Edamame: What It Is, How to Use It and Substitutes
What is edamame?
Edamame is not a separate plant but the soybean (Glycine max) picked at an early stage. The pods are harvested while the beans are still soft and green, usually in late summer. Fully ripe soybeans, by contrast, turn hard and yellow and are used for tofu, soy milk or miso. The Japanese name means roughly ‘beans on a branch’, because they used to be sold still on the stem. Green soybeans have been eaten in China and Japan for a long time, and in Japan they are a common side dish in izakaya, casual eateries serving small plates. Edamame provide plenty of plant protein and fibre. Like all soybeans they must be cooked, as they are hard to digest raw. A 100 g portion of shelled beans contains a good 10 g of protein.
Flavour and uses
Cooked edamame taste mild and slightly sweet, a little like young peas, but firmer. The classic preparation is simple. Boil the pods for 4 to 5 minutes in well-salted water, drain them and sprinkle with coarse salt. Only the bean is eaten. You squeeze it out of the pod with your teeth, as the pod itself is tough. Shelled edamame are good in salads, rice bowls, poke bowls and fried rice, or added at the end to a Japanese miso soup. Blended with a little lemon and oil, they make a green dip. For more flavour, toss the boiled pods in a pan with garlic, sesame oil and chilli.
Buying edamame: what to look for
Fresh edamame are hard to find outside Asia, though Asian grocers sometimes have them in late summer. Frozen edamame are the norm, sold by supermarkets and Asian grocers in two forms. Edamame in the pod are best as a snack, shelled beans for salads and stir-fries. The pods should be bright green and plump. Yellow or spotty pods are a sign of old stock. In frozen bags, ice crystals and clumps that have frozen together show that the cold chain was broken. Many products are already blanched and need only brief heating.
Storage and shelf life
Frozen edamame keep until the best-before date, usually around a year. Fresh pods spoil quickly and should be cooked within two days. Cooked edamame keep in a closed container in the fridge for two to three days and taste good cold, too. Frozen edamame need no thawing and can go straight into boiling water.
What can you use instead of edamame?
In a salad or rice bowl, replace 100 g of shelled edamame with 100 g of frozen peas. They are sweeter and softer and need only 2 to 3 minutes. Young broad beans (fava beans) come closer in bite and colour, ideally popped out of their skins. Green lima beans are another option. As a snack in the pod there is no real substitute, though salted sugar snap peas come closest.
