Our Vegan Banh Mi is made with marinated and grilled tofu, quick pickled carrots, fresh cucumbers, fresh cilantro and mint, fresh chilis, vegan sriracha mayo, and our special touch... mango!
Vietnam is one of our favorite countries to visit and one of the main reasons is the food. Vietnamese food is fresh, packed with flavors, spicy, herby and so so delicious.
We cook many Vietnamese dishes at home. We took a few cooking courses while traveling around Vietnam which were totally worth it and got inspired to make recipes such as our Vegan Pho or Vegan Summer Rolls.
Cooking while pregnant is just another level. I was craving Banh Mi for a week and I planned this recipe for the whole week to make sure it was perfectly balanced with the right flavors and textures. It took a few trips to the shops as pregnancy affects your memory too and kept forgetting things...
But here we are, with an absolutely delicious Banh Mi recipe. Astra was greatly surprised and after trying many Tofu Banh Mi, he said this was the best he ever had. We cooked them to have them later in the evening and ended up eating them straight after the photo shooting, couldn't wait any longer!
Our Banh Mi Recipe is:
- Vegan
- Spicy
- Easy to prepare
- Quick to make
- Refreshing (perfect for a summer day)
- Packed with flavor
What do you need to prepare a Banh Mi Sandwich?
Banh Mi is the perfect fusion between Vietnamese flavors combined with a fresh French Baguette. You will need a few ingredients in order to prepare the best Banh Mi:
Banh Mi Ingredients
- Baguette. The most important ingredient for your Banh Mi is the bread. This recipe is at the end of the way a sandwich so don't forget your bread!
- Protein. For our recipe, we use tofu. If you already know us and have been following some of our recipes, you'll know tofu is our favourite protein source. You can of course use other proteins for your Vegan Banh Mi such as seitan or tempeh. For vegetarian option, you can use fried egg or an omelette. Another amazing option would be using cauliflower, have a look at this recipe from Minimalist Baker.
- Pickled Vegetables. One thing that all the different Banh Mi that we tried while in Vietnam had in common was the pickled veggies. Carrot, cucumber, parsnip of other pickled veggies were added inside your Banh Mi. To make our sandwich, we prepare quick pickled carrots.
- Fresh ingredients. For me, the perfect balance of flavours when it comes to your fresh ingredients are something refreshing, something leafy, something sweet and something spicy. So our perfect combination consist on cucumber, cilantro and mint, mango and chilis.
- A delicious sauce. When you finish your Banh Mi, your hands need to be covered in sauce, if not, oyu did something wrong! We prepare a simple but yummy sriracha mayo to go in our tofu sandwich.
Vegan Banh Mi Recipe, Step by Step
Pickle your Veggies
You can buy pickled carrots already made but you can do it yourself and it takes just a few minutes and 4 ingredients. Combine in a small container maple syrup, vinegar, salt and water and the thinly sliced carrots. Leave them aside while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
The best way to cut the carrots for Banh Mi would be thinly sliced as you want them crunchy but easy to bite into.
Marinate and grill the Tofu
To marinate the tofu, combine soy sauce, mirin (optional), and five-spice powder in a shallow pan. Add the tofu pieces and leave marinating for 15 minutes on each side. Our favorite way to cut the tofu is by cutting the block in three pieces (longwise) and two pieces (lengthwise), so you are left with six pieces from each block.
Once the tofu is marinated, heat a pan and cook the tofu on both sides until it turns a golden color. Leave to cool and cut into thinner slices.
Keep the leftover marinade to add on the bread later.
Cut and prepare your fresh ingredients
Once your tofu is marinating and your carrots are left aside to pickle, you can prepare the rest of the ingredients:
- Cucumber. Slice the cucumber into thin and long slices.
- Rinse with clean water the fresh mint and cilantro and remove the bigger stalks.
- Cut the mango into thin sticks.
- Finely slice the red or green chilis. We use red chilis from our garden but you can use jalapeños as well.
Prepare the sauce
For our vegan sriracha mayo, we use vegan mayonnaise from Hellman and Sriracha hot chili sauce. Another great option would be combining the vegan mayonnaise with some Chipotle sauce.
Make your Banh Mi Sandwich
- Prepare the bread by cutting it lenghtwise just on one of the sides. This will help holding the ingredients inside your sandwich while eating it.
- Add some of the leftover marinade on the bread. Using a baking brush, use the leftover marinade to give your Banh Mi a unique taste.
- Add your sriracha mayo on both sides of the bread. There is no such a thing like too much sauce when making a Banh Mi!
- Place your pickled carrots, removing any excess of liquid.
- Place three-four pieces of grilled tofu on top of your pickles.
- Add the fresh ingredients: Cucumber, mango, cilantro and mint.
- Add the chilis, depending on your spice tolerance.
- Close your Banh Mi and enjoy!
Banh Mi Recipe Tips
- Get fresh baguettes when making Banh Mi. The best bread is the freshly baked one. If you want to make a delicious Banh Mi, make sure to get good quality and fresh bread.
- Choose a firm Tofu. In general, firmer tofu means easier to cut, marinate and grill. It won't break that easily and it's easier to handle. As well, we find firm tofu to have the perfect texture for Tofu Sandwich.
- Make sure to add enough sauce in your sandwich. You want to get a taste of that delicious sriracha mayo in each bite.
- Don´t leave out the fruit! I promise, even if it sounds a bit weird at first, mango goes amazingly good in your Banh Mi. Get a ripen mango as you want to get all the sweetness from each piece. If you don´t have mango, try using avocado or pinnaple.
- Add more or less cilantro and mint depending on your taste. At home, we add more cilantro than mint as we find that mint can be a bit overpowering if you add too many, but it depends on your taste. Another great fresh herb to use would be Thai Basil.
Serving Suggestions
This Banh Mi Recipe is perfect when served as a main dish or a big snack just sure you serve it with some extra sauce on the side!
You can keep the leftover ingredients to make a salad. Just add some peanut sauce and glass noodles and you will have a delicious Vietnamese salad. If you have any leftover bread, you can freeze it for another day.
Vegan Banh Mi
Ingredients
- 4 small baguettes
- 4 medium-size carrots
- 2 tablespoon maple syrup
- 4 tablespoon vinegar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup water
- 400 g tofu
- ½ cup soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon five spice powder
- 2 teaspoon mirin
- 1 cup mayo
- 3 tablespoon sriracha sauce
- 1 cucumber
- ¼ mango
- A handful cilantro
- A handful mint
- 2 red chilis
Instructions
- To pickle the carrots, combine in a small container the carrots thinly sliced, maple syrup, vinegar, salt and water. Make sure all the ingredients are perfecly combined and leave them aside.
- Prepare the tofu. With a paper towel, remove any excess of water and cut the tofu into medium-size square pieces. Combine the soy sauce, mirin, and the five-spice powder in a shallow pan. Add the tofu pieces and leave marinating for 15 minutes on each side.
- Combine the vegan mayonnaise and the sriracha to prepare the sauce.
- Thinly slice the cucumber, mango and chilis. Rinse with clean water the cilantro and mint.
- Prepare the bread by cutting it lenghtwise just on one of the sides. This will help holding the ingredients inside your sandwich while eating it.
- Once the tofu is marinated, heat some oil on a skillet or griddle pan and cook the tofu on both sides until it turns a golden color. Leave to cool. Keep the leftover marinade for later.
- Add some of the leftover marinade on the bread, spread some sriracha mayo on both sides, pickled carrots (draining any excess of liquid), 3 tofu pieces, the fresh ingredients and the chilis.
- Close your Banh Mi and enjoy!
Nutrition
| If you tried our recipe, please leave a comment or tag us on Instagram @Sixhungryfeet. We are always happy to see your creations! |
Madalyn says
The tofu is amazing!! Well all of it was but the tofu really shone through
Laura says
Thank you Madalyn!
Gail Montero says
So many layers of flavors, I honestly won't be missing the meat! YUM!
Laura says
Surely you won't, thank you!