Vegan Fish and Chips Recipe

Our amazingly crispy Vegan Fish is made with marinated tofu that has been coated with classic beer batter and deep-fried to get that crunchy texture on the outside and delicious flavors bursting from within. We serve our "Tofish" with chips, homemade mushy peas, a homemade vegan tartar sauce, and fresh lemon.

Why you will love this recipe

• Our Vegan Fish and Chips is made with simple ingredients that you can easily find in your local supermarket or will already have at home. For our vegan fish, we use marinated tofu and nori sheets. The marinade is made with mustard, soy sauce, lemon juice, and sweet paprika, easy right?
• This recipe is easy to make. You don't need to blend ingredients, shape the dough, try for it to stick, and so on. This recipe uses tofu cut into long and thick pieces that make the whole process really easy (marinating, coating, and frying).
• Simple but delicious batter. Before starting to prepare Tofish and Chips at home, I thought that the batter was really difficult to make to get that crispiness and yumminess you get from a chippy shop. The reality is that is way more straightforward than I thought! All you need is a cold beer, regular flour, rice flour, and baking powder. You can make this batter in advance (the night before) or use it straight away, it works both ways!
• Stays crispy. Yes, it stays crispy even after a few hours! We had some leftovers that we ate a few hours later and the vegan fish was still super crispy. This meal is obviously best enjoyed right after cooking it but you can enjoy it a few hours later and it will still be crunchy and tasty.

Our Vegan Fish and Chips is:

• Vegan
• Made with tofu
• Crunchy
• Made with beer batter
• British-style food
• Main dish
• Filling meal
• Deep-fried

How to make the best Vegan Fish and Chips

Ingredients

Tofu. For this recipe, you will need extra firm or firm tofu. Our favorite brand of tofu is Mimasa Tofu. It comes in a glass jar (more environmentally friendly) and is perfect to cut into 4 thick and long slices to make vegan fish. As well, it tastes great and the texture is perfect to absorb the marinade, and to cook while holding its shape.

Nori sheets. Once the tofu is marinated, we cover both sides with a piece of nori sheet. We use the same brand, Mimasa Nori Sheets, as they have high-quality Asian products that we love. You can use another brand, or if you don't have this ingredient, you could add some miso paste to the marinade or simply skip this ingredient.

Tofu marinade. For our tofu marinade, we use mustard, soy sauce or tamari, lemon juice, and sweet paprika. You can add other condiments such as garlic powder, black pepper, miso paste (recommended if you are not using nori sheets), or old bay seasoning.

All-purpose flour. We use all-purpose or plain flour for our tofish and chips. You can use gluten-free flour as an alternative.

Rice flour. This ingredient is key for a light and crispy batter. Just using all-purpose flour will make a thicker and not-so-crispy batter so you definitely want to add some rice flour to the flour mix for the batter.

Beer. Choose a beer that won't add a strong flavor to the batter (dark beer). You can as well, use gluten-free beer if you want a gluten-free batter. Simply make sure the beer you are using is cold. I would recommend leaving it in the fridge overnight. If you prefer to not use beer, you can use sparkling water as well.

Baking Powder. We like adding a little bit of baking powder to our batter to give it just the right fluffy texture.

Potatoes. For Vegan Fish and Chips, we like using russet potato or similar. We like keeping it simple, so we coat them with some oil and cornstarch and fry them using the air-fryer. They come out crispy and delicious.

Step-by-Step Method

1. Cut the tofu block into four thick and long slices. The best tofu to use for this recipe is firm or extra-firm tofu. Combine in a small bowl the soy sauce, sweet paprika, lemon juice, and mustard. Place the tofu pieces on a shallow pan and using a cooking brush, coat each side of each tofu piece with the marinade. Leave aside while you prepare the batter.
2. Add to a big mixing bowl the dry ingredients for the batter: all-purpose flour, rice flour, baking powder, and a pinch of salt. Combine.
3. Cut some nori sheets to the same size as the tofu and cover both sides of the tofu with nori. Let it soak for a couple of minutes so it becomes soft and sticks to the tofu.
4. Pour the cold beer into the bowl and whisk gently until all the ingredients are incorporated and you have a smooth batter.
5. Gently whisk the batter one last time and heat vegetable oil using a small pot. Once the oil is hot, dip the first tofu piece in the batter. You can do this by using your hand so you make sure the nori sheets stay in place and the tofu doesn't break.
6. Place the battered tofu in the hot oil and deep-fry for about 4-5 minutes, or until the batter is golden brown. Place the fried tofu on a paper towel to release excess oil, add a pinch of sea salt, and repeat the process with the next tofu piece.

Variations to our Vegan Fish and Chips

• Use a different plant-based product for the fish. We love using tofu because of the texture, how easily you can marinate it and give it the taste you want, and because it adds protein to the meal. Other options you can use are Banana Blossom, hearts of Palm, or Celeriac. You can find different recipes online that use these products.
• Make this recipe gluten-free. Yes, you can make this recipe gluten-free by using gluten-free flour and gluten-free beer or sparkling water. As well, you will need to use tamari instead of soy sauce for the marinade, and make sure the mustard is labeled as gluten-free.
• Change the tofu marinade to your taste. We use soy sauce, sweet paprika, mustard, and lemon juice for our marinade and we truly love it. You can change or add ingredients to your taste. Some recommendations are miso paste, old bay seasoning, garlic powder, or onion powder.
• Make this recipe without beer. If you don't want to use beer you can change to sparkling water.

Serving Suggestions

Our Vegan Fish and Chips is a complete and filling meal. We serve it with some homemade mushy peas and a yummy homemade vegan tartar sauce. We add some lemon wedges so we can squeeze some lemon juice right before enjoying the meal. As well, we recommend trying to add some vinegar to your chips just like you would do in England.

This meal is the perfect comfort food for a lazy Sunday. We love making vegan fish and chips for the family during the weekend when we have a bit more time to prepare all the sides as well.

Sometimes we prepare this meal for a weekday, simply by making the tofish and chips, and we serve it with store-bought sauces such as ketchup, vegan mayo, or mustard.

How to make the perfect chips

For our Veggie Fish and Chips we keep this part simple. We use our mandoline to cut the potatoes into medium-size chips so they are all the same size.

For the chips to get the perfect crips, we coat them with cornflour and olive oil. Then air-fry the chips for about 18 minutes at 210C. You can as well deep-fry them or bake them.

We add a pinch of sea salt right after taking them out of the air-fryer, and they are ready to serve.

Mushy Peas

To make tasty mushy peas without investing too much time, we pan-fry frozen mushy peas with some vegan butter. Then add a finely chopped garlic clove, pan-fry until the garlic is cooked, and roughly mash the peas with a potato masher.

Vegan Tartar Sauce

Tartar sauce is a creamy condiment often served with seafood dishes, such as fish and chips. It is traditionally made with mayonnaise as its base, adding flavors such as pickles, mustard, and lemon juice to achieve its distinctive taste. This sauce is the perfect addition to your Vegan Fish and Chips and other vegan fish recipes such as this Vegan Shrimp.

Our Vegan tartar sauce relies on vegan mayonnaise as its base. This means that not only is the sauce vegan but it is also suitable for those with egg allergies.

You can find the whole recipe here.

Store and Reheat

If you have some vegan fish leftover, we recommend you keep it at room temperature for a few hours maximum, and reheat using the air-fryer or you can eat it at room temperature. If you try to reheat by using the microwave, it will get soggy.

Once the tofu is battered, we recommend you cook it and eat it right away. If you want to enjoy this meal later, you can keep the batter in the fridge for 1-2 days and the tofu in a separate airtight container, as well in the fridge.

If you have leftover batter, you can use it for other dishes. For example, we battered some tofu the day after and had it with Katsu Curry Sauce. Our recipe makes more batter than needed but you will need to make enough so you can easily dip the tofu pieces in it.

FAQ and Tips

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5 from 11 votes

Vegan Fish and Chips

Our amazingly crispy Vegan Fish is made with marinated tofu that has been coated with classic beer batter and deep-fried to get that crunchy texture on the outside and delicious flavors bursting from within.

Prep Time20 minutes mins

Cook Time20 minutes mins

Total Time6 hours hrs 40 minutes mins

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: British

Keyword: Vegan Fish and Chips

Servings: 4 people

Calories: 513kcal

Ingredients

Tofu (Vegan Fish)

• 250 g firm tofu
• 1 ½ tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
• Lemon juice from ½ lemon
• ½ teaspoon dijon mustard
• 1 nori sheet

Beer Batter

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ½ cup rice flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 beer cool (33cl)

Chips

• 3 medium size potatoes
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon corn flour

Mushy Peas

• 1 tablespoon vegan butter
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 2 garlic cloves

Vegan Tartar Sauce

• 2 tablespoon vegan mayonnaise
• ¼ red onion finely chopped
• 2-3 small dill pickles
• 1 teaspoon capers
• 1 teaspoon mustard
• Lemon juice from half a lemon
• Salt to taste

Instructions

• Cut the tofu block into four thick and long slices.
• Combine in a small bowl the soy sauce, sweet paprika, lemon juice, and mustard.
• Place the tofu pieces on a shallow pan and using a cooking brush, coat each side of each tofu piece with the marinade. Leave aside.
• Add to a big mixing bowl the dry ingredients for the batter: all-purpose flour, rice flour, baking powder, and a pinch of salt. Combine.
• Pour the cold beer into the bowl and whisk gently until all the ingredients are incorporated and you have a smooth batter.
• Cut some nori sheets to the same size as the tofu and cover both sides of the tofu with nori. Let it soak for a couple of minutes so it becomes soft and sticks to the tofu.
• Gently whisk the batter one last time and heat vegetable oil using a small pot. Once the oil is hot, dip the first tofu piece in the batter. You can do this by using your hand so you make sure the nori sheets stay in place and the tofu doesn't break.
• Place the battered tofu in the hot oil and deep-fry for about 4-5 minutes, or until the batter is golden brown.
• Place the fried tofu on a paper towel to release excess oil, add a pinch of sea salt, and repeat the process with the next tofu piece.

Chips

• Wash and peel the potatoes. Cut using a sharp knife or a mandoline so the chips are the same size. You can choose to cut them thinner or thicker.
• Coat the chips with olive oil and cornflour and air-fry them for about 15 minutes at 200C. Depending on the size of your air-fryer basket, you may need to make two batches.

Mushy peas

• Add some vegan butter to a skillet pan and pan-fry the frozen peas.
• Then add finely chopped garlic, pan-fry until the garlic is cooked, and roughly mash the peas with a potato masher.

Vegan Tartar Sauce

• Add the vegan mayo to a mixing bowl. Finely chop the red onion, capers, and dill pickles and add to the vegan mayonnaise.
• Add the mustard and lemon juice and combine well until everything is incorporated. Optionally, add some maple syrup to add sweetness to the sauce.
• Add salt to taste and combine one more time.Garnish with fresh parsley, cilantro, sage or basil.

Nutrition

Calories: 513kcal | Carbohydrates: 80g | Protein: 16g | Fat: 14g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 3g | Monounsaturated Fat: 4g | Trans Fat: 0.01g | Sodium: 1071mg | Potassium: 895mg | Fiber: 8g | Sugar: 5g | Vitamin A: 755IU | Vitamin C: 48mg | Calcium: 316mg | Iron: 5mg

More British-style Vegan Recipes:

• Vegan Nut Roast
• Vegan Hash Browns
• Festive Roasted Vegetables
• Leek and Potato Soup
• Vegan Leek and Mushroom Pie