Foods & cuts · Soya bean
Firm tofu
Firm or extra-firm tofu, pressed and sliced. Already safe to eat, so everything on the grill is texture and flavour rather than cooking.
What it is
- Form
- Cut pieces
- Typical weight
- 200–400 g
- Typical thickness
- 15–25 mm
- Cut
- Not a cut of anything
Why it behaves as it does
Tofu is the clearest case in the catalogue of a food where nothing is being made safe. It is sold ready to eat, so the grill is doing two jobs only: driving off surface water so the slab can brown, and taking on smoke. Firmness is the variable that decides whether it survives at all — silken tofu will not, and the difference between firm and extra-firm is the difference between a slab that turns and one that tears. Pressing is not fussiness: water at the surface boils before it browns, which is why unpressed tofu sticks and then shreds.
When is it done?
Food-safety endpoint
BBQHQ holds no food-safety rule for this food. We are not showing you another jurisdiction’s figure in its place — check your national food-safety authority.
When it goes wrong
- It stuck to the grate
- Tofu stuck, crumbled or never browned — 3 distinguishable causes.
- It fell apart
- Tofu stuck, crumbled or never browned — 3 distinguishable causes.
- It never browned
- Tofu stuck, crumbled or never browned — 3 distinguishable causes.
Also relevant to firm tofu
Afterwards
Cooling, keeping and reheating what is left is general guidance for barbecue leftovers. Neither UK authority publishes anything specific to firm tofu, and BBQHQ does not invent a distinction they do not make.