I will serve you the disclaimer up front: “authentic” mapo tofu is hard to perfect. For one, traditional Szechuan dishes often require a flaming hot wok set atop a powerful heat source that can look like hellfire, which can be just a tad difficult to arrange in a home kitchen. Secondly, as I’ve touched on in my fish-fragrant eggplant recipe, there are some core ingredients—like Pixian doubanjiang—that are close to impossible to find in most stores in the US.

Doubanjiang is made with regionally-specific pickled peppers and fermented broad beans, and while it is accessible to some shoppers, even I had trouble locating a jar in a multicultural city like Queens, NYC. For my favorite substitute, I was lucky enough to have on hand some of my mom’s homemade pickled chili paste to use instead. I’ve discovered that the best substitutes for doubanjiang tend to be bright red, relatively fresh pickled chilis—like sambal oelek—in combination with fermented black beans. I’ve also had good luck with deep red, oily and umami-rich Thai namprik pao—chili paste in soybean oil. As a general rule of thumb, the fruitier and brighter the flavor of the chili paste, the better the results.

In terms of making this recipe as flexible as possible, I’ve also given the option of making it completely vegetarian-friendly by subbing out the ground pork or beef for minced shiitake mushrooms. Shiitake mimics the fine, crumbly texture of ground meat well while also providing great flavor. Just be sure to give it the same marination treatment before you prep the rest of the stir-fry ingredients so it can have adequate time to soak up all the flavors.