Tempeh vs Tofu: What's the Difference?

|Team TEMPTÉ
Tempeh and tofu side by side on a marble countertop

So... What's the difference between tempeh and tofu?

Both are made from soybeans. That's roughly where the similarity ends.

Tofu is made by curdling soy milk and pressing the curds into a block. Tempeh is made by fermenting whole soybeans until they knit together into a firm cake. One strains the bean down to its milk. The other keeps all of it.

That single difference explains almost everything else: the texture, the flavour, the fibre and the way each behaves in a pan.


How they're made

Tofu starts as soy milk. A coagulant goes in — usually nigari or calcium sulphate, and the milk separates into curds and whey, much like cheesemaking. The curds are pressed into blocks. The fibrous pulp left behind, called okara, is strained out and rarely makes it to your plate.

Tempeh skips the milk entirely. Whole soybeans are cooked, dehulled and inoculated with a culture, then held somewhere warm for a day or two. The culture grows through the beans and binds them into a solid block. Nothing is removed.


Where they come from

Tofu is Chinese and ancient. It's often credited to a Han dynasty prince, though that story is more legend than record. The first solid written references appear considerably later. Either way, it has spread further and adapted more than almost any other food.

Tempeh is Javanese and comparatively young. The earliest written mention turns up in an Indonesian text from 1815, though it was certainly being made long before anyone bothered to write it down. It stayed regional far longer than tofu did. It only arrived in British fridges in the last few years, which is a story of its own.


How they taste

Tofu is mild to the point of neutral. That's the appeal: it's a blank canvas, and in dishes like mapo tofu or a good miso soup, neutrality is exactly the job.

Tempeh arrives with an opinion. Nutty and savoury, with an earthy note from the fermentation and a firm, slightly grainy bite. If you want something to disappear into a sauce, that's a problem. If you want something to taste of itself, it isn't.


How they behave when you cook them

This is where the practical difference shows up.

Tofu holds a lot of water. Firm and extra-firm tofu usually needs pressing before it will brown properly, and it absorbs marinade slowly. Silken tofu barely holds together at all, which makes it excellent blended into sauces and puddings and hopeless on a barbecue. Freezing tofu and thawing it changes the texture entirely. It becomes spongier, chewier and much better at soaking things up.

Tempeh is firm from the moment you unwrap it. No pressing, no draining. It browns quickly because there's less water in the way, and it keeps its shape on a grill or in a hot pan where tofu would slump. Because it's dense, marinade flavours the surface perfectly before penetrating the inside, so slice it thin, or steam it for ten minutes first to open it up. Steaming also softens any bitterness in older tempeh.


Nutrition: what's actually different

The headline difference is fibre. Tempeh is made from the whole bean and keeps it. Tofu has had the pulp strained out, so there's very little fibre left.

Tempeh is also denser, which means more protein in the same weight, though less dramatically than it's often reported. USDA figures put tempeh at 20.3g of protein per 100g against 17.3g for firm calcium-set tofu. That's a modest edge, not the doubling you'll see quoted around the internet. The "twice as much" claim comes from comparing tempeh against softer, wetter tofu, which carries closer to 8g. Per calorie, firm tofu is actually the denser protein of the two.

What tempeh has that tofu doesn't is the fermentation, which breaks down phytic acid and some of the compounds in raw soya that make beans harder to digest.

A caveat on all of this: tofu varies enormously. The coagulant on the label changes the calcium figure by a factor of six, and firmness changes the protein figure by more than half. Compare packets, not averages.

Both are soy, so both are off the table if you're avoiding it.


So which should you use?

Tofu Tempeh
Texture Soft to firm, smooth Firm, grainy, dense
Flavour Neutral Nutty, savoury, earthy
Protein 17.3g per 100g (firm) 20.3g per 100g
Fibre About 2.3g per 100g About 7g per 100g
Prep needed Usually pressing None
Best at Soups, curries, scrambles, blended sauces Frying, grilling, roasting, crumbling
Struggles with Holding shape under heat Disappearing into a dish


Reach for tofu when the sauce is the star and you want something to carry it. Reach for tempeh when you want texture and a flavour of its own — anything fried, grilled, roasted or crumbled into a chilli.

They're not rivals. Most people who cook a lot of one end up keeping both in the fridge. 


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