An activity screening between 1,2,3-triazole moiety-containing nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) analogs and malic enzyme (ME) mutants identified some mutants capable of taking NAD analogs as the cofactor. One particular pair, ME-L310K/L404S and the analog B-8 had good catalytic efficiency and cofactor specificity. The new system gained about 1200-fold cofactor specificity shift from NAD toward B-8 in terms of oxidative decarboxylation of l-malate. Our results provided insightful information for the development of orthogonal redox system that is of particular important to precisely control engineered metabolic pathways.