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Soya chunks or meal maker cooked with chilly and spices. This soya chunks masala dry / stir-fry recipe is an easy, healthy and tasty side-dish. It goes well with rice, chapathi, and any Indian bread. Soya chunks is also called as soy meat or soya nuggets. Soya / Meal maker is a good replacement for meat for the vegetarians.
For more soya chunks recipes, check out:
Soya Chunks Manchurian
Soya Chunks Curry/Kurma
Soya Chunks Deep Fry
Soya chunks or meal maker dishes are not so common in Kerala. The first time, I had soya chunks fry at my friend Molsi's home and couldn't believe that it's a vegetarian dish 🙂 Later on, It became my favorite veg recipe during X'mas or Easter lent season. If you cannot bear the smell of soya chunks, make sure you add more masala, especially whole fennel or fennel powder.
Soya makes a great addition to the protein component of a balanced vegetarian meal plan. Makes a good replacement for meat. I used Nutrela's soya chunks and would highly recommend it. It's the largest selling soya foods brand in India. Soy meat or soya chunks or nuggets is a defatted soy flour product, a by-product of extracting soybean oil.
Check out other vegetarian stir-fry recipes:
Mushroom masala stir fry
Cauliflower masala
Ingredients
- 100 Grams soya chunks (2 cups)
Marinate
- 1 Teaspoon pepper Powder
- 1.5 Teaspoons chilli Powder
- 1 Teaspoon ginger
- 1 Teaspoon garlic
- 1 teaspoon salt
Masala Gravy
- 2 onion (medium size)
- ½ Teaspoon turmeric Powder
- 2 Teaspoons coriander Powder
- 1.5 Teaspoons garam masala
- 1 teaspoon fennel powder (optional)
- 1 tomato (large size)
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil/ coconut oil / sunflower oil
- 2 sprig curry leaves numbers
- 4 tablespoon coriander leaves
- salt
Instructions
- Place the soya chunks in a bowl and fill it up with enough hot water so that the soya chunks are completely immersed. Leave it aside for 20 minutes.
- After soaking in water, the soya chunks would appear double in volume. Squeeze all the water from the soya chunks. I prefer to cut soya chunk pieces into smaller ones.
- Marinate it with pepper powder, chilli powder, ginger(crushed), garlic(crushed) and salt for 10 minutes.
- Heat oil in pan/kadai. Add onions, curry leaves and some salt. Salt absorbs moisture from onion and helps onion to get cooked fast. Saute it well until onions turn light brown.
- Add turmeric powder, coriander powder and garam masala. Fry it well.
- Add tomato and mix it well. Cover and cook for 5 minutes.
- Add marinated soya and 1 cup water. Adjust salt. Cover and cook it for 15 minutes.
- Now open the lid and cook until the water evaporates.
- Add coriander leaves and mix it. To have a perfect dry, add 2 - 3 tsps oil. Saute it well until it turns dark in color. ** This is probably the key step in this recipe.
- Serve it with rice or Indian breads. Enjoy 🙂
Video
@Jane: I'm sure it tastes good, however, depends on perspective whether its healthy or not. In the paleo world, soya is avoided like the plague ;)
tasted really good!!!... the only issue was the smell of the soya :( i just couldn't take it so added a few cinnamon sticks and cloves while cooking...:)
@cherian :D dnt u smell the food bfre devouring it??
I bet Cherian gets to eat a completely different meal each day! When are we invited?
@Jane chechi : I sauted it for a long time, my soy never turned black..why so ?
@Gomathy, As required, add bit of oil in between.. It will definitely turn black.
The image of this dish only did the trick.. I plan to prepare it today. Can you elaborate further on the process of marinating. When you say marinate, do we have to mix spices in the water or ..
You don't need to add water while mariantion. Before marination, we just squeeze out water from soya chunks. So soya chunks will be bit wet.
HiJane. I tried this recipe yesterday. Although the outcome was tasty and chikenish, it didnt attain the black color as there in the pic. Also, its after-chewing-taste was a little bitter because i used ginger in excess. All in all, a nice dish..
Thanks for the recipe, Jane. It came out really well :-)
Jane- the recipe was grt- i loved it and the outcome superb. Good work gurl- keep it up :):):)
Shikha, To get the black color, add oil and saute it for longer time. Thanks Aparna and Michelle :)