Homemade Soy Milk and Tofu Recipe

Ever since I started blogging, I have been obsessed with home made ingredients. Whether it is cheese or any other, if there is a method to make it at home, I am interested. You can view this page for my attempts at home made recipes. I have made a post on tofu at the beginning years of blogging but when I look back at that post, it is so simple and the pictures are not very good. So here is my attempt to revisit an old post with new photos with a detailed  description.

The whole process of making tofu this time has been disastrous.  Right from the day I soaked the soy beans, there were so many hurdles I had to cross to finally get a look at the homemade Tofu. Grinding soy beans is very easy when you have a mixer grinder. After I soaked the beans, my mixer didn’t work and it is still not working. So I decided to grind the beans in wet grinder. The soy beans are so sturdy, my wet grinder also didn’t help me in grinding. After 10 minutes, the soy beans were just like how I added them and my BP was rising. My hubby had an idea. We used our mortar and pestle to grind the beans. It was really a tough work as I had soaked half a kilogram of beans.

We ground the beans in four batches and finally after an hour and a half, I had the batter. Then I mixed it with water and set it for boiling. I had to divide the milk between three vessels, as the quantity was too much. Once they started boiling, the next problem surfaced. Soy milk becomes very frothy and it is really hard to contain it. You need to stir it continuously other wise it will just ooze out of the vessel. As there were three vessels and only two hands, one of the milk oozed out and nearly half the milk spilt. When I was attending to that, the other one also did the same thing and I just couldn’t tolerate it any longer. I switched off everything and went to have a break. But still I couldn’t abandon them as I had worked on it a lot. After cooling my head a little, I came back and continued with the process and somehow every thing turned out fine.

Here are some points to be noted before attempting your home made tofu. Tofu is got from soy beans. There are two varieties of soy beans available in the market. The white and yellow ones. The yellow ones are the ones which can be used to make tofu. White ones turns out like idli batter and can never be used for tofu. So don’t buy them. Start by soaking 200 gm of beans. It is easy to handle. The soy milk got by grinding the beans is a great alternative to cow’s milk. You can use it in any recipe which asks for milk and you will be veganising your recipe by using soy milk. If you are allergic to milk and milk products, then soy milk is a great alternative to it. Tofu is same as paneer. We get paneer by adding lemon juice or citric acid to milk. When we add it to soy milk, you get tofu. When you drain soy milk, the leftover beans mixture can be used in cooking. It is called as okara and it can be dried and used as Gluten free flour in bakes. It is power packed and so don’t throw it away. I have dried it for now and will be using it in my bakes later. When you drain tofu, the whey collected is also nutritious. So you can use it for making dough and batters. You can also refrigerate the remaining whey and use when needed. As for the tofu, it is marinading in curd and spices and I have planned it for my lunch today.

Ingredients:

Soya beans-200gm
Citric acid-1/2tsp
or
Juice of 1 lemon

Procedure:

Soak the beans for 8 hours. It will double in size.
Grind the soaked soy to a fine paste.
In a large vessel add enough water to the paste to bring it to milk consistency.
Bring it to boil and switch flame to low. Let it boil on low flame for 15 minutes.
Pour the milk in a sieve and filter the milk.
The result is soy milk. The by product got after filtering the milk is called Okara. This is rich in protein. This can be used for various purposes. So don’t discard.
Mix citric acid to 1/4cup water. Add this solution to the hot soy milk and stir it once. Or bring milk to boil and add citric acid. Then let it stay for 5 minutes.
The milk will curdle. Filter this through a cloth lined sieve.
Keep the filtered tofu into a cheese strainer and cover it with the cloth on all the sides. Keep some heavy object on top and leave it for 35 minutes.
Remove weight and open the cloth. Cut it into small pieces and use.
The Okara can be toasted in oven to get rid of the water content and can be powdered in a mixer grinder. This can be used in soups, cutlets, breads, cakes and so on..

Homemade Soy Milk and Tofu

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Ingredients

  

Ingredients

• Soya beans-200gm
• Citric acid-1/2tsp
• or
• Juice of 1 lemon

Instructions

 

Procedure

• Soak the beans for 8 hours. It will double in size.
• Grind the soaked soy to a fine paste.
• In a large vessel add enough water to the paste to bring it to milk consistency.
• Bring it to boil and switch flame to low. Let it boil on low flame for 15 minutes.
• Pour the milk in a sieve and filter the milk.
• The result is soy milk. The by product got after filtering the milk is called Okara. This is rich in protein. This can be used for various purposes. So don’t discard.
• Mix citric acid to 1/4cup water. Add this solution to the hot soy milk and stir it once. Or bring milk to boil and add citric acid. Then let it stay for 5 minutes.
• The milk will curdle. Filter this through a cloth lined sieve.
• Keep the filtered tofu into a cheese strainer and cover it with the cloth on all the sides. Keep some heavy object on top and leave it for 35 minutes.
• Remove weight and open the cloth. Cut it into small pieces and use.
• The Okara can be toasted in oven to get rid of the water content and can be powdered in a mixer grinder. This can be used in soups, cutlets, breads, cakes and so on..