky pineapple pieces. So in the same skillet, add in those pineapple chunks. You're going to let those cook for just a few minutes until lightly caramelized. Stir here and there. And once again, move it over to the baking tray to set aside. That little bit of caramelization on the pineapple brings out a deeper sweetness than you would get if you just simply added it to the recipe straight out the can or even freshly diced. In the same skillet, we're continuing now with adding our pineapple juice. We're going to use this to deglaze the pan, scraping up any brown bits directly from the bottom to incorporate into the sauce. Add in sweet chili sauce, soy sauce, rice vinegar, garlic, and ginger directly to the skillet. Stir until combined. In a small bowl, whisk together cornstarch and water to form a slurry. From here, we're going to pour this directly into the sauce and stir it together while it thickens. That slurry is what's going to take the sauce from thin and watery to glossy and clingy. It's a small change in the sauce. You will be able to feel it more so than you'll be able to see it visually. Like that difference between like thin and watery and thick and clingy. Thick and clingy is exactly what you want with every bite. Trust. Add everything back into the skillet with the sauce. You're going to toss everything gently and evenly so it all heats through and gets ready to be served. Sticky, sweet, and even a little tangy with just enough heat to keep things interesting. This is one of those dishes where every single component is pulling its own weight. Just like that, you got yourself an amazing dinner. And this full recipe can be found linked in the description or you can head right on over to my website, makeitdairyfree.com. Really appreciate you spending some time with me today. Until next time, believe in good. Peace.