Easy Mapo Tofu recipe using mince chicken, spicy fermented beans and soft silken beancurd.

What is Tofu?

Tofu is also known as beancurd.

Tofu is prepared by coagulating soy milk then pressed the curds into a block of either soft, medium or hard blocks of beancurd.

What is Mapo tofu?

Mapo tofu, is probably one of the well known, most cooked dish amongst foodies/ cooks around the world.

Mapo Tofu is originally from Sichuan Province in China.

Sichuan cooking has bold flavours, using chillies, garlic and gingers. Another star ingredient in Sichuan cooking would be Sichuan peppers!

Have you tried Sichuan peppers?

Allow me to elaborate a little bit on Sichuan peppers.

Unlike its close cousins, ie black peppers or white peppers, Sichuan peppers has a slight lemony taste to it. Sichuan peppers are known for its tongue numbing effect.

Another dish from Sichuan province, that we enjoy (and will cook when  temperature start to dip) is the Hot and Sour Soup.

In the past, I, either ate Mapo tofu when we were out eating in some Chinese restaurant in Malaysia or I'd buy the ready mix packet from Asian grocer here.

The ready mix Mapo tofu came with a price tag (yes, Perth is quite an expensive city when it comes to food, compare to other states/ territory).

I used to buy the mix once or twice but not anymore since my husband decided to try and cook, hence our version of Easy Mapo Tofu was cooked! :D

One point to gloat, according to my 2 adult kids, my Mapo tofu tasted much nicer than dad's ;P

How To Cook Mapo Tofu?

What I used in his tweaked version of mapo tofu.

1. I used Yeo's chilli fermented bean paste
2. I used Extra soft silken tofu, Macro brand from Woollies. This tofu so far the best soft tofu I have ever tasted. It has smooth texture, and cost a little bit more that the soft tofu bought from Asian grocer. 
3. I used homemade chilli oil. It tasted much better than store-bought chilli oil. Keep the extra chilli oil in a bottled and store it in your larder. Handy to drizzle on any food for that extra kick :)
4. Lastly, I omit Sichuan pepper, I used its cousin, white pepper, instead. I am yet to get used to that tongue numbing effect :(

Printable recipe is at the bottom of this post.

Don't be discourage looking at the lengthy recipe below.

Trust me, it is easy to whip up.

A snippet on How to Cook Mapo Tofu! 

1. Minced chicken 

2. Marinade minced chicken.
Best to marinade minced chicken prior to cooking.
Marinate with corn flour, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, sesame oil and white pepper.

3. Mapo tofu soy sauce mix.
A mixture of light soy sauce, sesame oil and sugar.

4. Cut up chilli

5. Grated ginger 

6. Chopped garlic

9. spring onion

10. Silken soft tofu

11. Make chilli oil
Add chilli flakes to piping hot oil.
Stir for less than a minute then remove from heat.

12. Saute garlic, ginger and chilli

13. Add marinated chicken mince and stir.

14. Add fermented chilli bean paste.
In this mapo tofu recipe, I used Malaysian Yeo's chilli bean paste.

Alternative, you can add miso paste and chilli powder.
Or omit altogether!!

15. Add soy sauce mix

16. Add cubed soft beancurd

17. Garnish with scallion

What Do you Serve Mapo Tofu with?

It is a one pot meal, from stove to dinner table within 30 minutes.

Serve with hot jasmine rice.

I hope you will enjoy our version of Easy Mapo tofu :D.

How To Cook Vegetarian Mapo Tofu?

Replace mince chicken with mushrooms to give it more body.

Point to note that, when using mushrooms, add a bit more corn flour mix with water to make the sauce thick and silky.

This mapo tofu recipe is so versatile!

Other tasty chinese food on the blog!

Golden Fried Wonton
Turnip Cake / Radish cake
Kung Pao Chicken

Video on How to Cook Mapo Tofu