Vegan shakshuka

Vegan shakshuka

vegan shakshuka pan

After the chocolate mousse craze over the weekend, it’s time for something healthy and savoury, peeps! In case you’ve taken time off social networks (good on you if you did!), we launched a 2 ingredient chocolate mousse recipe video (you can watch it HERE) showing how to make an indecently decadent chocolate mousse with just two basic ingredients: glorious aquafaba and dark chocolate 🙂 .

Making a good food video isn’t a trivial task and in an effort to failproof the shoot, you end up making A LOT of extra portions. It wouldn’t be an issue if I didn’t hate food waste so much and didn’t feel compelled to eat all of the leftovers (Duncan helped, of course).

I make it sound like it was a horrible chore, it wasn’t and I take the full responsibility for my chocolate mousse bonanza, but to regain a semblance of dietary balance I am only doing healthy recipes for the next two weeks, starting with this beautifully colourful vegan shakshuka!

Even as an omnivore, I was never one who ate eggs very often, but shakshuka (eggs poached in a spicy and smokey tomato sauce) totally stole my heart and I do miss it sometimes!

Today’s recipe is my attempt at bringing these flavours back. I realise tofu is not eggs, but I swear, if you season your silken tofu with black salt it does taste like eggs (thanks to the salt’s high sulphur content). Try it! If you close your eyes, your tastebuds will be fooled!

vegan shakshuka

vegan shakshuka close up

vegan shakshuka portion

serves
2-3
PREP
20 min
COOKING
60 min
serves
2-3
PREPARATION
20 min
COOKING
60 min
INGREDIENTS
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 medium onion, diced finely
  • 3 garlic cloves, diced finely
  • 1 red pepper, diced finely
  • 2 x 400 g / 14 oz cans chopped, skinned tomatoes (OR 5 medium ripe tomatoes)
  • 1 tbsp tomato paste
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 1½ tsp smoked sweet paprika
  • ½ tsp ground chilli
  • ½ tsp salt, adjust to taste
  • 2 tsp brown sugar (optional), adjust to taste
  • 175 g / 6 oz firm silken tofu (I use this one)
  • ½-1 tsp kala namak* (black Indian salt)
  • ½ tsp turmeric
  • black pepper, to taste
  • fresh parsley, chopped finely
  • chilli oil, recipe here (optional)
  • 1 small aubergine, diced (optional)
  • ¼ cup frozen green peas (optional)
METHOD
  1. Heat up 2 tbsp of olive oil in a large pan, on low-medium heat. Add chopped onion and fry, stirring frequently, until it softens and becomes almost translucent.
  2. Add chopped garlic and fry for another 2 minutes, stirring frequently, until the onion becomes translucent and the garlic softens and becomes fragrant.
  3. Add chopped red pepper and fry it until it softens. If using aubergine, you could add it to the pan at the same stage as the red pepper and let it cook in the sauce or you could stir-fry it separately (like I did) in 2 tbsp of olive oil to get a nice char on it and to be able to control its ‘doneness’ better.
  4. Now stir in all of the spices: cumin, smoked paprika and chilli. Fry them off gently for about a minute, stirring the whole time.
  5. Stir tomato paste into the mixture and add chopped tomatoes and about half a cup (120 ml) of water. Season with ½ tsp salt and let the tomato sauce thicken by cooking it on a low-medium heat for about 45 min. Make sure you give it a stir every now and then.
  6. Drain tofu and cut it up into a rough dice. Season it with black salt and a few pinches of turmeric and set aside.
  7. Once the sauce has thickened, taste it and season with a bit more salt and some black pepper. If your tomatoes are tangy, you may want to balance the flavour with a little sugar (I used 2 tsp).
  8. Place seasoned tofu on the sauce and pop frozen peas into the pan too. Decrease the heat to low, pop a lid on to allow the peas to defrost and the tofu to warm up. Add fried aubergine in at the last minute.
  9. Serve with some fresh or toasted bread on the side, sprinkled with fresh parsley and drizzle with some chilli oil.

NOTES
*Black salt (kala namak) is a type of salt used in Asia/India (so look for it in Asian greengrocers). It has quite a pungent smell and a distinctive flavour due to its high sulphur content. It makes tofu taste and smell like scrambled eggs. I used finely ground black salt (which actually is dusty pink in colour) and I found it to be much less salty than regular sea salt.

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NUTRITIONAL INFO
calories
205
10%
sugars
4 g
5%
fats
13 g
19%
saturates
2 g
8%
proteins
7 g
13%
carbs
19 g
7%
*per serving
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5.0
9 reviews, 19 comments
REVIEWS & QUESTIONS
Joyce:
Food for the body and the soul (I added the aubergine and I had it with half an avocado). Amazing as all your recipes. I'm waiting patiently for your cook book to come out. Thanks Anya!
    Ania
    Ania:
    Hi Joyce,
    Firstly, apologies for a delayed reply but I was away on holidays. Thank you, I am delighted to hear that you enjoyed my take on shakshuka and thank you for your kind words and confidence in me - I might have one cookbook in me, one day... :) x Ania
Keith:
Never even knew this existed, till I was leafing through your site looking for a decent brunch and now it's made twice a month if not every week!
Yummy in the tummy!
Thank you!
    Ania
    Ania:
    Yes, that's one of my earlier recipes. Glad you discovered it and that it made your tastebuds happy :) x Ania
Ami McGuinness:
This was delicious!!
I loved the flavors of all the spices matched with the little bit of sweetness from the sugar- I will definitely be making it again!!
    Ania
    Ania:
    Great to hear, Ami! Thanks for letting me and other readers know that you enjoyed this recipe! Ania
Meg:
Yum. I'm not usually motivated to cook a big breakfast, but this is one dish that I loooove to eat in the morning. I've made your shakshuka about five times now and it's a family favorite. I add in an extra block of tofu. My kids and I eat it generously scooped over toast. Thanks for sharing it with us.
    Ania
    Ania:
    Thanks, Meg! I'm delighted to hear that! x Ania
Max Handley:
This was so delicious!! I made it after a hard day at work and it made me feel so much better!
    Ania
    Ania:
    Thanks, Max! That's lovely to hear!! Ania
Anna:
I love your blog very much and I like the idea of having peas and eggplant in shakshuka! I will surely try it.
So far, I liked putting fresh spinach just before adding the "egg". It's also nice. =)
    Ania
    Ania:
    Thanks, Anna! I agree, you can't go wrong with fresh spinach melting into a dish, can you ? Hope you'll enjoy my version if you decide to try. x Ania
Joni:
Had this for tonight’s dinner. I’ve tried a few of your recipes now and you’ve converted me to tofu!
    Ania
    Ania:
    That's lovely to hear, Joni! Tofu gets such a bad reputation cos most places have no idea how to make it tasty, I keep on coming across bland tofu in restaurants all the time. I'm so glad to hear that you enjoyed it! Ania
This was really good - I've already made it twice since I tried it.
    Ania
    Ania:
    Thanks, that's nice to hear! Ania
Chris:
Just fab, thank you..
    Ania
    Ania:
    Thanks so much, Chris! That's lovely to hear :) Ania
Belinda Bolding:
Found you with the pistachios biscuits. Love them so looked further and i do love all your recipes. My 3 daughters are vegans so mum and dad have to go along. Now i'm going along for dinner your site is great. I use lemon zest instead of orange as i prefer the flavour and alternate the almond with chia or flaxseed ground up for adding omega 3,6 and 9 to the diet.
    Ania
    Ania:
    Thanks Belinda, that's so lovely to hear! :) Ania
Basia:
Great minds think alike - I've been craving menemen (kind of similar to shakshuka - it is based on tomatoes, green peppers and chili - and eggs) last weekend and have successfully veganised it by using the VeganEgg and a bit of kala namak - I've made it three times since!
Your version looks delicious too! I'll give tofu another go, it hasn't convinced me as a scrambled egg substitute so far.
    Ania
    Ania:
    Thanks Basia! Sounds great and yes, I'm familiar with that dish. I have not been able to get VeganEgg here, but would love to give it a try one day. I must say I do like using silken (have you tried that kind of tofu?) tofu as eggs when seasoned with black salt, turmeric and pepper, but I know that tofu is not everyone's cup of tea. x Ania
      Basia:
      So I gave soft tofu a try (I don't have silken tofu at the moment) and it blended with the dish/ flavours beautifully and I have to admit that I've been making some variety of a tomato-based egg dish since! Next time I go shopping I'll get plenty of silken tofu. I think the reason why I wasn't convinced before is because I used hard tofu just like other scrambled eggs recipes suggested and you could still clearly taste the tofu (which I don't actually mind, but it wasn't desired) - but when I made żurek a few months ago I used cubed silken tofu as 'eggs' to float around in the pot and the texture was amazingly realistic! Shame it didn't spark an idea in my brain then ;)
      So many thanks for suggesting silken tofu! That opened up a door of menemens, shakshukas, leek-tomato mixes etc, that has been shut for so long :)
      As for the VeganEgg - I probably won't buy it again any time soon as it is very expensive (£7 - £8) and the texture is very spongy and... 80% like scrambled eggs. It's fun to see it scramble, the flavour is egg-like but it's just not convincing which is why I decided to give it a go with menemen and it worked pretty well. Also, it doesn't fill you up for too long. So if I can get a very similar result with silken tofu then it's no question! :)
        Ania
        Ania:
        Yay! Glad to hear silken tofu has hit the spot! :) And thanks for all the info about VeganEgg! x Ania
Tracey B:
Hi Ania - I'm not vegan or even vegetarian, but trying to eat more plant based foods as my body loves me back when I do. I found you via your Choc mousse - mainly my curiosity for making my own aquafaba - and I've been drooling over your other recipes. Beautifully put together and photographed - I will definitely be adding some to our weekly menu plans.
    Ania
    Ania:
    Aw, thanks so much, Tracy! :) Knowing my recipes have swayed you towards a more plant-based diet is just awesome to hear! Ania
Judy:
This looks heavenly. I tried this dish once but I wasn't thrilled with the "egginess" of it. Using tofu is a stroke of genius (and I can skip the black salt as I don't need the egg flavor). You always help me get the spices just right, and this combination looks perfect. Thank you, as always!!
    Ania
    Ania:
    Thanks so much, Judy for your kind words! Hope you'll like this one! :) x Ania
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