Spanish-Style Tofu and White Bean Skillet with Smoked Paprika and Almonds
Crisped tofu and cannellini beans simmered with sweet peppers and smoked paprika, wilted spinach folded through, and a crushed almond and garlic picada stirred in at the end.
Why You'll Love This Recipe
This came out of wanting the flavors of a Spanish tapas bar on a Tuesday, which is to say smoke, sweet peppers, garlic, and a great deal of olive oil, without an afternoon of work. It is a one-skillet dinner that takes about forty minutes, most of which is quiet simmering, and it feeds four people generously. Tofu is what makes it dinner rather than a side. Cubed, pressed, and crisped in the pan before anything else goes in, it holds its shape through the simmer and picks up the paprika without going soft.
The picada is the part worth learning. It is a Catalan trick: nuts, raw garlic, and a little parsley crushed to a rough paste and stirred into a dish in the last minute. It thickens the pan without any flour, it makes the whole thing taste rounder and toastier, and it is the reason this skillet does not taste like beans in tomato sauce. Crush it in a mortar if you have one, since a food processor tends to go straight past rough paste into butter. The vinegar goes in right after, and those two things together are the finish.
Sweet smoked paprika needs to meet warm oil rather than a hot dry pan, because it scorches in seconds and turns acrid if you rush it. Handled properly it perfumes everything. What lands in the bowl is smoky, garlicky, and just sharp enough at the end, with three different textures going at once: crisp tofu, creamy beans, and soft spinach. It reheats beautifully and I have eaten it cold from the container standing at the counter more than once.
Ingredients
- 1 lb firm tofu, pressed and cut into 3/4-inch cubes
- Two 15-oz cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed (about 2 1/2 cups)
- 9 oz baby spinach
- 1 red bell pepper, cut into short strips
- 1 yellow onion, finely diced
- 4 cloves garlic, 3 sliced and 1 left whole for the picada
- 1/3 cup raw almonds
- 3/4 cup crushed tomatoes
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tsp sweet smoked paprika
- 1 tbsp sherry vinegar or cider vinegar
- 1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
- 1/8 tsp fine sea salt
Instructions
- Press and crisp the tofu: Press the tofu under a weight for fifteen minutes, then cut it into 3/4-inch cubes. Heat 1 tbsp of the olive oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium-high and add the cubes in one layer. Leave them for four minutes without touching them, until the underside is golden and releases on its own, then turn and give them three minutes more. Move them to a plate.
- Soften the pepper and onion: Lower the heat to medium, add the remaining oil, and cook the onion, bell pepper, and salt for eight to ten minutes, stirring occasionally. You want them properly soft and beginning to take color at the edges, not just heated through. Add the sliced garlic and cook one minute more.
- Bloom the paprika: Pull the pan off the burner for a moment, add the smoked paprika, and stir it through the warm oil for fifteen to twenty seconds. It should go glossy and turn everything a deep rust color. Off the heat is deliberate, because paprika burns almost instantly on a hot pan and takes the whole dish with it.
- Simmer the beans: Return the pan to medium, stir in the crushed tomatoes and the drained beans with 1/2 cup of water, and bring it to a gentle simmer. Cook for 10 minutes, mashing about a quarter of the beans against the side of the pan with a wooden spoon. That is what makes the sauce creamy without adding anything to it.
- Make the picada: While the beans simmer, toast the almonds in a dry pan for three or four minutes until they smell nutty and are speckled brown. Crush them in a mortar with the remaining garlic clove, half the parsley, and a splash of water until you have a rough, sandy paste. A pinch of grit left in it is correct.
- Bring it together: Stir the picada into the skillet, return the tofu, and add the spinach in handfuls, folding each one in until it collapses before adding the next. Cook two or three minutes, until the spinach is dark and the sauce has thickened around everything. Take it off the heat, stir in the vinegar, and scatter the rest of the parsley over.
Variations
- Saffron and orange: Add a pinch of saffron with the paprika and a strip of orange zest to the simmer for a brighter, more festive pan.
- Hazelnut picada: Swap the almonds for toasted hazelnuts, which is just as traditional and gives a deeper, sweeter paste.
- Chard in place of spinach: Use chopped swiss chard, adding the stems with the onion and the leaves at the end.
- Hot paprika: Replace half the sweet smoked paprika with hot smoked paprika for a pan with a real edge to it.
- Olives and capers: Stir in a handful of chopped kalamata olives with the vinegar for a saltier, sharper finish.
Storage & Leftovers
This keeps four days in the refrigerator and the flavors settle into each other overnight, so the paprika reads rounder on day two. The tofu softens as it sits, which is a fair trade for how well the rest of it holds. Store it in a shallow container with a tight lid.
Reheat it in a skillet over medium with a splash of water, stirring gently so the beans do not break down further. Give it a fresh splash of vinegar at the end, since acid fades faster than anything else in a dish like this and its absence is what makes leftovers taste flat.
It freezes for two months, though the spinach and the tofu both come back softer. Freeze it flat in sealed portions, thaw overnight in the refrigerator, and reheat on the stove. A small handful of fresh parsley and a few toasted almonds at the end bring the texture back.
Notes & Tips
- Press the tofu first: Fifteen minutes under a weighted plate. Wet tofu will not crisp, it will steam and stick, and no amount of oil fixes it.
- Bloom the paprika off the heat: Twenty seconds in warm oil, burner off. On a hot pan it goes bitter before you have finished stirring.
- Mash a quarter of the beans: The back of a wooden spoon against the side of the pan. That starch is what makes the sauce creamy.
- Use a mortar for the picada: A food processor runs straight past rough paste into nut butter. You want texture you can feel on the tongue.
- Add the spinach in handfuls: Nine ounces will not fit in the pan at once. Fold each handful in until it collapses, then add the next.
- Finish with the vinegar: Off the heat, at the very end. Simmered vinegar loses its point and the pan tastes heavy.
Nutrition & Mindful Eating
- Tofu, white beans, spinach, and almonds each pull their weight in this pan. The tofu carries the protein and the bulk of the calcium, the beans bring creaminess and fiber, the spinach adds bulk and color, and the almonds thicken the sauce and add a toasted note.
- Tofu is soybean curd set with calcium salts, which is why cubes of it bring so much calcium alongside a complete set of protein. Crisping it in the pan first gives you golden faces and a firm bite that stands up to the simmer.
- Cannellini beans go creamy at the edges after ten minutes, especially the quarter you mash against the pan. They carry soluble fiber and plant protein, and that same starch is what thickens the sauce around everything else.
- Almonds crushed with raw garlic into a picada are an old Catalan way to give a dish body. They bring calcium, vitamin E, and unsaturated fat, and toasting them first is what turns the paste from raw-tasting to deeply nutty.
- Sweet smoked paprika bloomed in warm oil is what gives this its color and its slow, woodsy smoke, and the spinach folded in at the end brings iron and folate along with a soft green counterweight to all that richness.
- As you eat, notice the smoke arriving before anything else and the way the vinegar clears the palate at the end of each bite, and let the bowl take as long as it takes rather than eating it in front of a screen.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a picada and can I skip it?
It is a Catalan paste of nuts, garlic, and herbs crushed together and stirred into a dish at the end to thicken and flavor it. You can leave it out and still have a good skillet, but you will notice the difference. It is five minutes of work and it is what makes this taste like it came from somewhere.
Can I use another bean?
Yes. Butter beans give you a bigger, softer bean and a creamier pan, chickpeas stay firm and make it chunkier, and navy beans behave much like cannellini. Whichever you use, rinse them well and mash a quarter of them against the pan.
My paprika tasted bitter.
It burned. Smoked paprika is finely ground and it scorches in a few seconds on direct heat. Take the pan off the burner, let it lose its ferocity for a moment, then stir the paprika into the warm oil so it blooms rather than fries. Hot smoked paprika is also much stronger than sweet, so check which jar you grabbed.
Is this filling enough on its own?
It is. There is a pound of tofu and two cans of beans across four bowls, so it eats as a full dinner. If you want more on the plate, roasted potatoes alongside are very much in keeping with where the flavors come from.