Plantains are like bananas’ super cool cousin you only see on holidays. I love you bananas, but today plantains are in town.

As always, if you dig the recipe, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram so I can personally tell you I think that you are as cool as plantains are.

Tofu Jibarito. It’s nothing like banana bread!

TOFU JIBARITO

prep time: 15 minutes
cook time: 30 minutes

Plantains and bread are like super distant cousins I guess.

Get out a brick of tofu and drain it. Press it with some towels with a cast iron skillet on top to drain it of excess liquid.

Then you’ll start with your plantains. You’re going to fry them twice. I’ll explain.

What you'‘ll need:

olive oil
green plantains
garlic powder
salt

Chop the two ends off of your plantains. Use your knife and slice them long way and butterfly them open.

Once you’ve done that cut them in half. And then cut them long ways as pictured below.

Put a lot of oil into a pan and get it hot. Once your oil is hot, using tongs, drop each plantain into the oil. Cook them on both sides. You want them to get a golden, brown color. This should take about five minutes.

I did a couple of extras in case I messed up.

Once your plantains look golden, put them on a plate with paper towel to drain them of excess oil. When they are dry, use your cast iron skillet from pressing the tofu earlier and smash them down so they flatten. Do this without breaking them. This is so your plantain will hold more of a bread-like shape.

If you do it right, they will look something like this.

Add a little more oil back into the pan. Once your plantains have cooled a little bit, add them back into the oil for five more minutes. This, again, will function as the bread of your sandwich. While they’re in the oil, season them with a little bit of salt and garlic powder.

Once they’re cooked, remove the plantains from the oil and put onto another paper towel-ed plate to dry and rid of excess oil.

Get some of the excess oil out of the pan, next you’re going to cook your tofu in it. Cut your tofu into even rectangles that resemble a thick piece of lunch meat or something. While you’re doing this, you can also cut your onion down.

What you’ll need:

drained tofu from earlier
onions
salt
pepper
cumin
chili powder
garlic powder

Add them to the oil carefully and season with salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder and garlic powder. Cook them evenly on each side without them getting too crispy. Cut down an onion into long pieces, not dicing it. Add your onion right in with the tofu.

Once your onions are caramelized and your tofu is cooked but still somewhat tender, throw them all onto another paper towel to drain of oil.

Next you can prepare your toppings.

What you’ll need

vegan mayo
sriracha
chili powder
lettuce
tomato
vegan cheese slices
cilantro (optional)
avocado (optional)

Mix one part sriracha to two parts vegan mayo. Add a little chili powder and mix.

Cut a tomato and some lettuce down. Cilantro and avocado too if you chose to include them.

Cut your slices of vegan cheese to size with the tofu and add to each of them. To help melt it down a little bit, you can microwave them all for about 30 seconds.

Now using your plantains as bread, assemble a sandwich using your tomato, lettuce, caramelized onion, tofu/cheese, cilantro and onion. On the top plantain that would function as the top slice of bread, apply the sriracha mayo.

You can serve the sandwich with rice and beans. I used rice spiced with sazon goya and added black beans and cilantro.