5 Ways to Use Roasted Edamame Beyond Snacking
Roasted edamame is a snack first, but it is also the most useful thing in the kitchen for fixing a low-protein meal in thirty seconds. It is crunchy, it is salted, and it has 46 g of protein per 100 g, so a small handful on top of almost anything changes the numbers. Five ways we actually use it.
1. Edamame chaat (5 minutes, 16 g protein)
You need: 40 g roasted edamame (Indian Fusion or Sea Salt), 1 small onion and 1 tomato chopped, a handful of coriander, half a lemon, chaat masala, a pinch of black salt, optional green chilli and a spoon of curd.
Mix everything except the edamame. Add the edamame just before eating so it stays crunchy. Serve in a bowl like bhel. This is a proper evening snack with the protein of two eggs, and it is the one guests ask about.
2. The salad and soup topper (30 seconds, +9 g)
Any salad with no protein in it is a side dish. A 20 g scatter of roasted edamame on top turns a cucumber-tomato salad into something that will hold you until dinner. It replaces croutons on soup, sev on chaat, and peanuts on poha, with four times the protein of any of them. Peri Peri on a plain salad; Cheesy Garlic on tomato soup.
3. Crushed on curd and dal (+7 g)
Pulse a handful in a mixer or crush in a mortar for a coarse crumb. Keep it in a jar. A tablespoon on a bowl of curd, raita or dal adds crunch and about 7 g of protein. It also works stirred into khichdi at the table, and on top of upma to stop it being pure semolina.
4. Protein trail mix (2 minutes, 12 g per 40 g)
Equal parts roasted edamame and pumpkin seeds, half a part each of peanuts and sunflower seeds, a few raisins if you like sweet. Shake in a jar. That is roughly 12 g of protein per 40 g scoop, with magnesium and fibre, and it costs a fraction of a packaged trail mix. Keep a jar in the car and one in the office.
5. The tiffin box that survives till lunch (+14 g)
A 30 g box of roasted edamame in a school or office tiffin does not melt, crumble, leak or need cooling, and it is 14 g of protein. Pair it with fruit for a snack box, or add it to a roti-sabzi lunch that would otherwise have 8 g of protein. Sea Salt is the one most kids accept without comment.
Bonus: edamame bhel for a crowd
Multiply recipe 1 by five, add puffed rice (murmura) and a spoon of tamarind chutney, and serve in paper cones. It is the bhel everyone knows, except it carries real protein. We have done this for running club events and it goes first.
Which flavour for what
- Classic Sea Salt: the all-rounder, two ingredients, works everywhere.
- Indian Fusion: chaat, bhel, on dal.
- Peri Peri: salads, with beer, when you want chips.
- Cheesy Garlic: soups, pasta, on popcorn.
All four are in the roasted edamame collection. The 400 g pouch is the right size if you are going to cook with it; the 1 kg pouch if you are going to do the trail mix every month.
