Dinner Diary Day 10: Tempeh Chicken Salad
Tempeh is intimidating. The lumpy exterior, the mottled, brown-gray coloring, and the slightly slimy surface do not invite you to embrace this vegetarian protein. It can be fickle, too, which you understand if you’ve ever cooked with tempeh and it came out tasting bitter. Why even bother with this troublesome and mysterious slab?
Truthfully, I usually don’t bother with it. I tried tempeh in many iterations, muscled through some questionable meals, and tossed out some others, to finally arrive at a couple of tempeh recipes I can rely upon for a delicious, satisfying meal.
When done right, tempeh offers a meaty texture that cannot be duplicated by tofu or seitan. It’s also wicked healthful, made of fermented soybeans and chock full of protein, iron, magnesium, and manganese.
Here’s the thing to know about tempeh that will save you heartache: You must poach it before it’s cooked in your recipe. The way I do it (for maximum ease) is to drop it in a pot of gently boiling water for 10 minutes. You could also put it in a steamer basket for 20 minutes.
The poaching slightly tenderizes the hearty and dense tempeh, but most importantly it removes the bitter taste you’ll get if you prepare it straight from the package. I’ve tried recipes that marinate the tempeh for a few hours and skip the poaching—some of them have worked out, some have not. My hard-won lesson on tempeh is to always poach, because the bitter taste will ruin the dish.
Tempeh chicken salad, taken from the Vegan Vittles cookbook (a classic from the wonderful people at Farm Sanctuary), is a standard favorite at our house. I have never known a cold vegan salad that tastes this authentic and satisfying (and it’s easy!).
I like to serve a sweet vegetable side as a counterpoint to the savory, slightly spicy salad. In the summer, I recommend corn on the cob, and in the winter, sweet potato fries. A baked sweet potato would also be lovely.
One package of tempeh serves my family of four, but just barely. I dread the day my son has a stomach as big as the rest of ours because I’ll have to upgrade to two. When I load the salad into pita pockets, the math works out like this:
- Dad = 2 generously stuffed pita halves
- Mom = 1 1/2 generously stuffed pita halves
- Daughter = 1 1/2 moderately stuffed pita halves
- Son = 1 lightly stuffed pita half
As you can see, I manage to feed us all by toasting 3 whole pitas and splitting them up according to the calculation above. Only family cooks will truly appreciate this math.
If you’ve been curious about tempeh, or scared, please try this recipe. If you hate it, then you know for sure that tempeh is not for you, because this is about as good as it gets.
Tempeh Chicken Salad Pitas (adapted from Vegan Vittles)
Serves 3-4
Time: 30 minutes
1 8 oz block tempeh (usually found in the grocery store’s refrigerated section with the tofu)
1 cup shredded carrot (use the big holes, not the tiny ones)
¼ cup minced scallions
½ cup mayo (if you want to make the salad vegan, use a vegan mayo like Vegenaise)
1 teaspoon curry powder
3-4 pita pockets
Drop the tempeh into boiling water and adjust heat to boil gently for 10 minutes. Remove and let cool for a couple of minutes, then cut into a very small dice and spread out to cool completely. While you wait, prep the veggies.
Place cooled tempeh, shredded carrot, scallions, mayo, curry powder, ¼ teaspoon salt, and a few turns of freshly ground black pepper in a large bowl. Mix until evenly coated. Taste for salt, pepper, and curry.
Fill pita halves with salad. Serve with corn on the cob or sweet potato fries. Embrace tempeh as your friend under the right conditions.