The tofu you will not find in a regular supermarket

Six words are not a taxonomy

Silken, soft, medium, firm, extra-firm, super-firm. That list describes an American refrigerator case, not tofu. It is six marketing words applied to one narrow product category, the fresh water-packed block, which is a fraction of what has been made from soybeans across East and Southeast Asia for the better part of two thousand years.

Even the six are less original than they look. Japanese tofu divides broadly into momen, cotton tofu, and kinugoshi, silken tofu. What an American package calls extra-firm is a cotton tofu. The firmness words are a retail overlay on a much older distinction.

The varieties below are not exotic substitutes or upgrades. They are separate ingredients with separate uses, and in most cases they are what a given dish was actually built around.

Yuba, tofu skin

When soy milk is heated, a skin forms on the surface. Lifted off and either used fresh or dried, that skin is yuba in Japanese and fu zhu or doufu pi in Chinese. Strictly it is not tofu at all, since the soy milk is never coagulated.

Fresh yuba is delicate and faintly sweet and is eaten close to plain, often with a little soy sauce and ginger. Nikko in Japan is known for it. Dried yuba comes as sheets or as twisted sticks, and rehydrates into something chewy and substantial that holds up in hot pot, braises and stir fries. The sticks in particular have a texture nothing on the water-pack shelf can produce.

Buying it: dried sticks and sheets are shelf-stable and widely available online. Fresh and frozen yuba turns up at Japanese and Chinese groceries and at Asian online grocers. Dried needs soaking, typically a couple of hours in warm water, then a rinse.

Aburaage and atsuage, fried tofu

Aburaage is thin tofu deep fried until it puffs into a pouch with a hollow center. That hollow is the point: it is opened up and stuffed with seasoned rice for inari sushi, or sliced into miso soup and udon, where it soaks up broth. Kitsune udon is named for it.

Atsuage is the thick version, fried on the outside and still soft in the middle, so it holds together in simmered dishes while staying tender inside. It needs no pressing and no crisping. The frying already did that work.

Chinese fried tofu puffs are a related product, cut into cubes and used in hot pot and braises where they act like sponges for the broth.

Buying it: Japanese and Korean groceries, usually frozen or refrigerated. Asian online grocers stock it. Not a mail-order item from general retailers.

Koyadofu, freeze-dried tofu

Tofu that has been frozen, aged and dried into a light beige block that keeps in a cupboard for months. Reconstituted in warm water and then simmered in broth, it turns spongy and porous and floods with whatever it was cooked in.

This matters for anyone who has read the freezing page on this site. Freeze-dried tofu is not a modern hack. It is a traditional Japanese pantry staple with centuries behind it, and the frozen tofu used in Chinese hot pot, dongdoufu, is its own established ingredient too. Freezing a block does not repair tofu. It produces a different food that certain dishes were designed around.

Buying it: shelf-stable, sold in cubes or blocks, available online and at Japanese groceries.

Doufu gan, pressed and dried tofu

Tofu pressed far harder than any super-firm block and often seasoned, smoked or braised in soy and spices during production. The texture is dense and slightly rubbery in a good way, closer to a firm cheese than to anything in a water pack.

It slices into thin strips that hold their shape completely in a stir fry, and it arrives already seasoned, so it needs neither pressing nor marinating. Gan si, tofu cut into fine threads, is a further step in the same direction.

Buying it: Chinese and Taiwanese groceries, refrigerated, often in five-spice or smoked versions. Worth buying two kinds the first time to see which you prefer.

Furu, fermented bean curd

Tofu inoculated with a mold, fermented for weeks or months, then aged in brine with rice wine and seasonings. The result is soft, intensely savory and salty, sold in jars, and used in very small amounts as a condiment rather than as a main ingredient. White, red and spicy versions all exist, the red colored with red yeast rice.

A teaspoon mashed into a stir fry, a braise or a dipping sauce contributes a depth that is difficult to get any other way. It is closer in role to anchovy or miso than to a block of tofu.

Buying it: shelf-stable in glass jars until opened, then refrigerated. Widely available online and at Chinese groceries.

Where to buy, honestly

The dried and jarred ones arrive by post. The fresh and frozen ones need a trip. H Mart, 99 Ranch and Japanese and Chinese neighborhood groceries carry most of this, and delivery services covering Asian groceries reach many US metros. None of it is stocked by a standard American supermarket, which is the whole reason this page exists.

Where to start

Buy dried yuba sticks and one jar of fermented bean curd. Both keep indefinitely, both cost very little, and between them they cover a texture and a flavor that nothing on the supermarket shelf can reach.

Soak the yuba, cut it into lengths, and simmer it in the sauce from the braising guide. Use a small spoonful of the furu in that same sauce. That one dish will tell you more about what tofu can be than any amount of pressing.

The firmness guide still covers the water-pack shelf, which is what most American recipes assume. This page is what sits beyond it.