Vegetable & Tofu Triangles

Vegetable and tofu triangles are crispy hand pies packed with grated zucchini, carrots, spinach, crumbled tofu, and sharp cheddar, folded into puff pastry squares and baked until golden. They’re vegetarian, lunchbox-friendly, and one of the smartest ways to get a cautious kid to eat a full serving of vegetables without realizing it. The grated veg basically disappears into the melted cheese.

The crumbled tofu does double duty here. It stretches the filling and absorbs flavor like a sponge, so your herb blend of basil, coriander, and garlic powder lands on every bite instead of just clinging to cheese. Pressing excess water out of the thawed spinach and grated zucchini is what separates crisp, flaky triangles from soggy, split-seam triangles. A quick squeeze in a clean towel is the single most important step.

Kitchen Tips

• Squeeze every drop of liquid from the spinach and zucchini. Wet filling steams the pastry from inside and blows the triangles open.
• Keep pastry cold while you work. Let it sit too long and the dough goes limp, making it nearly impossible to fold cleanly.
• Poke steam vents before baking. Without them, the pressure inside finds its own way out, usually through a blown-out seam.
• Make a double batch and freeze unbaked triangles on a tray, then transfer to a freezer bag. Bake straight from frozen, adding 5 to 7 minutes.

Variations

• Stir in a tablespoon of curry powder to turn these into a samosa-adjacent hand pie.
• Swap cheddar for crumbled feta and add chopped kalamata olives for a Greek-style filling.
• Use phyllo dough in layered triangles (like spanakopita) for an even crispier, flakier version.