Tuscon Tempeh Pasta From Thug Kitchen

Last night I made a dish called Tuscon Tempeh Pasta from Thugkitchen. Unless profanity doesn’t bother you, I wouldn’t recommend checking them out. If you’re fine with profanity then I’d highly recommend them! The dish turned out tasting amazing, and I can’t wait to try some of their other stuff. This was my first experiment with Tempeh, and it was decent enough. You can substitute chicken or beef if you’d like, but I enjoyed it the way it was.

The recipe from Thugkitchen: (edited slightly for content)

TUCSON TEMPEH PASTA

1 block tempeh (~8 oz.)

1 yellow onion

1 bell pepper

2 carrots

3-4 cloves of garlic

1 teaspoon olive oil

2-3 teaspoons soy sauce or tamari

2 tablespoons chili powder

2 teaspoons dried thyme

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 ½ teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon liquid smoke (It is near the BBQ sauce at the store.)

14 ounce can of tomatoes (make sure you don’t buy some brand full of salt)

1 pound of pasta (whole wheat, rice, quinoa, whatever the fuck you want)

juice of 1 lemon

1 cup of green peas or other vegetable

Optional: add some steamed broccoli, spinach, roasted sweet potatoes, whatever you got that you need to use up.

Cook the pasta how the box tells you to. You got this.

Chop up the onion, bell pepper, and carrots. Mince the garlic cloves up nice and small. Heat up the oil over a medium heat in a big skillet or a wok. Crumble the tempeh into little pieces with your hands and toss into the skillet. Add the veggies and cook them until the onion begins to look all golden and the tempeh bits start to brown. Add the soy sauce, spices, and garlic and cook them for about a minute. Your place should smell awesome by now. You’re welcome. Now add the liquid smoke and tomatoes and let the mixture start to bubble a little. Let this all stew together for a minute or two.

Add the cooked pasta, lemon juice, and any additional veggies you picked out to the tomato mixture. Mix everything together until the pasta is nice and coated. Add more spices if you think it needs it. I like to serve mine topped with red onion, jalapenos, and cilantro but you add your favorite stuff.

Serves 4-6 people as a meal

It was so good, but next time I want to add broccoli and spinach to it as well.  It was interesting cooking with new things, and making a full on meal from scratch!  I used less liquid smoke than the recipe called for, and I used no sodium soy sauce because my dad has cut out most of the sodium he’s consuming.  You should cook this and tell me how you like it!