Filipino Tocino-Inspired Soy Curls

Today, I am sharing with you my vegan tocino recipe. As I write these posts and recipes, I’m starting to realize just how many Filipino breakfast dishes I love. If you want something that’s more savory for breakfast than vegan champorado or more of a “meal” the fluffy, pillowy vegan Spanish bread, then vegan tocino is a great option. This recipe is ridiculously easy and perfect for weekend mornings where you just want to keep it chill.

Tocino means bacon in Spanish. In the Philippines. While Filipino tocino is a cured and very sweet pork dish, this vegan tocino recipe does not require any curing (yay!) and obviously does not require pork (double yay!). Instead it’s simply dehydrating our gloriously vegan soy curls, massaging them with the tocino marinade for 5 minutes and cooking them for 15-20 minutes.

So yes, it is originally labor-intensive and a whole lot of work would go into it but I had to figure out a way to make it fit into my vegan diet and, well, my time. I just wanted to acknowledge that because I don’t want to undermine any of the hard work other people have done in the past. This is simply my own version of the recipe of a food that I truly loved growing up.

Tocino is typically served with garlic fried rice and an egg. I personally enjoy it with plain steamed rice and for obvious reasons, I can do without the egg.

Sometimes I even just make my own sandwiches or wraps with whatever bread/tortilla I have in the house.

I just lightly spread vegan mayonnaise on both slices or on the surface of the tortilla and stick some adobo in there to get an instant meal. I make sure to have a small green smoothie or some kind of vegetable on the side to balance it out though. Man, I should really start publishing some of our healthier recipes. Ha! They exist I promise.

Speaking of which, if you know you’ll want to make garlic fried rice or even just steamed rice to go with this sweet, vegan tocino dish, feel free to make that right before you start working on this recipe.

I grew up eating this dish and it reminds me of my favorite aunt who made it for us on the weekends. It also reminds me of when my husband and I first fell in love. He was eating a plate of tocino when he told me he could see a future with me.

I had to make some significant revisions just to get this vegan tocino recipe right for him. After all, I wasn’t vegan when we got married. He’s very honest so it was a little frustrating trying to get it right. But the constructive criticism was helpful. And with additional feedback from some friends, one who is also Filipina and her tocino enthusiast partner, I was able to perfect my vegan tocino dish.

First you have take your soy curls and soak them. I used cranberry and pomegranate juice and water to cover the soy curls in a large 14 cup food storage container. Then I let them sit for 10 minutes.

While the soy curls are soaking for ten minutes, I put all our ingredients together to make a marinade. The more important ingredient is the annatto, which helps give the dish the color and a peppery but sweet taste. Paired with the sweet paprika, it gives the dish the color and smokiness it needs. Which is interesting because neither is smoked.

Pictured above is actually Mama Sita’s annatto powder. Mama Sita’s already carries a tocino mix but I prefer organic sugar so I couldn’t use that mix for this recipe.

By the way, I originally wanted to keep it organic so I ridiculously bought some annatto seeds and thought I could just easily grind them up. Spoiler: NO. JUST NO.

I gave myself a complete arm, neck and shoulder cramp trying to get this done right using the pestle and mortar pictured above. I even had it set at the perfect level so that my body mechanics weren’t all messed up. My gosh, man. And I couldn’t use my grain mill attachment because it’s not a dry grain. I tried using both my food processors and my high powdered Vitamix blender and nothing worked. Oh well. I’m glad I made that mistake otherwise I wouldn’t be using Mama Sita’s stuff! It does make me feel better to use something from a Filipino company.

We mix in other dry ingredients that include: cornstarch, garlic powder, tapioca flour, salt, organic dark brown sugar and sweet paprika.

The cornstarch and tapioca flour look the same and I probably shouldn’t have put next to each other in the picture ike that. Ha! I used the dark brown sugar instead of light because I wanted it to have a richer, sweeter taste. Kind of like molasses. And the sweet paprika to help with the color.

When we’re done mixing the dry ingredients for the marinade, we mix it with ¼ cup of water and ¼ cup of organic teriyaki sauce. It should have the same appearance and consistency of red enchilada sauce.

Making the marinade doesn’t take long at all. When the soy curls are done, you just drain them and mix the two. Then you massage the marinade into the soy curls.

There are two ways to cook this:

1) Throwing all of marinated soy curls in a huge pot and just letting the vegan tocino cook on medium high heat for 15-20 minutes, stirring every few minutes. It takes a while but for a busy mom like me, it kind of allows me to breathe a little bit. I know it’s done when it’s slightly brown and sticky. Some browned spots.

or

2) Frying the vegan tocino in batches so that it is charred a little bit. Many people like it like this.

Not necessary but I like to garnish my stuff with green onions and/or everything but the bagel seasoning. I just like to add those small touches.

I prefer the first option when it comes to my vegan tocino so that’s how the recipe is written out. Since I have a kid, I get a little weary about the charred parts. If you want to fry it the way you would regular bacon, please do so at your own discretion.

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