So here we have the THIRD creation in this budget-friendly series of vegetarian recipes – and this week I’m bringing you a delicious TAGINE! I absolutely love tagine, and recently I used a gorgeous Vegetarian Tagine recipe from The Happy Pear for a veggie meal prep, and it was so good I promised myself I’d try my own recipe at some point! So what better opportunity than this series! Tagine is a dish full of some of my favourite spices – cinnamon, cumin, coriander and paprika! Each recipe you find will have slight variations of course, but I feel like this recipe has kept the true tagine flavours. The best tagine I’ve had was in Paris – it was a lamb tagine, and I’ll never forget it! But given my recent transition towards more veggie vibes, I decided I wanted have a meat-free version of my own. So, now its time for me to share it with you!

A quick note about the baked tofu – I used the brand Cauldron Foods, and this was fresh tofu, so not the vaccum-packed style I would have bought and used for my Smoked Tofu Curry recipe. This time, I emptied the water from the tofu pack first, and dried it a little with paper towels, so that it would slice nicely into chunks for baking. If you can only find pre-cooked tofu, that’s fine too – in fact, it makes this recipe even easier, as you can skip the baking step if you want! Now, let’s get cooking!

Recipe 

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp sweet paprika
• 300g Tofu (I used the Cauldron Foods brand – see note above!)
• 1 400g tin of Butter Beans
• 1 400ml tin of chopped tomatoes
• 2 tbsp Balsalmic Vinegar
• 300ml water
• 1 red onion
• 1 aubergine
• 1 large carrot
• 1 courgette
• 1 bell pepper
• A pinch of sea salt and black pepper

Method

1. The first step is baking the tofu! Pre-heat the oven to 200C (fan oven).
2. If required, drain the tofu water, and then chop into square chunks 1×1 inch size.
3. Line a baking tray with tinfoil and grease with a little olive oil on a paper towel.
4. Place the tofu chunks onto the tray, and when the oven is ready, bake in the oven for approximately 20 minutes, until golden at the sides. Leave to cool.
5. Chop up your veggies (red onion, aubergine carrot, pepper, courgette) in little chunks approximately 1 inch size, place into small bowls and set aside.
6. Heat the olive oil in a large pot on a medium heat, and add the red onion and garlic, and cook for 3-4 minutes until the onion pieces are softened.
7. Next, add the spices (cinnamon, cumin, coriander, paprika) to the onions, and cook for another 3-4 minutes until the onions are coated.
8. Add the rest of the veggies to the pot, and stir, cooking for another 5 minutes.
9. Add the chopped tomatoes, balsalmic vinegar and water, and stir it all up!
10. Add the butter beans and tofu chunks, and mix everything again. Add a little extra water at this stage if the liquid level is a little low – it should be covering most of the solid ingredients so that everything gets all the flavours!
11. Sprinkle with a little sea salt and black pepper, stir again, the cover and leave to simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
12. If serving immediately, put another pot on medium heat while simmering and when bubbling, cook the grain of your choice in the water according to package instructions.I’m currently loving farro and pearl barley but any are perfect – rice, quinoa, whatever your preference!

Enjoy guys! I hope you’re liking this budget-style veggie series as much as I’m loving creating the recipes. It keeps a tasty bit of pressure on each week to really get my foodie hat on for something a bit different! Tag me if you try this recipe out – @theirishbalance on Instagram or Twitter!

Ciara 🙂 x