Vegan recipe for lu rou fan (braised meat sauce with rice), a popular, classic Taiwanese comfort food. It seems vegan comfort foods have been an interest of late. For the vegan meat substitute, I used textured vegetable protein (TVP), aburaage (fried tofu pouches) and shiitake mushrooms (fresh and rehydrated). I don’t think tomato paste is typically used, but I added it to elevate the umami flavor. I left out the additional sugar. The TVP and aburaage absorb the sauce and take on the flavor nicely. I hope you get a chance to make and enjoy this vegan recipe.

Please note, I’ve put the ingredient info. into the closed caption/subtitles [CC] feature instead of embedding them in the video. Please turn on [CC] if you’d like to see the amounts while watching the video. Let’s see how it goes...

This is the no music version of the video. For the with music version, go to:    • Lu Rou Fan (vegan) Taiwanese meat sau...  


Recipe / Ingredients:

60g textured vegetable protein (TVP)
31g (2 large pieces) aburaage*
15g shiitake (dried)**
65g shiitake (fresh)**
270g vegetable broth
20g garlic
5g ginger
4 tbsp fried shallots (onions)
4 tbsp soy sauce (dark)***
2 tbsp soy sauce (light)***
2 tbsp asian cooking wine
1 1/2 tbsp tomato paste
1 star anise
1/4 tsp five spice powder
Some oil

1. Soak dried shiitake in 200g room temp. water until soft
2. Rehydrate TVP with 160g boiling temp. water (10 mins)
3. Chop fresh shiitake to small pieces
4. Squeeze water out of rehydrated shiitake and chop to small pieces (save soaking liquid)
5. Chop aburaage to small pieces
6. Mince/grate garlic and ginger
7. Add oil to pan and cook minced garlic & ginger over medium heat 30 sec-1 min
8. Add fresh shiitake & cook 1-2 mins
9. Add asian cooking wine & cook 1 min
10. Add rehydrated shiitake soaking liquid (strain with extra fine sieve to catch any possible particles) and mix
11. Add vegetable broth and mix
12. Add rehydrated shiitake and mix
13. Add fried shallots and mix
14. Add dark & light soy sauce and mix
15. Add star anise
16. Add tomato paste and mix
17. Add five spice powder and mix
18. Add aburaage and mix****
19. Adjust salt to taste
20. Let it simmer on low covered for 30 mins
21. Serve over rice and some stir fried/steamed greens (e.g., bok choy, gai lan, mustard greens, …)

Approx. yield: 4-6 servings

These are typically used to make inari sushi. I added boiling temp. water to a container, soaked the aburaage in it for 10 mins and squeezed out most of the water. Be careful because the aburaage will spray water at you as you’re squeezing.
** I chopped and used the stem part up to the rough end part for both the fresh and rehydrated (if not too tough).
*** Substitute with regular soy sauce (tamari) and adjust with salt to taste. Adjust for gluten-free.
**** Add some more broth if too dry.

Since I was filming and cooking at the same time, the sauce reduced more than I anticipated as you probably noticed. I added some more broth to make up the reduction.
Please note cooking time & temp. vary.

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