I’ve never made Tempeh…how do I make this not taste like shit without soy sauce or any spices besides salt, pepper, and garlic powder?

You should post this to c/vegan there's some good-ass cooks in there with advice for days

Finally, someone asks a bedrock question of existence.

Tempeh is great with a chili sauce. Sambal goreng is the classic.

I dunno but when you find out let me know

You got red wine ?

Dice your tempeh, fry it in a large pan; once it's roasted all around, add your red wine and garlic powder; cook at medium heat for ~30 minutes; add a mix of flour and cold water at the end if needed to make it less liquid

Even better if you add some diced carrots in there

i usually just fry it a little (or not) and put it in a thai curry.

What are you doing now? I like it with those things sliced and sauted, air fried or baked. With oil.

I think it can be a bit of an acquired taste, as many fermented things are, but I see this always floating around for advice.

https://www.cooksmarts.com/articles/how-to-make-tempeh-less-bitter/

THE trick that anyone cooking tempeh should know is that you need to steam it before using it. Just steam it for a little bit before baking, or frying, or whatever and you'll get rid of that sharp, almost chemical taste tempeh tends to have.

I gotta be honest with you, I don't think there's a way to make tempeh taste really good. I reckon the best you can do is to mask it by smothering it in flavourful things but even then I still find myself preferring tofu over tempeh with the same preparation method.

I know this isn't a very helpful comment but sometimes there are foods which just aren't on the same tier as others and tempeh is one of those things in my opinion.

Fun fact though: tempeh is arguably the only fermented soy product that developed independently of all the other fermented soy products, which is kinda neat.

I normally cut it into triangles and lightly fry with mirin, salt, pepper and some soy but since half those are out, try frying it and adding it to a salad instead of whatever protein you would normally use. I'm biased though because I fucking love tempeh.

If you don't want to use soy sauce because you don't have it at home, you should go get a bottle at your local supermarket NOW. It's so good. If you don't want to use soy sauce because you just don't like it, then oh well.

I was gonna suggest butter tempeh, (butter chicken with tempeh) but I just realised that has a lot of spices. So search me, I've no idea

They make an imitation out of chicken that isn't bad.