Homemade vegan halloumi cheese (and bacon)
Tofu-based halloumi cheese
Pros: Cheap, hard recipe to stuff up, fabulous texture, easily available ingredients
Cons: Takes a while to make, salt content is high
Note: For those without a dehydrator, an oven used on its lowest setting (and watched carefully) can work well.
I’ve never really had proper halloumi cheese, but I’ve seen my parents eat it and know what it’s meant to look like. On a vegan group on Facebook, a recipe from Cooking With Plants for a simple tofu-based halloumi cheese was shared, and with all the ingredients fairly readily available in Australia I couldn’t resist giving it a shot.
I had one other added benefit – my dehydrator (which I have purchased for my month of raw). It showed up in the post and after picking it up on the weekend I couldn’t think of any better recipe to try it out with.
First thing’s first, whenever I look to make a vegan version of a dairy cheese, particularly one I’m unfamiliar with, I search for what it looks like, how it behaves and a description of its taste online. I also look for details about its texture and the type of recipes it’s eaten within.
Halloumi cheese is a Cypriot food often made from goat or sheep milk, and one of its unique factors is that it has a high boiling point, or in other words it doesn’t melt that easily. This means you can fry or grill it and eat it in its shape still. It’s also regularly described as “salty”, “rubbery” and “firm”. This makes hard tofu a brilliant base replacement for the cheese, being able to be grilled or fried, but still soft in texture. Halloumi normally comes in brine, and I know that my parents started eating it more regularly a few years ago as it became more popular. It appears to be quite versatile in that it’s used with a wide range of dishes, and seems to be pretty popular in meat-free dishes (though I’m of the understanding that it usually includes rennet and as such is not vegetarian).
I picked up a packet of hard organic tofu from Coles, and then followed the initial steps provided in the Cooking With Plants recipe. I put it into the freezer for 24 hours, and then defrosted and pressed it.
I assume the freezing part helps get the moisture out, but mine was still quite damp when it had been pressed. So, I put the dehydrator onto 70 degrees (the maximum on mine), cut the tofu into halloumi-sized wedges, and let them dehydrate on both sides for a couple of hours. In retrospect, I think with a dehydrator you may be able to skip the freezing part entirely, which cuts the time down a lot.
During the freezing time, I made up the spice marinade that is supposed to give the halloumi flavour. The Cooking With Plants recipe calls mainly for nooch, turmeric, paprika, onion powder and salt. However, from playing with cheese flavours in the past, I know what I prefer.
For the spice mix:
Ginger powder
Nutritional yeast
Nutmeg
Mustard powder
Turmeric
Sage powder
Garlic salt
Pepper
Garlic powder
Extra virgin olive oil
Water
I mixed it all up and put it in the fridge overnight. It went into a more solid paste, so I added a little more water and mixed it up again when I was ready to use it.
Instead of onion powder stated in the initial recipe, I opted for garlic powder. I couldn’t find onion powder at about three different supermarkets I tried – no idea why – but figured it wouldn’t matter too much anyway as I deviated for basically all the spices.
Then, taking the dehydrated tofu out (which wasn’t completely dehydrated, you want it a bit moist still), I “painted” it on one side with the marinade, and let it dehydrate, before doing the other side when that was dry.
Put the marinade side upwards so you don’t make a mess.
When this was done, I had a bit of marinade leftover, so I whacked it on, and put it all in the fridge overnight – we were intending to have it with our Sunday brunch.
When it got round to cooking it, I fried up some Nuttelex (although any vegan butter will do), and fried them on each side on a high heat.
I then served them with fried oyster mushrooms, baby spinach and garlic, avocado and gluten free bread. It was so good with this, providing a chewy texture that was even superior to the oyster mushrooms. It’s considerably ‘meaty’ in firmness as well, which makes it a good brunch addition.
It was terrific. I was worried it would be too alike to my tofu feta, but it was completely different. My wife said it was one of the best recipes I’d tried to date, and it had a tougher consistency than most cheese replacements we try, being almost a little bit chewy but with a slightly moist inside.
The flavour was strong, the outside was a little crispy and it was so good on bread. I think the dehydrating went a long way towards the flavour. However, is it likely to be close to halloumi cheese? I’m not so sure – it was cheesy in the way nutritional yeast is a little cheddar-like, but I’m not convinced this makes it like halloumi, which is supposedly creamier. Despite this, with so many other cheeses available that I adore, this was all about the texture, and I think it’s spot on.
It doesn’t seem there are any commercially-available vegan halloumi replacements in Australia yet, so looks like you’ll be hitting up this tofu version if you’re after one. Midas Fine Art Cheeses is one of the few outlets I’ve seen advertising a halloumi, but they aren’t yet shipping to Australia.
It’s a time consuming recipe, and if you count all the cutting, prepping and dehydrating… you’ll be there a little while. At the same time, it’s pretty tricky to screw up, so I think everyone should give it a try.
Next time, I’d like to get a griddle and cook it on that so you get those beautiful markings – which I’ve seen on haloumi before. It’s also perhaps a little too bright with the turmeric – I’d imagine it could perhaps be halved to better effect.
For those without a dehydrator, this isn’t completely necessary. A low setting on an oven and a watchful eye can get you a similar consistency, and I’ve been told that a quick zap in the microwave also makes it work well (though I don’t own a microwave so couldn’t tell you).
Tofu Bacon
Another food, other than cheese, that everyone says they crave and is the reason they “couldn’t go vegan” is bacon. While I liked bacon, mainly the smell of it, I can’t say that it’s particularly high on my own favourites list. However, a craving for the smoky meat came my way and so I decided to make some tofu bacon, using what I’d learnt from dehydrating the halloumi.
One thing I loved about the halloumi was that while the tofu was thin, you could still see the white on the inside – which is similar to the cheese in images I’d seen. When it came to the tofu bacon, however, I didn’t want it to be white when I cut into it, and I also didn’t want it to be as creamy/soft as the halloumi.
After reading through countless recipes online, and seeing what was in my ridiculously full pantry, I decided to do a mix of a marinade and a coating to get the best result for my tofu.
Firstly, I froze it overnight.
Then I thawed it out, draining the water, while making a marinade. I warn you that this marinade is over complicated (as in, it contains a ridiculous number of things) as it was a “whatever’s in the pantry” combination, and I kept tasting it to see what suited the flavours I wanted.
Marinade:
Salt
Pepper
Garlic powder
Mustard powder
Nutritional yeast
Smoked paprika
Nutmeg
Ginger powder
Sage powder
Tamari
Vegan Worcestershire sauce
Lemon juice
Golden syrup (maple syrup is fine as well)
Miso (one teaspoon, just going for the umami flavour)
Tomato paste (half a teaspoon)
Beetroot (quarter, fresh)
Olive oil
One thing my pantry never has, is liquid smoke (I will rectify this at some point, it’s increasingly becoming a staple I want!), however the smoked paprika often does the trick for me. If you have it, then use it. Similarly, the Worcestershire sauce isn’t a “must” and if you still wanted a similar flavour then a vegan BBQ sauce would do the trick. Imported US products are available in Australia via Tasteful Delights (they do a liquid smoke too). Put in the amounts that you want of each – it’s worth experimenting to get the flavour you want. I aim for a big umami hit in my marinade, as that is the “meaty” flavour of the bacon – things like soy sauce, miso, tomato paste etc are jam packed with these flavours, so I used them all.
I mixed all the ingredients in a small pan. Taste your marinade. I can’t encourage this enough – don’t put everything in and hope for the best. It needs to be watery enough to get into the tofu, but strong enough in flavour to last after it has been drained. By tasting it, if it goes wrong then you know why next time round. I used about a quarter of a fresh beetroot chopped up finely, as I wanted the colour to almost ‘bleed’ out into the tofu to rid it of its white soy bean esque colouring. I wanted that pink-style bacon colouring.
I boiled them up in the little pan, and then left to cool. Boiling helps the flavours to mix, and the miso, salt and golden syrup to dissolve, making the marinade even.
I cut the drained tofu into very thin slices — as thin as I could get them without breaking, and then put them into the marinade.
It then went into the fridge for 48 hours.
After that time, I took them out of the fridge (they should look something like the below).
During the 48 hours, I made the coating. This was a mixture of the following:
Smoked paprika
Nutritional yeast
Nutmeg
Tamari
Worcestershire sauce
Salt
Pepper
Garlic powder
Oil
Water
Tomato paste (one teaspoon)
A couple of bits of chopped up beetroot (again, for colour)
I mixed it together, tasted it, and put it in the fridge overnight to thicken and intensify. Then, Friday night, I followed a similar recipe to that of the halloumi – I dried out the slices of tofu that had been marinating, and then coated one side before it was dried in the dehydrator, and turning over and coating the other.
I then coated them with the little bit remaining, and put into the fridge overnight for Saturday breakfast.
Saturday morning, after preparing the rest of the food (baked beans, scrambled tofu, fried spinach and garlic, fried mushrooms, avocado, tomato and toast) I got out a frying pan and poured in some extra virgin olive oil and some soy sauce, before bringing it to a high heat.
I quickly put all the tofu bacon strips in, fried them on each side briefly, and brought them back out again. Put on a piece of kitchen paper towel to get rid of excess oil.
What remained was a salty, slightly smoky and crispy bacon replacement that I am absolutely now nuts for. It was heavily salty, so best eaten with other food, but I’m a big fan of salty flavours. If you’re not a big salt fan, skip the soy sauce when it comes to frying and alter your marinade/brine appropriately.
It had a bit of a jerky consistency, and was crispy round the edges. The thinnest pieces were best, but I was absolutely thrilled that the inside didn’t remain white, as so many peoples’ tofu bacon does. This also had a slightly sticky outer, that I was crazy for, and the soy sauce when frying it gave it a slightly darker texture on certain parts that was perfect for a cooked dish.
We had some cold a bit later, and think it was even better – so I really think it would go great cold in a sandwich, or turned into little bits to put on Caesar salad. I’m soon going to attempt a raw eggplant bacon using the above ingredients.
Now back to the cheese.
The cost
Ridiculously cheap – all this cost me was the block of tofu (about $2.50) and I also had to buy the garlic powder as I didn’t have any in the pantry (around $1.50, but I only used a little). The rest of the items I already had on hand.
The ingredients (for halloumi)
Firm tofu, ginger powder, nutritional yeast, nutmeg, mustard powder, turmeric, sage powder, garlic salt, pepper, garlic powder, extra virgin olive oil, water, Nuttelex/vegan margaine
The nutritional value
It’s essentially going to match up to tofu, plus some extra salt. I think it’s worth comparing tofu with halloumi here to understand the health benefit of making this one yourself.
Firm tofu, generally, includes (per 100 grams) 4 grams of fat, 70 calories and 8.2 grams of protein. It’s low in cholesterol and sodium.
Meanwhile, halloumi usually includes (per 100 grams) 25 grams of fat, 320 calories and 21 grams of protein. It’s high in sodium.
