Homemade Steamed Egg Tofu

A super-simple, savory steamed dish that you can whip up in a snap.

homemade egg tofu copyright house of annie

Remember a while back I blogged about how egg tofu was just such an amazing thing and if you could find it at your Asian grocery store you should nab yourself at least 4 tubes? I even shared a very simple recipe on how you could cook it. Well, after eating loads of that stuff these days (over here, it’s very easy to find and I cook it at least once every two weeks), I found that we could make this simple tofu ourselves. So for those of you out there without access to an Asian grocery store (or if your store just doesn’t carry these things), you can TOTALLY make it yourself.

Two Ingredients

All you need are a few simple ingredients and you’re good to go. Firstly, you will need soybean milk (and please don’t buy the vanilla or chocolate flavors!). Just get plain soybean milk (maybe one day I’ll blog on how you could even make your own fresh soybean milk). Then you’ll need eggs. Other than that, you’ll just need some flavorings–some salt and some chicken bouillon or you could substitute a portion of the soybean milk with chicken broth. Either will work.

That’s all there is to it. Basically, you just need to beat the eggs, mix in the soybean milk with the seasonings and steam the whole thing. Tadah! Egg tofu!

Home-made Egg Tofu Recipe

taken from β€œMama Steamed Delicious” by Jamie Jong

Ingredients:
6 eggs
500ml soybean milk (unsweetened and unflavored)
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp chicken bouillon

Method:
1. Break eggs into a big bowl, lightly beat with a fork. Pour in soybean milk.

Soy Milk and Egg for Steamed Egg Tofu

2. Add salt and chicken bouillon. Mix thoroughly.

Chicken Bouillon for Steamed egg Tofu

3. Strain egg mixture into a heat-proof dish.

straining egg mixture for steamed egg tofu

4. Steam over LOW heat for 20 minutes.
5. Serve while hot.

Simple, Right?

So simple, even Nate could do it, right? Wrong! (Sorry, honey, I just have to share this part with our readers). The first time we tried this recipe, Nate was really excited and because it looked so simple, I thought surely, this is going to be no problem for him. He happily beat the eggs, mixed the soybean milk and seasonings, strained all of that into a bowl and put it to steam.

Everything great. He was so excited and really looking forward to a beautiful smooth custard-like tofu dish. The recipe said to steam the tofu for 20 minutes. Now, if you’ve ever looked at our other steamed egg recipe, that one only takes seven minutes of steaming.

Now, if I was making this dish, the instructions for 20 minutes of steaming would have set off some alarm bells in my head and I would have looked at the instructions a little bit more carefully. See…what Nate missed in reading the instruction was that you were to steam this dish over LOW heat for 20 minutes. What he did instead was steam it on high heat for 20 minutes. And what we got at the end of that time is pictured below.

Steamed Egg Tofu first try

Yeah, wrinkled, ugly and definitely not custard-like in texture. Thankfully, there is always a way to fix ugly food. After all the taste was still pretty good (though texturally it wasn’t as pleasing). What we did was to heat up some sesame oil and vegetable oil in a pan, fry up some minced garlic and sliced shallots along with some red chillies. Pour on some soy sauce, dark soy and a little bit of sugar and pepper, gave it a good stir. Added to this, we sprinkled on some chopped green onion and then ladled this on top of the tofu. Everyone ate it and didn’t even notice the uneven texture (we actually brought it to a party).

Lesson Learned

The second time we made this, we made sure the heat was at the appropriate level. We started the steamer/wok on high heat to get the water boiling, and when the water was letting off steam, we put the bowl of tofu in, and turned the heat to med-low. After 20 minutes, we got this beautiful, evenly textured, smooth custard. Now that was more like it!

Homemade Steamed Egg Tofu

homemade egg tofu

So there you go, just be aware of your cooking temperature and you can make this dish yourself and wow your family and friends.

The steamed egg tofu can be served with soy-based sauce (adding garlic, shallots, green onions as you choose) or cooled and cut up into pieces to stir into other braises–just remember that it’s a very soft tofu so if you use it in other dishes, add it in at the end and mix carefully. You could also cut it into cubes to deep fry and then cook as desired with other ingredients.

Enjoy!

Cheers, Annie

This post was entered into the My Legume Love Affair roundup #27, hosted by The Well-Seasoned Cook.

34 thoughts on “Homemade Steamed Egg Tofu”

    1. Penny –

      you can probably find fresh soybean milk in the same Asian groceries where you found your rojak sauce ingredients.

  1. Oh! I never had steamed egg with tofu…only egg…and I totally know about he high heat…done that πŸ™‚
    Yours sure look very smooth and silky…looks perfect!

    1. Angie –

      thank you for your kind comment!

      May I say that your gyros on homemade pita bread are absolutely mouth watering.

  2. Your steamed tofu egg looks delicious and I can’t believe how simple the recipe seems! I must try it soon. I also enjoyed the side story about Nate cooking the first batch on high heat.

    When I was little, my mom would steam an egg custard that we’d eat warm, with a little shoyu, with our rice, but I think she mixed regular water with egg. It was delicous but I bet the soy milk gives it an extra “oomph!”

      1. Well, I’m not sure — My mom’s dish looks more like your egg tofu. However, the steamed egg dish looks ono, too, so I look forward to trying that as well!

        I’m trying to make time for blogging again, but it’s a challenge! πŸ™‚

  3. LOL! My hubby can’t quite get mashed potatoes lump free; I shudder to think what he would do to egg custard, earnest student that he is. : D

    This is great stuff – love Asian steamed eats. Thanks for sharing your recipe for MLLA!

  4. I have made steamed egg quite often and it has turned out wrinkled and smooth on different occasions. I have also learn from chefs(in cooking shows) that they usually cover with cling wrap while steaming. And absolutely love the savory condiments/garnish on the steamed egg.

  5. Ooh. That looks lovely! My hubby absolutely loves steamed egg, so I guess he would be quite thrilled with this as well. πŸ™‚ Thanks for sharing.

  6. What a simple and delicious dish!! High in protein and good too!
    I will make this today…. I have some soy milk at home and eggs!!

  7. Hi, I tried this recipe and it’s brilliant! I made it for my friends and they loved it, the texture was amazing and smooth – thanks so much for sharing! xxx

  8. Thank you for the recipe. Just tried it for dinner today. It turned out fabulous. The texture is just right and taste soothing.

  9. I made the egg tofu with half of the recipe called for and steam for 15 mins. It turned out great! Love it. Thank you guys for this wonderful recipe. -yili

  10. Hi, mine was just as ugly as yours( 1st one). I did the same mistake. Thank you so much for the explanation. I will try a second time tomorrow. I will let you know.

  11. Hi Wendy,

    Thanks for publishing this recipe. My little kiddo is in LOVE with egg tofu ever since she ate it fried at our local Cantonese place.

    So here is my question; how do I make those fried egg tofu patties at home? Do I use Panko or some egg/flour mixture?

    Thanks so much!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *