Buffalo Tofu Salad

Alas, the season of the cold salad is upon us at long last. Most of  us are too busy in the summer to want to monkey around with a hot stove during the most beautiful hours of the day, so quick and easy cold salads are a cinch to whip up and have ready to grab for a snappy meal.

I know tofu is one of those foods a lot of people like to balk at, and it usually comes from a bad experience with it. I have had it served to me soggy as wet lard, and burnt to a black little air puff. If I thought that's how it always tasted, I'd run screaming for a burger too. The truth about tofu is that it absorbs the flavor of whatever you add to it, and is a nutritious and filling protein source when prepared correctly. It often needs to be drained into submission and flavored well to make it taste delicious, and I assure you, it can be very delicious indeed.

I recently was making some buffalo tofu bites to put on a sandwich, and I realized I had some good blue cheese and celery in the fridge, the typical counterparts of buffalo sauce. I put them all together, and the result was an amazingly tasty vegetarian salad that we couldn't get enough of!

Buffalo Tofu Salad

-1 lb tofu, drained and chopped into cubes.

-1/3 cup honey

-2 T. butter

-1/2 cup Frank's Red Hot sauce

-1 T. Sriracha

-!/2 cup blue cheese

-1 cup celery, diced

- 1/2 t. salt

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray cookie sheet with canola oil spray. Toss tofu cubes with salt and bake 15-20 minutes, until browned but not puffy. Remove from heat. In a sauce pan, melt honey, butter, Frank's Red Hot and Sriracha until combined. Toss with tofu and cool. Before serving, add blue cheese and celery.

Yowza! 

The spice of the buffalo seasoning and the creamy blue cheese are delish with the crunch of the celery. I was pleasantly surprised how well this turned out for a spur of the moment lunch, and will put it in the summer salad rotation for sure. Enjoy!