Vegan “Feta Cheese” From Tofu

Make this quick vegan tofu “feta” anytime you’re craving a crumbly, salty, fresh topping for your salads, pizzas, and pastas! Try serving it on the summery watermelon feta salad I show you how to toss together in this video!

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Recipe Links:
Quick & Easy Tofu “Feta”: https://tastythriftytimely.com/quick-easy-feta-to-top-your-creations/
Watermelon Salad with Tofu “Feta”: https://tastythriftytimely.com/watermelon-salad-with-tofu-feta/
Quick Pickled Red Onion: https://tastythriftytimely.com/quick-pickled-red-onion/

Video Links:
Watermelon Rind Jam: https://youtu.be/1BOz8AXdRXs
How To Quick Pickle Red Onion: https://youtu.be/L91Re-prqXg
What Is Tofu – Everything You Need To Know: https://youtu.be/GBRAdWkbY8o

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Key Moments:
00:00 Introduction
00:55 Which tofu to use
01:25 Method
02:58 Miso plus salt
03:55 Vinegar substitutes
04:16 Watermelon “feta” salad
06:06 Taste test with Bryan
06:48 Recipe cost
08:53 Coming up next

*The cost of any products we mention and our recipe costs will vary depending on where you are located, what foods are in season, and how prices change over time. Our cost comparisons are meant to merely demonstrate potential savings.

Ingredients: Tofu Feta (yields 350 g)
350 g extra firm tofu
¾ cup (178 ml) apple cider vinegar
½ cup (119 ml) water
2 tbsp miso paste
1 tsp sea salt
optional: 2 tablespoon parsley or oregano
optional: 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast for “cheesy” depth

Watermelon Salad with Tofu “Feta” (serves 4)
740 g watermelon, seeded & cubed (5 cups, about half a large watermelon)
145 g cucumber, thinly sliced (half an English cucumber)
40 g yellow onion, pickled (see my quick pickled red onion recipe)
100 g tofu feta, crumbled
4 tbsp mint leaves, chopped

For the balsamic reduction:
¼ cup (59 ml) balsamic vinegar
⅛ cup (30 ml) maple syrup

Click the links above for the full methods on our blog.

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make a quick and easy tofu feta anytime you’re craving a crumbly salty fresh topping for your salads pizzas and pastas a great protein-filled alternative that is prepared in just 5 minutes and likely to save you a bit of money too if you’re on board with saving a bit of money on groceries then hit that subscribe button for this budget friendly feta cheese alternative i’m Catherine brian’s behind the camera and this vegan feta cheese from tofu is simple to make and it’s a pretty convincing alternative doesn’t taste exactly like feta of course but after sitting for a few hours in a salty tangy savory brine it absorbs that flavor it also holds its shape in these feta-like cubes so you can use it in salads or on certain pastas and it even crumbles like traditional feta does so it’s perfect to use in your lasagnas or on the watermelon feta salad I’ll be making today the main ingredient is extra firm tofu and this variety of tofu doesn’t have very much water in it and because of that it’s able to absorb the flavor from the brine also extra firm or super firm tofu will be able to hold its shape in these little cubes without falling apart unless you intentionally crumble them of course it will also provide a good amount of the protein that you would get in traditional feta and for us this version comes in at half the price of traditional feta cheese so here’s how to make it open up a 350 g package of extra firm tofu and discard any excess liquid chop the block of tofu into small cubes and set aside i’ll mention here that if your tofu seems to have more water in it than mine does then you can pop it into a tofu press or wrap the block in a clean kitchen towel and place something heavy on top for 10 to 15 minutes to just press out some of that excess liquid i find that this usually isn’t needed for extra firm tofu but the less liquid that the tofu has in it the more it’ll be able to absorb the flavor from the brine in a small bowl or jar mix 3/4 cup apple cider vinegar half a cup filtered water 2 tablespoons miso paste for savory fermented depth and 1 teaspoon sea salt for some extra salty bite that is typical for feta optionally add 1 tbsp nutritional yeast which boosts up the cheesy flavor and 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh or dried herbs like oregano or parsley mix everything together to dissolve the miso paste add the cubed tofu to the brine cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours but preferably overnight for the fullest flavor to enjoy your tofu feta scoop it from the brine and enjoy it cubed or crumbled over your favorite salads pizzas pastas and more how simple is that this batch I made a few days ago and I just used dried oregano in here whereas today I’ve used some fresh parsley and for this one in the jar I actually just put all of the brine ingredients in the jar shook it up and then added the tofu cubes right in here so it’s really easy one thing that you might be wondering is why I have used both miso paste which adds salty savory flavor and extra salt i tried this with just miso paste but it didn’t have enough of the salty bite that traditional feta has so by adding a teaspoon of sea salt to that it really brings that feta flavor out that said if you don’t want to use the salt then try it with just the miso paste see how you like it and likewise if you don’t have miso paste which is this fermented paste made from soybeans then you can omit it and just use salt because this miso paste is fermented it adds that kind of fermented funky flavor that cheese has but if you do leave it out or use less of it than I have then you’ll be saving yourself a few cents this adds about 50 cents to my recipe cost so you can just use salt and you can make it a little thriftier and I used apple cider vinegar today but you could probably use white vinegar or white wine vinegar with similar results white vinegar will have a bit of a sharper taste whereas apple cider vinegar has a bit more sweetness to it in last week’s video we made a couple of jams from watermelon rind so we have lots of watermelon left over and I’m going to toss up this watermelon feta salad so this is just 5 cups or 740 g of cubed watermelon then I’m going to add 145 g of sliced cucumber this might be a little more than 145 g i didn’t measure but everybody likes cucumber and then I’m going to add 40 g of this quick pickled white onion and I make this the exact same way as I make my quick pickled red onion and you’ve seen me use that a number of times in different recipe videos by quick pickling it it’s quick it’s easy and it turns the onion into like a sweet tangy crisp little moment which is a lot nicer to eat than a string of raw onion so if you do this for your salads and to top your bowls and things like tacos then it’s really lovely then I crumble 100 gram of my tofu feta you could also leave the feta in cubes for the salad if you like the look of that better i know a lot of watermelon feta salads are like that but I kind of like having it crumbled and then I’m just adding about four tablespoons of some chopped up mint because I love mint but you could also use any fresh herbs you like i think dill would work really nicely here and then the last thing I do is I add a little balsamic vinegar maple syrup reduction for a dressing for this you could just mix up some balsamic vinegar and maple syrup and toss that over but by heating it on the stove for just 10 to 15 minutes and reducing the two it becomes a syrupy texture which holds on to the watermelon a lot better so this makes four generous portions i’m going to serve some up for Brian and I put some dressing on then we’ll give this a taste test all right shall we or should we test tofu feta first yeah I guess let’s test that first go for it okay so this has been in brine for a few days now oh yeah super feta what I remember feta to taste like yeah it’s like still not quite as firm as I remember feta being maybe but the longer the tofu sits in the brine the less kind of tofu squishiness it has and the salt sort of like changes the texture and makes it more like soft and crumbly and honestly on the blog I say that it’ll last in the brine for like 3 to 4 days and this has been maybe over a week that it’s been sitting in that brine and it’s been fine mhm it’s still totally fine still tastes good we should just jump right to the cost cuz this is way thriftier than normal feta yeah especially now when we originally made this recipe the tofu feta recipe a few years ago the spread wasn’t that drastic at least with our version and a a wholesale store price for feta cheese this 100 g of tofu feta on our salad is $1.15 and if we were to use traditional feta cheese from our local grocery store it’d be 260 that’s pretty significant and if we were to buy a store-bought plant-based feta then it would probably be even a little bit more and the whole batch of tofu feta so 350 g without the optional nutritional yeast and the extra herbs it comes out to just under $4 and with the nutritional yeast and some parsley or something it’s just over $4 which is like more than half the price of wrong with that what traditional feta from our grocery store is right now i haven’t checked the wholesale price so I’m curious if that has grown as much as the grocery store price has for feta but pretty thrifty you probably if you’re plant-based or vegan you’ve got tofu so you’ve got feta cuz the rest is basically pantry savings and like I said if you reduce the miso paste or just use salt in the brine then that’ll lower your cost by like 50ents all right let’s dig into this cell cuz it smells like a garden oh yeah that balsamic glaze or whatever reduction you threw out so many words there that I was like whoa this is fancy like should I put on a better shirt and I like you referred to have something as having a moment the onions were a crisp moment we’ve been watching some Queer Eye lately so this salad’s really great oh so fresh super fresh salad and I like crumbling the tofu on here cuz that way you kind of get like a bit of the tofu feta in every bite as opposed to like a big cube of it but the big cube of it would be a great moment as well so this salad I think is having a moment right now i think you could have a moment at a party if you brought this salad this is fresh it’s different it’s interesting mhm and let us know if you make it you want to tell everybody what’s coming up so coming up next we have our Kenya video for you brian has been working away for weeks and weeks and weeks to edit an hourong video to show you what our trip to Kenya was like where we went on a eco safari for 5 days and had wonderful plant-based food the entire time that’ll be our next video and then we’ll follow it up with two more videos from Kenya where I learned to make Kenyan dishes from a Kenyan chef thanks so much for watching comment below like subscribe all those things to help our channel grow and we’ll see you next time when we’re in Kenya you’re back in Kenya we’re not going to go like we’re I think they I think they get it