Sambal goreng tempeh is one of those dishes that you quickly can cook. Excellent for the days you are stilling willing to cook. Well I have some good news for you, it takes less than 10 minutes to make this side dish!
You don’t need a lot of ingredients to make sambal goreng tempeh. It opens a whole new wide range to your taste palette. I can recommend this dish to most of the rice-based dishes.
Ingredients

As said before, we don’t need a lot of ingredients.
- Tempeh
- Chili
- salt
- small red onion
- garlic
- Seasoning (optional)
- cooking oil
With my trusty mortar and pestle I will grind it at the end.
Cut & prepare
Cut the tempeh in several slices and make some cuts on the surface. This will help speed up the frying process and absorption of salt. Rub salt on the tempeh.
The garlic, onion and chili can be cut in chunks. You don’t need to make the too small. This will happen later on the pestle and mortar.
Frying
start with frying the tempeh. Because we cut it into slices it should be gold brown within 5-8 minutes. Check it often so you don’t burn it. When this is done, take it out and let it leak the excessive oil on some paper towel.
Now fry the garlic, onion and chili. The vapors that come free from frying this can cause irritation to eyes and your breathing. So make sure to have a window open, or fry it outside if you can. This frying should not take long, just a minute or 2 at tops. We are just making it soft by shortly frying it.
Pestle & mortar
Ok the hard part is one, and now comes the fun part. Add salt, seasoning, chili, garlic and onion to the pestle and mortar and start grinding this to a mush. Now add tempeh to the mix and grind it untill it’s a mush together. Make sure to spread the chilis.
Ok, that was easy right? were you able to make it under the 10 minutes?
If you like it spicy, add more chilis, to your own taste. But if you are looking to make a sambal sauce, have a look at my homemade sambal recipe.

Sambal Goreng Tempeh
Equipment
- 1 pestle & mortar
Ingredients
- 100 gr tempeh
- 5 pieces chili
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 50 gr small red onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1/2 tsp seasoning of your choice
- 100 ml cooking oil
Instructions
- Cut the tempeh in slices and salt it. Cut the onion, garlic and chili's in chunks.
- Fry the tempeh golden brown. This should take about 5-8 minutes. Make sure the oil is hot enough when you start. Fry the onion, garlic and chili for 1-2 minutes. Make sure to ventilate the area as vapors can cause some irritations.
- Use the pestle an mortar and grind he salt, an seasoning, chili, garlic, onion to a mush. Then add the fried tempeh and grind it together so everything mixes well
- It's done! enjoy this spicy side dish