How to Make Tofu Skin

Making tofu skin or tofu curd sheet at home is quite funny journey in kitchen, helping me to get better understanding about tofu product.

We have passion for soy beans and thus created lots of tofu product at home. This is a tutorial about how to make tofu skin at home. Tofu skin or tofu Yuba stick with firm but also softened soy milk product. Unlike other tofu produce, there is no coagulant used during the process. But tofu skin has a concerted soy aroma.  

There are two forms of tofu skin in China, one is large piece (usually called 豆腐皮) and the other one is stick (腐竹). They are packaged in different forms but from the very basic ingredient and can be used interchangeably in most cases. But large piece tofu skin can be used for wrapping dim sum and dumplings while stick is commonly used in stir-fries and stews. 

Caution firstly, making this at home needs lots of patience and time and no big output. But homemade version gets the strongest aroma.

Cook’s Note

• Compare with regular soy milk for direct serving, soy milk for making tofu skin is thicker.
• Remove the bubbles and forms on top is the key step to create smooth in surface tofu skins.
• Use slow fire to keep the liquid simmering but not boiling. Strong movement will spoil the skin.
• Be patience and let each piece absorb it’s portions for 5-8 mins.

Instructions

Soak the soy beans with cold water at least for 4 hours until the beans can be easily broken. This step is extremely important to make sure the soy milk is thick enough.

Then transfer to blender and blend until really smooth. You can finish in batches . Then strain the pulp out and get pure soy milk.

Heat the soy milk with high fire at first and remove the bubbles after boiling.

Then slow down the fire and keep the soy milk hot (reaching simmer) but not boiling. Wait for 5-8 mins until the skin formed.

You can watch it on surface via the wrinkles. Use a knife to separate the tofu skin with the edges of the pot.

Then start with the thicker edge to pick the skin out.

Transfer to a baking grill for cooling down.

You can cook them right now or drying for later.

You can use the tofu skin in stewed dishes, stir fried dishes and salads.

Other soy bean related recipes

How to make tofu at home
How to make soy milk at home
Homemade soy bean flour