Vegan Poached Eggs Recipe
Vegan poached eggs are built from two mixtures. A white made from blended silken tofu set with agar agar, and a yolk made from soy milk thickened with corn flour, spooned into the middle of it. Both are seasoned with kala namak, the sulphurous black salt that does all the work on the flavour. They set in poaching cups over simmering water in about 10 minutes.
The three things that decide whether this works
The salt. Kala namak is not optional if you want it to taste like egg. It is a black salt with a high sulphur content, and sulphur is what your nose reads as egg. Without it you have seasoned tofu that looks the part. A jar costs a few dollars, lasts years, and it is what makes tofu scramble work too.
The tofu. It has to be silken and firm, which is a specific product and not the same thing as firm tofu. Regular firm tofu is grainy and will never blend smooth. Plain silken without the firm will not hold its shape once it comes out of the cup. Look for the words together on the packet.
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The two-stage build. The yolk is cooked and cooled to a thick paste before the white goes anywhere near it. Try to do both at once and the yolk disperses through the white and you get one yellow blob. Make the yolk first, let it firm up, then assemble.
Vegan Poached Eggs Recipe
- Prep time: 15 minutes
- Cook time: 10 minutes
- Total time: 25 minutes
- Serves: 4 eggs
Ingredients
For the yolk
- ½ cup soy milk, 125ml
- 2 tablespoons corn flour
- 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- ¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
- ¼ teaspoon kala namak
- ½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
For the white
- 1 cup silken firm tofu, 250g
- 1 tablespoon corn flour
- 1 teaspoon agar agar powder
- ¼ teaspoon kala namak
- 2 teaspoons soy milk
For the cups
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Instructions
- Make the yolk. Whisk all the yolk ingredients together in a small saucepan over medium heat. Keep whisking. It will go from thin to thick quite suddenly, after about 3 minutes. Pull it off as soon as it holds a line from the whisk.
- Cool it. Scrape into a small bowl and leave to firm up while you do the white. It needs to be a thick paste you can spoon, not a pourable sauce.
- Make the white. Blend the tofu, corn flour, agar agar, kala namak and soy milk until completely smooth, scraping the sides down as you go. Give it a good two minutes. Any graininess left now will still be there at the end.
- Oil the cups. Brush the inside of each poaching cup with vegetable oil, right up the sides.
- Assemble. Spoon 2 tablespoons of the white into each cup and press a dent in the middle with the back of a teaspoon. Drop 1 tablespoon of yolk into the dent. Cover with more white, enough to seal the yolk in completely.
- Poach. Bring 5cm of water to a bare simmer in a wide saucepan, so it comes about halfway up the cups. Sit the cups in, put the lid on and leave for 10 minutes.
- Turn out. Lift the cups out and run a knife round the edge, then tip each egg onto the toast. Serve straight away.
Tips
- No poaching cups is fine. Small heatproof ramekins or espresso cups sitting in the water work the same way.
- Move them once. They are fragile hot and they firm up as they cool, so put them where they are going the first time.
- For a looser yolk, take the yolk pan off the heat 30 seconds earlier or add a splash more soy milk. It will not run like a real yolk, but it goes softer.
- Kala namak is at its strongest cold. If it tastes faint out of the pan, that is normal, and it comes forward as the egg cools on the plate.
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What to serve them on
They are soft and mild, so they want something with texture or sharpness underneath.
- Thick sourdough toast, which is the default and the best of them
- Vegan hollandaise, wilted spinach and a muffin half, for a tofu Florentine
- Smashed avocado with lemon and chilli flakes
- Vegan sausages and grilled tomato for a full cooked breakfast
- Sautéed mushrooms, which pick up the sulphur note in the kala namak nicely
More of this sort of thing: the top 10 vegan egg substitutes covers what to reach for in baking, and how to make a flax egg is the one-minute version.
Storing them
They are a fresh dish and they are best straight out of the cup. In an airtight container in the fridge they hold for up to 2 days, though the white firms up and loses some of its softness.
To reheat, sit them back in a covered pan of barely simmering water for 3 to 4 minutes. The microwave works but it makes the white rubbery.
Both mixtures can be made a day ahead and kept separately in the fridge, which is the better make-ahead route. Assemble and poach in the morning.
Do not freeze them. Agar agar sets weep on thawing and the texture does not come back.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use regular tofu instead of silken?
No. It needs to be silken firm. Regular firm tofu will not blend smooth no matter how long you run the blender, and the finished white will be grainy. Plain silken without the firm blends beautifully but will not hold its shape out of the cup.
What is kala namak and do I really need it?
Kala namak is an Indian black salt with a high sulphur content, and that sulphur is what reads as egg. You can make the recipe without it and it will taste like pleasant seasoned tofu. With it, people do a double take. It is the single ingredient worth ordering for.
Where can I buy kala namak?
Any Indian or South Asian grocer, most health food shops, and online. It is sold as kala namak, black salt or Himalayan black salt. It looks pink-grey rather than black in the jar.
Can I make it soy free?
Partly. Swap the soy milk for oat or another plant milk in both mixtures. The white is the problem, because the tofu is the structure. A chickpea flour batter will give you something egg-like but it is a different recipe rather than a swap.
Can I make it oil free?
Yes. Skip the oil and use silicone poaching cups, or line ceramic ones with a small square of baking paper. The oil is only there to help them turn out.
Can I use something other than agar agar?
Not really, for this one. Agar is what sets the white firm enough to lift out of a cup. Corn flour or tapioca will thicken the mixture but they will not set it, so you would end up with something you eat with a spoon.
Why did my yolk disappear into the white?
The yolk was still too warm or too loose when it went in. Let it cool to a thick, spoonable paste first. If it is pourable, it will bleed through the white while it poaches.
Can I double the recipe?
Yes, and both mixtures scale straight up. The limit is how many poaching cups fit in your pan in one layer, since stacking them means uneven cooking.
How long do they take to set properly?
Ten minutes covered over a bare simmer. Keep the water below a rolling boil, because agar sets on cooling rather than on heat, and a hard boil just knocks the cups about.
The short version
Cook the yolk and let it cool solid. Blend the white completely smooth. Build them in oiled cups, yolk sealed inside white, and steam for 10 minutes over a bare simmer. Silken firm tofu and kala namak are the two things worth being fussy about.
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