Hawaiian BBQ Tofu Bowl

Loaded with fresh vegetables, savory baked tofu, and juicy pineapple, the Hawaiian BBQ Tofu Bowl from The Simply Vegan Cookbook by Dustin Harder is the perfect meal for busy weeknights. Enjoy it for dinner, and take the leftovers to work for lunch the next day! This easy protein rich recipe is vegan and gluten-free.

Hawaiian BBQ Tofu Bowl

A few years ago, Dustin Harder's cookbook The Simply Vegan Cookbook arrived in my mailbox. I was familiar with Dustin because of his Vegan Roadie show, and we have a few friends in common. But at the time I hadn't tried any of his recipes, and I was excited to dig in.

Th first recipe I tried from was the BBQ Tofu Bowl. I had most of the ingredients on hand already, including a bottle of barbecue sauce that was just begging to be used. Also, I love pineapple and baked tofu, so this seemed like a natural choice for me. This dish was super easy to make, and absolutely delicious. If you bake the tofu ahead of time, it will come together in a snap, making it perfect for busy weeknights.

I’m looking forward to trying the Sweet and Sour Cauliflower Bowl variation that Dustin mentions in the book.

What You Need

You only need a few ingredients to make these bowls!

• Red onion
• Red bell pepper
• Tofu
• Pineapple
• Barbecue sauce
• Baby spinach
• Quinoa
• Cilantro

See the recipe card for exact amounts.

How to Make BBQ Tofu Bowls

• First you preheat your oven to 425°F, and a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Next you toss together the onion and bell pepper in a bowl along with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. You spread them out on half of the prepared baking sheet and spread the tofu cubes on the other half. Bake everything for 10 minutes, toss with a spatula, and then bake for 10 more minutes.
• While the tofu and vegetables are baking, you heat the remaining 1 teaspoon of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat and add the pineapple slices. Cook until they are darkly browned on both sides.
• Once the tofu is cooked, you toss it with the barbecue sauce until it's thoroughly coated.
• To assemble your bowls, you divide the spinach and quinoa among 4 bowls. Top each bowl with the vegetables, tofu, and pineapple, and garnish with cilantro, if you like.

Recipe Notes

If you follow a gluten-free diet, make sure your barbecue sauce is gluten-free. I used my own barbecue sauce recipe which only takes a few minutes to make, but you can use store-bought, if you prefer.

You can cook up quinoa while the vegetables are roasting, or you can buy pre-cooked. Some grocery stores carry frozen, pre-cooked quinoa.

The Simply Vegan Cookbook

In my health coaching practice, I often hear from people who say that cooking vegan is too expensive and too time consuming, or that the ingredients are weird and hard to find. I’ve been cooking this way for so long and I don’t know anything else, but I can totally understand how difficult it is when transitioning to a new way of eating. If you don’t know what nutritional yeast is, where do you even go to buy it?

Luckily, Dustin Harder’s new book The Simply Vegan Cookbook is here to vegan cooking fun and easy. The book is full of delicious recipes that use easy to find ingredients and none of them take very long to make. What could be better than that?

There are 150 recipes in The Simply Vegan Cookbook, and each one has two variations. That means that there are really 450 recipes – you could make a different one every day for a year and still have new dishes to try! None of the recipes take longer than half an hour of active time to make, so you won’t find yourself in the kitchen for hours. And just about everything you need to make each dish can be found in a regular grocery store, and they won’t break the bank. There are exceptions to that in the Kitchen Staples Chapter, because Easy Cheese Sauce just wouldn’t be the same without white miso paste.

Highlights of The Simply Vegan Cookbook include:

• 150 recipes
• Each recipe has two variations
• None of the recipes take longer than 30 minutes of active cooking time
• Recipe ingredients are easy to find and affordable

Dustin gives helpful tips throughout the book, and includes lots of helpful info for new vegans. There’s also a list of “Neat Cheats” for those times when you just don’t feel like making your own vegan staples.

What I really love about The Simply Vegan Cookbook is that the chapters are broken down my main ingredient, rather than meal type! That way, if you have a hankering for avocado, you can just flip to the avocado section of the book. If you need to get more greens into your diet, there’s an entire chapter to help!

Chapters in The Simply Vegan Cookbook include:

• Vegan Made Easy
• Greens
• Beans
• Lentils
• Grains
• Broccoli and Cauliflower
• Root Vegetables
• Tofu
• Squash
• Avocado
• Mushrooms
• Simple Sweets
• Kitchen Staples

If you’re looking for easy recipes that don’t take too much time to prepare and won’t break the bank, The Easy Vegan Cookbook is for you!

BBQ Hawaiian Tofu Bowl

Dustin Harder

A serving of greens, pineapple, and protein balance this sweet and savory bowl perfectly. It does get a little involved, with a pan in the oven and a skillet on the stovetop, but it’s straightforward.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 20 minutes mins

Total Time 25 minutes mins

Course Main Course

Cuisine American

Servings 4 servings

Calories 479 kcal

Ingredients

  

• 1 large red onion cut into ¼-inch slices
• 1 red bell pepper seeded and cut into ¼-inch slices
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon olive oil plus more as needed, divided
• 1 14-ounce block extra-firm tofu drained and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 20-ounce can sliced pineapple drained, or 1 pineapple, peeled, cored, and cut into ¼-inch slices
• 1 cup barbecue sauce
• 1 5-ounce package baby spinach
• 1 cup cooked quinoa
• Chopped fresh cilantro for garnish (optional)

Instructions

 

• Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
• In a bowl, toss the onion and bell pepper with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Spread them out on half of the prepared baking sheet. Spread out the tofu cubes on the other half. Bake for 10 minutes, toss with a spatula, and bake for 10 more minutes.
• While the tofu and vegetables are baking, heat the remaining 1 teaspoon of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the pineapple slices in batches and sauté until darkly browned on both sides, adding more oil as needed.
• Toss the baked tofu with the barbecue sauce until thoroughly coated.
• Divide the spinach and quinoa among 4 bowls. Top with the vegetables, tofu, and pineapple. Garnish with cilantro, if desired.

Notes

Recipe from The Simply Vegan Cookbook by Dustin Harder. Reprinted with permission.

More bowl-style meals that you might enjoy include:

• Vegan Fish Taco Bowl from Vegan Bowl Attack! by Jackie Sobon
• Buddha Bowls from The College Vegan Cookbook by Heather Nicholds
• Quinoa and Kale Bowls from Vegan Meal Prep by JL Fields
• Poke Bowl from my cookbook Eating Vegan

More tofu recipes you might enjoy include:

• Tex-Mex Scrambled Tofu
• Cornmeal Crusted Tofu
• Kung Pao Tofu with Broccoli
• Peanut Satay Tofu Triangles from 5-Ingredient Vegan by Nava Atlas