Edamame

Edamame are soybeans picked when the pods are plump and bright green but the beans have not yet hardened. The fuzzy pods are about 4 to 6 centimeters long and usually contain two or three oval beans. The beans are tender, bright green, and have a mild, buttery, slightly sweet and nutty flavor with a firm-yet-soft bite. They are sold fresh in the pod, frozen in the pod, or frozen as shelled beans, and also dry-roasted as a crunchy snack. Vegetable soybean varieties are bred for larger seeds, sweeter flavor, and easier cooking than field soybeans grown for oil and meal. The pods themselves are tough and fibrous, and are not eaten.

The soybean (Glycine max) was domesticated in East Asia from wild soybean (Glycine soja), probably in China, several thousand years ago. Immature green soybeans have been eaten in China for a very long time under the name mao dou, meaning hairy bean. The Japanese word edamame is written with characters meaning branch and bean, because the beans were traditionally sold still attached to the stems and boiled in salted water. The name eda-mame appears in Japanese sources from at least the Edo period, and the dish spread globally in the twentieth century with the popularity of Japanese restaurants.

Green soybeans have been a seasonal summer food in China, Japan and Korea for centuries. In Japan, street vendors sold boiled edamame on branches during the Edo period, and the snack became linked with cold beer in summer. Later, frozen processing allowed year-round supply and international trade, and the beans left Asia as a restaurant appetizer, first in Japanese and later in other restaurants.

In the United States, soybeans were introduced in the eighteenth century and grown mostly as a forage and later an oil and meal crop. Vegetable soybean varieties were bred and promoted in the twentieth century, and in the late 1990s and 2000s edamame became a mainstream supermarket item as consumers sought plant proteins and snacks. China and Japan remain important producers and consumers, while Taiwan, Thailand and the United States export frozen product. Today, edamame is a common feature of salads, rice bowls, and packaged snacks, and it is also grown by home gardeners in temperate climates.

Edamame pods are boiled or steamed in salted water for a few minutes, then drained and eaten by squeezing the beans from the pods. Shelled beans are added to salads, stir-fries, soups, grain bowls, pasta, dips and spreads such as edamame hummus. In Japan, mashed edamame is used in zunda, a sweet paste for mochi. Roasted edamame is sold as a crunchy snack. Because the beans are tender, they cook quickly and keep their color when blanched. Frozen edamame are convenient and nutritionally similar to fresh.

Edamame provides plant protein that includes all essential amino acids, along with fiber, folate, vitamin K and minerals such as iron and manganese. Soy foods contain isoflavones, plant compounds with weak estrogen-like activity. Large reviews generally find that moderate soy food intake is safe for most adults and may be associated with modest improvements in cholesterol, but evidence on other claims is mixed. Edamame is a whole food, relatively low in saturated fat and a good fit for plant-based diets.