I’ve never made Tempeh…how do I make this not taste like shit without soy sauce or any spices besides salt, pepper, and garlic powder?

Finally, someone asks a bedrock question of existence.

You should post this to c/vegan there's some good-ass cooks in there with advice for days

Tempeh is great with a chili sauce. Sambal goreng is the classic.

I dunno but when you find out let me know

I follow this channel for vegan Southeast Asian recipes. satay burger with tempeh and tempeh goreng kicap

i usually just fry it a little (or not) and put it in a thai curry.

You got red wine ?

Dice your tempeh, fry it in a large pan; once it's roasted all around, add your red wine and garlic powder; cook at medium heat for ~30 minutes; add a mix of flour and cold water at the end if needed to make it less liquid

Even better if you add some diced carrots in there

What are you doing now? I like it with those things sliced and sauted, air fried or baked. With oil.

I think it can be a bit of an acquired taste, as many fermented things are, but I see this always floating around for advice.

https://www.cooksmarts.com/articles/how-to-make-tempeh-less-bitter/

THE trick that anyone cooking tempeh should know is that you need to steam it before using it. Just steam it for a little bit before baking, or frying, or whatever and you'll get rid of that sharp, almost chemical taste tempeh tends to have.

I gotta be honest with you, I don't think there's a way to make tempeh taste really good. I reckon the best you can do is to mask it by smothering it in flavourful things but even then I still find myself preferring tofu over tempeh with the same preparation method.

I know this isn't a very helpful comment but sometimes there are foods which just aren't on the same tier as others and tempeh is one of those things in my opinion.

Fun fact though: tempeh is arguably the only fermented soy product that developed independently of all the other fermented soy products, which is kinda neat.

I normally cut it into triangles and lightly fry with mirin, salt, pepper and some soy but since half those are out, try frying it and adding it to a salad instead of whatever protein you would normally use. I'm biased though because I fucking love tempeh.

If you don't want to use soy sauce because you don't have it at home, you should go get a bottle at your local supermarket NOW. It's so good. If you don't want to use soy sauce because you just don't like it, then oh well.

I was gonna suggest butter tempeh, (butter chicken with tempeh) but I just realised that has a lot of spices. So search me, I've no idea

They make an imitation out of chicken that isn't bad.

Why don’t you have spices