Vegan Tapa Recipe – Tapa is a classic dish that’s commonly eaten for breakfast for Filipinos. What is tapa? Tapa refers to thin slices of meat cured with salt and spices. A common way to eat tapa is the Tapsilog way. This means to eat tapa with egg and garlic rice. You can also take an alternative route and check out Tocino. Tocino is basically Spanish bacon, but when it was introduced in the Philippines during the Spanish colonization, Filipinos made it their own by developing it into a sweet, garlicky, and peppery pork belly dish.
Overall, there are plenty of ways to enjoy tapa. Do you know, though, that there is a vegan option for this dish? The key to making a vegan tapa is incorporating the flavors into a meat substitute. Alternative meats are not for everyone, so one other option you can explore is using mushrooms with a similar consistency. If you are interested in trying out a new vegan dish, then you should consider this vegan tapa recipe.
Vegan Tapa
Ingredients
- ¼ cup low sodium soy sauce
- 2 tbsp Filipino cane vinegar (regular vinegar is optional)
- 4 cloves 2 tbsp garlic minced
- ¼ medium 3 tbsp red onions or shallots chopped
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- 1 tsp calamansi or lemon juice
- 3 cups boiling hot water
- refined coconut oil or any oil for frying
Instructions
- Soak soy curls in hot boiling water and cover for 10-15 minutes.
- Drain the water and let the soy curls cool for 5 minutes. Squeeze out extra liquid.
- Mix marinade ingredients in a bowl. Add soy curls and stir until coated.
- Chill in the fridge for at least 15 minutes.
- Heat up a skillet on medium high heat.
- Cook soy curls until brown and slightly dry.
- Add a tablespoon of Filipino dark vinegar if you want a darker color.
“Proteins” You Can Use for Vegan Tapa
Per the recipe, a good meat alternative to make vegan tapa is with soy curls. What is soy curls? Soy curls are dehydrated non-GMO soybeans. They have little flavor, but when rehydrated, they have a similar consistency to chicken. Because of their lack of flavor, you can flavor them with almost anything. Other than soy curls, you can use soy meat. The difference with soy meat is that it is soy meat is made from defatted soy flour while soy curls are made with whole soy beans. In short, the consistency between them is different.
Another option you can use is mushrooms. There is a selection of mushrooms that have a similar texture to meat and absorbs flavors well. Oyster mushrooms are a great option due to their texture. But you can play around with different mushrooms if you want to add a layer of flavor to the dish. You’ll find there are several Filipino recipes that offer vegan options and come with vegetable alternatives. Some examples of this are “Eggplant Adobo” and “Vegan Kare Kare.”
Additional Notes and Options
Vegan Tapa can be time consuming to make depending on the recipe. If you want to cut down on prep time, you should avoid using mock meats. Since mock meats already has flavoring, you will need to marinate it for quite a while to get that tapa taste. There are only select recipes that work with mok meat. For example, “Vegan Filipino Sphagetti.”
Other than this, you should know that a tapa meal is not completed without a spicy vinegar sauce dip. It’s simply a matter of mixing the following ingredients:
- ½ cup Filipino cane vinegar
- ¼ medium (3 tbsp) red onions or shallots
- 3 cloves (1 tbsp) garlic
- 1 small (½ cup) cucumber diced
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 2-4 small bird’s eye chili chopped
- 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
- pinch of salt
If you want to explore another vegan twist to a Filipino classic, you can check out a “Vegan Arroz Caldo Recipe” or try “Vegan Giniling.”
