Grilled tofu with lemon juice, garlic, and rosemary imparts a wonderfully dimensional flavor profile. Add some grill marks and dive in! Vegan & gluten-free.
Grilled tofu with lemon & rosemary is the perfect summertime main dish.
While I love vegan grilling with veggie burgers as much as the next person, sometimes you want something a little prettier for your outdoor soirée.
Served with a kale salad with lemon tahini dressing, grilled vegetable skewers, or vegan pasta salad, this is the kind of meal that might encourage you to bring the cloth napkins outside to the deck.
I’ve been making my lemony tofu for years.
In winter months I slow cook the tofu in the oven until it is tender and chewy. The smell of rosemary fills the house.
I’ve made a simplified version that requires no marinating with this easy baked tofu recipe. I’ve put it into Buddha bowls, and vegan wraps.
This version, which involves letting the tofu sit in a marinade with lemon and rosemary, really rewards you.
How to grill tofu
Start by combining lemon juice, tamari, extra virgin olive oil, rosemary, garlic, and pepper in a shallow pie dish or small baking dish.
(I recommend using a microplane zester for the garlic, so that it becomes almost like a garlic paste. That helps the tofu to really absorb that flavor.)
Now take vacuum-packed, super firm tofu. Cut it into ½ inch slices.
You can find vacuum-packed tofu at Trader Joe’s or in natural grocery stores from Wildwood.
(If you don’t have access to super firm tofu, you can use water packed tofu instead. However, you’ll need to press the tofu first. If you’re using water packed tofu, use a 14-ounce package instead of 10 ounces. Those ounce differences are accounted for by the water difference.)
Put the tofu slices into the marinade, and pop the dish in the refrigerator. Let the tofu slices soak for 1 hour. Flip the slices halfway through for even marinating.
Now it’s time to grill!
Bring an outdoor or indoor grill to a medium heat. Grill the slices for about 10 minutes on each side or until they have nice, dark grill marks.
Grilled tofu with lemon & rosemary
Ingredients
- Juice of 1 large lemon about ¼ cup
- 1 Tablespoon tamari
- 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 teaspoon dried rosemary crushed between fingers
- 3 cloves garlic grated with a Microplane zester or minced
- Few shakes black pepper to taste
- 10 ounces vacuum packed tofu cut into ½ inch slices*
Instructions
- Combine lemon juice, tamari, extra virgin olive oil, rosemary, garlic, and pepper for the marinade in a shallow pie dish or small baking dish. Put the tofu slices into the marinade, making sure everything is evenly coated. Put the dish into the refrigerator, and let the tofu slices marinate for 1 hour. Flip the slices halfway through for even marinating.
- Set the grill to a medium heat and grill slices for about ten minutes on each side or until they have nice, brown grill marks. Remove from heat & serve right away.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
A note about the video demonstration:
I made the video demo in this post back in 2011 when vacuum-packed tofu wasn’t as widely available.
So in the video version, I used a 14-ounce package of water-packed tofu instead and pressed it first. I also used a bit more extra virgin olive oil in that version.
Feel free to go either way with the tofu & oil. I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Originally posted June 2011. Content updated June 2019.
Martine
Hey Cadry – I love your recipes! I’m trying to incorporate healthier eats into my life and so many of your recipes appeal to us non-vegans too. Good luck!
Martine
cadryskitchen
Hey Martine,
That’s great to hear! Thanks!
cadryskitchen
Done! 🙂
Rob
I’m not commenting for the straw – I just really liked the post! The lemon-rosemary tofu on the grill sounds EXCELLENT. So summery! I wish I had a grill to try it out, but I suspect a grill pan on the stove can approximate the flavor. Thanks for the recipe!
cadryskitchen
I would think that a grill pan would work just fine, or you could use the baking method that I linked to in the post. Let me know how it goes!
Carol
Hi Cadry, I watched a film last night- Knives over Forks- have you seen it? You should if you haven’t. Anyway, it’s inspired me to eat a mostly vegan diet this summer. And, of course, you and David have been hovering as inspirations ever since you rolled into town. Fortunately there is a Whole Foods here in Santa Fe and several vegan restaurants and the dining room at the St. John’s campus offers good options so I should be okay. I don’t want to do much cooking since I consider these few weeks here a kind of vacation from certain kitchen duties, but I’ll keep checking out your recipes for inspiration. And: I think it would be a lot easier to be vegan if I had one of those straws.
cadryskitchen
Hi Carol,
That’s great to hear that you were so inspired by Forks Over Knives! David and I saw it in Chicago last December. I hope it’s able to expand on its limited release; there’s a lot of valuable information in there. The film was based, in part, on the research from The China Study. That’s the book that I loaned you earlier this year. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to read it yet, but when you get the opportunity, you should!
Carol
Thanks so much, Cadry. I will definitely check on these.
Ashley
love your blog!
Cee
I found your blog through Michelle Schwegmann’s blog, and actually have been using your old-fashioned way of pressing tofu 🙂 for the past couple of times that I’ve made it. As ridiculous as it sounds, it never occurred to me to press *sliced* tofu–I’ve always been wrapping and pressing the entire block. So, thank you for your instructional videos! And congratulations!
Jess
Congratulations on making it two years!! Very exciting. I have tired your recipe before in the oven and it was really good. I will have to do as you suggested and give it a whirl on the grill! Thank you!!
cadryskitchen
Thanks for letting me know, Jess! That’s great to hear!
Laloofah
Happy Anniversary to Cadry’s Kitchen! 🙂
Ben is adorable, and knowing how much you love the experience of visiting wildlife, I’m glad he’s a regular at your house. 🙂
I must tell you that although we have yet to fire up the grill, we have made your delicious Lemon Rosemary Tofu MANY times! It’s BW’s absolute favorite marinated tofu now and the only one he requests, and I love not only the taste of it (perfect anytime but especially for summer weather), but how quick and easy it is to prepare! (I just leave out the olive oil since we’re McDougallers). It’s absolutely delicious and never lasts more than two days around here. 🙂
cadryskitchen
That’s sweet that you remember how I love visiting wildlife. We’ve been blessed with a lot of it this spring – deer, a groundhog, squirrels, chipmunks… And we even got to watch a set of bird parents with their newly hatched babies for a few weeks.
I’m so glad you and BW like the lemon rosemary tofu! Thanks for letting me know it can be made oil-free. I’m going to try that! I’d always worried that the tofu would stick to the baking dish without it. Do you find that you have to adjust the other liquids or the cooking time?
Laloofah
Hi, Cadry!
Sorry, for some reason I missed seeing your reply! I don’t know that I have to adjust the liquids, but I do – I add equal amounts of the tamari and lemon juice to make up for the missing amount of oil. I bake this in a baking dish, and though the marinade bakes onto the bottom, if I let the tofu cool for 5 minutes first it easily lifts right out, and after soaking the dish in some water for awhile it takes just a little light scrubbing in the corners to get sparkly clean.
I just made this again last night and took it to our friends’ house for a little impromptu vegan snacky dinner on their deck, and they both loved it and wanted the recipe, so I sent them the original recipe post from your blog. And now I’m about to post about it on my own! 🙂
Shellie
Made this last night. We loved it. I used a pound of tofu, doubled the ingredients, and left out the oil. Delicious!
Cadry
Fabulous! I’m so happy to hear it, Shellie. Thank you for letting me know!