Chinese Mapo Tofu

  4.4 – 28 reviews  • Chinese

A straightforward, excellent Chinese mapo tofu recipe that has been handed down for many years (mabo dobu is the Japanese variation).

Prep Time: 25 mins
Cook Time: 15 mins
Total Time: 40 mins
Servings: 4

Ingredients

  1. 1 tablespoon cold water
  2. 1 teaspoon cornstarch
  3. ½ pound ground pork
  4. 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  5. 1 tablespoon minced garlic
  6. 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger root
  7. 1 (16 ounce) package firm tofu, cut into 1 inch pieces
  8. 5 tablespoons soy sauce
  9. 2 tablespoons hot bean sauce
  10. 1 teaspoon white sugar
  11. 3 green onions, chopped
  12. 1 teaspoon sesame oil

Instructions

  1. Mix water and cornstarch in a small bowl; set aside.
  2. Brown ground pork in a small skillet over medium-high heat, about 5 minutes. Drain fat.
  3. Heat oil over medium-high heat in a large skillet or wok. Cook garlic and ginger in oil until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in tofu and cook for 2 minutes. Season with soy sauce, hot bean sauce, and sugar; stir to combine.
  4. Stir in cooked pork and green onion. Sprinkle with cornstarch and water mixture; cook and stir until thickened, about 2 minutes. Stir sesame oil into the thickened mapo tofu.

Nutrition Facts

Calories 268 kcal
Carbohydrate 8 g
Cholesterol 37 mg
Dietary Fiber 2 g
Protein 22 g
Saturated Fat 5 g
Sodium 1637 mg
Sugars 4 g
Fat 17 g
Unsaturated Fat 0 g

Reviews

Michael Gonzalez
Very simple and yummy! Will make again!
Michael Jones
Can substitute Korean Gochujang for Chili bean sauce (toban djan) . Use low sodium soy sauce or else the finished product is too salty.
Jaclyn Perry DDS
Good recipe with fairly easy to find in ingredients. If you have a Chinese or Korean grocery nearby, adding ground Shichuan peppercorns (1-2 tsp) and replacing 2T of the 4T soy saurce with 2T of Chinese cooking wine (Shiaoxing or Liao Jiu) gives it a more authentic taste. I’ll sometimes also substitute 1 – 2 tsp of chili-garlic paste for the garlic
Rebecca Phelps
An excellent, simple, adaptable recipe. I substituted diced mushrooms for the ground meat, and chili paste for the got bean paste, and didn’t feel the dish suffered at all for it. I will definitely make it again.
Taylor Dominguez
Good recipe but I don’t think it’s represented correctly. more like tofu stir fry than mapo tofu.
Alec Mckee
SO EASY TO MAKE AND VERY YUMMY
David Elliott
No sesame oil. Maybe try other recipe next time with the cooking sherry.
Bernard Haley
I haven’t made it ye, but…. I used to make this many times when I was a vegan. I sustituted mushrooms, chopped, for the pork. I will add soy last in small amounts.we are limited in our salt I do use a low sodium soy sauce.
David Ramos
Good recipe, very easy and quick. Made a few changes: I cook the garlic and ginger first and added the ground meat to give it more flavour. Then I added in the soy sauce and used chilli oil with chilli flakes to give it some heat. To make more sauce, I added in some water and more cornstarch to thicken it up. Once that was cooked, then I added in the tofu and chopped mushrooms. Yummy! Husband liked it very much and he normally doesn’t like tofu 🙂
Darryl Rodriguez
Ok. Far too salty with all that soy sauce. I don’t think I’ll make it again.
Brian Nelson
I live in China and was looking to cook something for my husband (who is Chinese) and he loved it… He said it was authentic Hunan style. I will cook it again for sure!
Maxwell Mccarthy
I substituted hot been sauce with hoisin sauce and some chili oil. Pretty good but way too salty. Next time I’ll use about one half the soy sauce.
Mr. Adam Moore PhD
I thought this was outstanding! For the tofu, I squeezed as much water out of it as I could, then rubbed some grilling seasoning on all sides and baked it for an hour at 350 degrees. After it cooled, I chopped it into bite size pieces. I omitted the pork because I was trying to keep it a little more vegan. Because I didn’t have all of the ingredients, I had to substitute as follows: I chopped up 1 tbs of pickled ginger (didn’t have fresh) and about a 1/4 cup of yellow onion (green onions would’ve been better if I had them on hand) and sautéed them in olive oil. I didn’t have the hot bean sauce, so I used about a tablespoon of spicy sweet and sour sauce. Just before plating, I added chopped asparagus and an orange chopped up into chunks. I cooked just a minute or two longer until the asparagus turned a bright green. I omitted the sugar (I’m diabetic) and sesame oil. I would’ve sprinkled toasted sesame seeds on it if I had had them. I absolutely loved it! I want to try it exactly as written too. I’m sure it would be equally delicious. Thanks so much for the recipe!
Matthew Edwards
First tofu dish my husband raved about! Heavy garlic flavor, and just the right amount of spicy. Couldn’t find hot bean sauce, but chili garlic sauce worked well. Doubled the lean pork. Would go great with steamed green beans or snowpeas. Some pan cleanup effort, but worth it.
Helen Bush
This was my second ever attempt at cooking tofu, as I’m just starting to eat it, and this dish will help ease carnivores into tofu eaters! I couldn’t find the bean paste at any local grocers and didn’t deal like trekking to the nearest Asian market, so I used another reviewers suggestion and substituted it with the garlic chili paste. I was not disappointed! This dish is delicious! I will definitely make it again and even my “I will never eat tofu – that stuff is disgusting” spouting boyfriend said he liked it. Not enough to eat a bowl, but at least he didn’t spit it out! Lol!
Nicole Adams
I tried this recipe twice with a couple of variations/healthier alternatives so-to-speak. 1st time I substituted ground turkey instead of pork. 2nd time I substituted shiitake, oyster, porcini, & baby bella mushrooms instead of pork. I must say the latter was hearty, earthy, & AMAZING!!! I used extra-firm tofu instead of firm. I used coconut sugar both times instead of white sugar. I used Bragg’s Liquid Aminos instead of Soy Sauce. I also used Arrowroot instead of cornstarch. If you like more sauce, you can you more Arrowroot without getting that “starchy” taste you’d get from too much cornstarch 😉
Wesley Watts
Awesome recipe!! I was just looking to use up the tofu I had purchased and instead I now have a great recipe to serve to my friends and family. I used miso paste instead of the hot bean paste and I added a little mushroom and cilantro to dress it up a little. It was amazing, thanks!!
Stephen Shelton
Very good and easy. Made this vegetarain only. The soy sauce masked all the other delicious ingredients. It was salty, so I added rice vinegar to it and since I only had non-spicy black bean sauce, I also added chili garlic sauce. I omitted the sesame oil because we don’t like them in certain dishes and its very overwelming, but thats just us.
Eric Sanchez
This was great! The only substitution I did was replace the hot bean sauce with Huy Fong’s Chili Garlic sauce. Extremely easy and extremely delicious, didn’t taste extremely heavy or greasy. Excellent over white rice, with broccoli on the side (might also be good to put broccoli or Chinese long beans in with all other ingredients).
Rebecca Smith
My daughters are vegetarian, so I left out the meat, and I was winging it at suppertime (late!), so I didn’t have everything. In my version I used olive oil, no meat.. didn’t know what hot bean sauce so I put in some white miso (1 tbsp) instead. My daughter–who doesn’t like sesame seeds, and I did use the roasted sesame oil–thinks this dish is keeper. So do I 🙂
Luis Harper
This is a very delicious recipe. It tastes like the restaurant style! Thanks!

 

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