Marinated Tempeh

Two weeks until the move. The Beaufort parsonage is almost packed — the kitchen boxes sealed and labeled, the furniture tagged for moving or donation, the walls bare where photographs once hung. Walking through the stripped rooms is like walking through a body without bones — the structure is there but the life has been removed, and what remains is the shape of what was.

Mama is handling the transition with more grace than I expected. She has moments of resistance — on Saturday she sat in the empty living room and refused to move for an hour, and I let her sit because some rooms need to be sat in one last time, and the sitting is its own form of goodbye. But then she stood up and walked to the kitchen and said, "We should make lunch," and the pivot from grief to function was so fast, so Carolyn, that I recognized in it the survival mechanism that has carried her through Joy's accident, Daddy's death, and now this: the departure from the only home she has known for forty years.

Joy is excited about the move. She does not have the capacity for nostalgia — a gift, in this case — and she sees the move as an adventure. "We're going to Naomi's house!" she tells everyone at her activity group. "Naomi has a big kitchen!" The fact that my kitchen is not particularly big is irrelevant. To Joy, a kitchen that belongs to me is big because I am big in her world — the sister who brings cobbler, the woman who makes soup, the person who shows up every Saturday. In Joy's taxonomy, I am the kitchen, and the kitchen is therefore whatever size I am.

I have arranged for movers for February 3rd. Two weeks. The parsonage will be cleared, cleaned, and returned to the church, which owns it. Reverend Davis, who took over Tabernacle Baptist after Daddy died, has been kind about the timeline. He told me, "Take what you need. Carolyn Simmons built this kitchen. It belongs to her wherever she goes." I wept in the car after that conversation, because the kindness of a pastor who understood that a kitchen is more than a room is the kind of kindness I did not know I needed.

I made Mama's butter beans this week — the slow-cooked, smoked-ham-seasoned, creamy butter beans that she has made every January for as long as I can remember. January food. Cold-weather food. The food of patience and warmth and the particular Lowcountry belief that good things take time and that the taking is not a cost but an investment. I served them with rice and cornbread and the cast-iron skillet that is now mine, and the meal was both an ordinary weeknight dinner and a communion — the sharing of food that connects me to every woman who has stood at a stove in my family and made something warm for the people she loves.

I made Mama’s butter beans that week because I needed something that asked patience of me — something that rewarded slowness — and legumes have always been that food in my family. When I started cooking more plant-forward meals on the weeknights between my Saturday visits to Beaufort, I found that tempeh carries that same spirit: it is humble, it is dense with nourishment, and it transforms completely when you give it time to absorb something good. This marinade is the one I come back to when I need a weeknight meal that feels like it means something, and I offer it here as the other side of the same coin as Mama’s beans — a different legume, a different tradition, the same belief that good food takes time and that the taking is not a cost but an investment.

Prep Time: 10 min (plus 30 min marinating) | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 1 hr | Servings: 4

Ingredients

8 oz block of tempeh, sliced into 1/2-inch strips or triangles
3 tablespoons soy sauce or tamari
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for the pan
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon maple syrup
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)

Instructions

Steam the tempeh. Place tempeh slices in a steamer basket over simmering water and steam for 10 minutes. This opens the tempeh’s pores and removes any bitterness, allowing the marinade to absorb fully.
Make the marinade. Whisk together the soy sauce, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, maple syrup, garlic, smoked paprika, cumin, black pepper, and red pepper flakes in a shallow dish or zip-top bag.
Marinate. Add the warm steamed tempeh to the marinade and turn to coat. Let it marinate at room temperature for at least 30 minutes, or refrigerate for up to 24 hours for deeper flavor — the longer it sits, the better.
Pan-fry. Heat a thin layer of olive oil in a cast-iron or nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Remove tempeh from the marinade (reserve the marinade) and cook for 4—5 minutes per side until each slice is deeply golden and slightly caramelized at the edges.
Glaze and finish. Pour the reserved marinade into the pan during the last 2 minutes of cooking. Let it bubble and reduce around the tempeh, coating each piece in a glossy, savory glaze.
Serve. Serve over rice, alongside roasted vegetables, or with warm cornbread. Leftovers keep well refrigerated for up to 4 days and reheat beautifully in a skillet.

Nutrition (per serving)

Marinated Tempeh — The Legumes That Carry Us Forward