My new fave way to make vegan bacon has arrived. Have you heard of yuba skins? Sounds weird—tastes amazing as a plant based bacon. Use this crispy and chewy vegan bacon to make bacon-lettuce-avocado-tomato sandwiches aka BLATs!
Yuba skins aren't the most common thing to find at the grocery store in my experience, but if you can hunt them down somewhere they are magical. I found them at a particular Whole Foods (no where close to where I live!) You could also check asian grocers or other specialty / natural food markets. Or of course, when in doubt order online!
Yuba is the by-product of making soy milk. When soy milk is boiled a skin forms on the top. That's yuba! My first introduction to it was at a restaurant (can't remember where) and they used it to make a vegan fried chicken skin. It was pretty amazing. The same technique is done in this roast chicken recipe by one of my fave vegans, School Night Vegan. I haven't tried this recipe from Richard, but it looks freaking ridiculous and real AF. So I vow to come up with more fun ways to use yuba and try his recipe, but first let's make yuba bacon. It's the best!
yuba bacon
Ingredients
- 1 pkg (5oz / 142g) yuba skins
- 2 tablespoon low-sodium soy sauce or tamari
- 1 tablespoon avocado oil (or neutral vegetable oil)
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup
- ½ tablespoon liquid smoke
- ½ tablespoon nutritional yeast
- ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with silicone mats or parchment paper.
- In a shallow dish whisk together soy sauce or tamari, oil, maple syrup, liquid smoke, nutritional yeast, smoked paprika, and garlic powder until well combined.
- Remove the yuba from the package and unfold and separate the sheets. They should be thin. It's ok if two layer stick together in some cases. Tear the yuba skins into strips or pieces relatively similar in size. Place them in the marinade.
- Use your hands to coat all the yuba in the marinade. You can let it sit for 10 minutes or so. All the marinade will be absorbed.
- Arrange the pieces slightly spaced apart between the 2 baking sheets. Bake for about 15 minutes, checking half way through and flipping the pieces. If any smaller pieces are starting to look darker in color or are getting to crispy you can remove those pieces earlier.
- Remove the pieces from the baking sheets immediately onto a tray or into a container for storage. You don't want to bake the bacon until it's super crispy. You'll notice it's darker in color and has slightly crisp edges. It will dry a little more as it cools in some spots.
My favorite way to eat the yuba bacon is layered in delicious vegan BLAT sandwiches with a quick garlic mayo spread. But I also can't wait to see how y'all us it for your recipes and meal creations. Might I suggest eating it with a plate of tofu scramble and crispy potatoes!
vegan BLAT sandwiches
Ingredients
garlic mayo spread (makes about 1 cup)
- 1 C vegan mayonnaise
- 2 to 3 whole garlic cloves, minced
- 1 to 1½ tablespoon lemon juice
- sea salt & ground black pepper, to taste
sandwiches
- 8 slices sprouted grain bread, lightly toasted
- 1 C garlic mayo spread
- 2 to 3 large leaf lettuce or romaine leaves, broken into pieces
- 2 vine tomatoes, sliced
- 1 avocado, sliced
- sea salt and ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 batch yuba bacon (recipe above)
Instructions
- To make the garlic mayo spread, add mayonnaise, minced garlic, lemon juice, sea salt, and ground black pepper to a jar or a bowl and stir together until well combined. This can be made ahead of time and will last quite a few days in the fridge.
- Add garlic mayo spread to one side of all slices of bread. Layer lettuce, tomato, avocado, sea salt and ground black pepper, and layers of yuba bacon on 4 of the slices and then top each sandwich with the other slice of bread and slice in half.
Bev
Miyoko Shinner deserves some love here. I believe she is the original vegan guru to promote yuba as bacon, as well as "skin" on Unturkey and Unchicken. Those recipes are in her "Homemade Vegan Pantry." My copy is stained and splattered.
Lauren Toyota
I had no idea! But I can't wait for her new vegan meats book!
Bev
Reach out to her! She's my hero... and you are on your way! You have so much in common....a link between the Original Vegan Gangsta and the current (you). Many of her vegan meat recipes are in the cookbook I mentioned previously.
I've never met Miyoko, lest you think I'm her agent, though I sure would like to. She has inspired my cooking.
I gave up making cultured vegan butter because hers is so good and now so affordable.
Lauren Toyota
I have met her a couple times!
Diana
Your yuba bacon looks amazing. And the sandwich! Lately I've been loving making tempeh bacon, but yuba is a wonderful product. Perfect for bacon. I agree with Bev, for Miyoko's Unturkey with yuba skin is amazing. Looking forward to your new cookbook. Thank you.
AC
Just had to say thank you. This recipe rocks. I've loved a lot of your recipes in the past and never took the time to say thanks. Out of respect, I tried to follow the recipe as you've provided it (I made one small alteration by cooking 4 slices in a pan with a little scent-free oil. Worked perfectly. The most impressive thing is that the texture is so much like a good bacon with low fat content: nice chew, crispy in spots. Spot on.
One other thing I tried was to place the sliced yuba in a sealable bag with the marinade, rather than a bowl, and let it marinade over night. I divided the strips into 4 bags. To one I'm adding smoke from a smoking gun, for a second one I'm cold-smoking the strips. To the third, I've added a some MSG and to the fourth I've added some aged balsamic cut with a little apple cider vinegar.
Thanks again and much love.
AC
Lauren Toyota
oh wow can't wait to hear how that smoke experiment works out!
AC
I could that the smoking adds a dimension but isn't really needed if your seasoning / marinade is working. It adds time, too. Leaving the strips to marinate 12-24 hrs does help though to amp up the flavour. I think I've eaten 18 BLATs in the last 2 weeks.
AC
More on the smoked product approach: smoked tofu is available in a lot of places and its texture is a bit more firm than even extra firm tofu, as it's been smoked (and dried) a bit more. Smoked tofu also slices really well on a mandoline, and you can easily create bacon-thin slices of smoked tofu that you can then marinate and bake. The result is less chewy than the yuba version but more chewy than extra-firm tofu, and the already-smoked dimension of the tofu adds to the complexity of the flavour.
Thanks again for all you do.
Elana
Hi Lauren, I've just now come across, what sounds like, your fabulous recipe!! My question is, what is the best way to store it? Fridgie, or not? Thanks in advance!!
Lauren Toyota
I store in the fridge
Rowan
BEST VEGAN BACON EVER!!!! I am addicted to making this. Thank you so much. I use the pack of tofu skins from Trader Joe’s 🙂 I’ve been vegan for 6 years and tried so many bacons… carrot bacon… rice paper bacon… but this one is the easiest and the tastiest by far. 😁
Lauren Toyota
oh I'm so GLAD! Thanks for leaving a comment 😀