Capsule Cooking Issue #2: Tofu Bánh Mì

It's a sandwich, rice bowl, *and* salad.

Welcome to the second installment of the Capsule Cooking series! In case you missed last month’s intro, the goal here is to showcase the versatility of ingredients. It’s about breaking recipes down into mix-and-matchable building blocks and using your creativity to repurpose them. This series is entirely reader-supported (thank you! 💕) and available only here on Substack. For full access, upgrade to a paid subscription.

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Ah, the bánh mì sandwich. A cross-cultural lovechild and arguably one of the best handheld meals ever invented. 

(In case you’re not familiar, banh mi is a classic Vietnamese street food, traditionally consisting of various formats of pork and pickled vegetables, encased in a crusty baguette.)

Plant-based banh mi-style sandwiches have been part of my dinner repertoire for years. Recently though, as I was testing a tofu version for an upcoming cooking class, I ended up working through the leftover tofu and pickled vegetables for a few days. I realized they were both awesome building blocks with which to make banh mi-inspired meals beyond the sandwich format - namely, grain bowls and salads.

The moral of this story: mastering these two simple elements opens up a whole world of meals.

Oh, and before the authenticity police comes after me, note these are in no way “authentic” Vietnamese recipes and I’m not trying to pass them off as such. If you’re curious to learn more about the cuisine,

Andrea Nguyen

’s newsletter is a great resource.

The Base Recipe - The original tofu banh mi consists of the following items tucked inside a baguette…  (P.S. All this info is available in a printable pdf below!)