How to Make Delicious Oven Baked Tofu

This delicious oven baked tofu is excellent for sandwiches, salad toppers, and stir fries! Prepare it ahead of time with your favorite marinade for a quick weeknight meal, or meal prep for lunch.

This post is sponsored by EZ Tofu Press.

Jump to:

• 🌱 Ingredients
• 🍽 Equipment
• 🧄 Marinades
• 🔪 Instructions
• 🍱 Meal Prep
• 💭 Tips
• 📋 Variations
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬Comments

Tofu is a blank slate for texture, flavor, and accompanying meals and sauces, so the preparation can make or break the meal. This is why tofu can be so misunderstood at times—you have to work with it to bring out its best side!

One of my favorite ways to prepare it is making oven baked tofu. It makes a delicious main course straight out of the oven, but it holds up well in the fridge, so you can use it for quick meals throughout the week.
Here’s how to make baked tofu for the best texture and flavor. New to tofu and need to start at square one? Learn all about tofu in my post, Tofu 101. It’s so thorough, you’d get college credit if tofu studies were a thing.

🌱 Ingredients

• Tofu (firm or extra firm preferred)
• Your favorite marinade

Yes, that’s it! 

🍽 Equipment

• Chef’s knife
• Cutting board
• Baking pan
• Pan liner (foil or parchment paper)
• Tofu press (I recommend the EZ Tofu Press)

Tofu Press

Pressing your tofu is a super important step to achieve the right texture and make sure the tofu can absorb the flavor of your marinade.

The old way of pressing tofu is wrapping it in paper towels or a dish towel, placing it between two dinner plates, and weighing it down with a heavy book or cans. This is wasteful, makes a mess, takes a long time,and usually results in unevenly pressed tofu.

Do yourself a favor and get yourself an EZ Tofu Press, which will press your tofu quickly without all the fuss or mess! It’s affordable, made in the USA with BPA-free plastic, and has a sturdy construction that will hold up for years.

The EZ Tofu Press has one function that it excels at—making perfectly pressed tofu. To use, place a block of tofu between the two plates, and turn the tension knobs to lock it in place.

Continue turning the tension knobs until the tofu is pressed to half its original size, which usually takes only 15 minutes, then proceed with your recipe as directed.
Pick up your own EZ Tofu Press today and start making better tofu!

🧄 Marinades

Tofu is only as good as its marinade! Besides pressing your tofu and cooking it well, using a flavorful marinade is essential, just like with any other protein.

Here are a few tofu marinade recipes to get you started. For each of the marinades, combine all of the ingredients in a shallow dish, add the tofu pieces, and allow enough time for the tofu to soak up all the flavor, at least 1 hour.

Italian Garlic Marinade

This is my all-purpose tofu marinade. Want some baked tofu on hand for sandwiches, or some bite-sized baked tofu cubes for salads? Make this Italian Garlic Marinade, and make sure to use fresh garlic!

This tofu would be great added to my Mediterranean Quinoa Salad, or Roasted Squash Salad.

• 2 cups vegan chickenless or vegetable broth
• ¼ cup soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon Italian herb blend
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Sesame Ginger Marinade

This marinade is perfect for all of your tofu stir fries and noodle dishes. It’s my most-used tofu marinade because my diet is 80% stir fry and noodles. If you prep your tofu ahead of time, it’ll be ready to use for your weeknight meals.

• 2 cups vegan chickenless or vegetable broth
• ¼ cup soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 clove garlic, minced

Agave “Honey” Mustard Marinade

This one isn’t your everyday tofu marinade, but it’s a great one to try if you love sweet and tangy flavors.

Tofu seasoned with this marinade would be a perfect match with my Roasted Beet Salad Vegan “Honey” Mustard Dressing, to keep the “honey” mustard theme going.

• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 2 tablespoons agave nectar
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon spicy brown mustard
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

🔪 Instructions

Press your tofu using a tofu press until the water is removed and the tofu is half its original size.

Slice your tofu into slabs or cubes.

Slabs are great for sandwiches, whereas cubes are great for salads and stir fries.

Marinate your tofu for at least 1 hour, or overnight in the fridge.

Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or foil.

Drain the tofu from the marinade and place on your prepared baking sheet.

Bake for 40 minutes, flipping once halfway through. Continue baking until the tofu is golden and the edges are crispy. Serve immediately, or use as directed in a recipe.

🍱 Meal Prep

Baked tofu is ideal for meal prep. You can keep the tofu in the marinade for 2-3 days and take it out when you’re ready to bake it, or bake multiple blocks of tofu and simply heat it up when you’re ready to use it.

If I’m making more than one block of tofu to eat throughout the week, I like to slice them in different ways and make a couple different marinades for variety.

💭 Tips

• Make sure your tofu is thoroughly pressed before you move to the next step. Waterlogged tofu won’t get crispy in the oven.
• It may take a little longer for your tofu to get crispy edges if you’re using parchment paper. Simply leave it in the oven a little longer until the desired texture is achieved.
• This recipe doubles and triples well! Baked tofu is ideal for meal prep.
• Baked tofu makes a great main course, and leftovers are great for salads and sandwiches.

📋 Variations

Once you’ve mastered this basic baked tofu recipe, there are many other ways to prepare baked tofu for a variety of flavors and textures.

Breading your tofu with breadcrumbs, panko, or is a great way to introduce another texture. Here are a couple of breaded tofu recipes to get you started.

Baked Breaded Tofu Cutlets

These tofu cutlets are breaded with a mixture of panko and cornmeal, making them super hearty for a dinner main dish, or even a holiday main course.

Baked Buffalo Tofu Wings/Crispy Tofu Nuggets

These buffalo tofu wings are great as an appetizer or for game day.

Not a fan of buffalo sauce? Skip the sauce step for crispy tofu nuggets that you can serve with any type of sauce like ketchup or vegan ranch.