As Team Harrison continues to expand our horizons on vegetarian and vegan options, I am increasing my exploration into homemade options over store bought packaged food. In fact, I touched on this topic in my post Make Your Own Food. Most of the packaged food includes ingredients that violate my Ayurvedic diet or have lots of preservatives, sweeteners, and excess additives that I simply don’t want. Therefore, I know that by making my own food at home I can avoid these ingredients.

One of the key foods that both Dr. Nibodhi and Andrew Sterman both recommended is tempeh. Unfortunately, most store bought tempeh is made with soy, wheat, and/or grains which I am trying to avoid. Therefore, I decided to try and make my own homemade Adzuki Bean Tempeh.

After doing a lot of research, I found the perfect recipe from Meatless Makeover which specifically uses an Instapot.

I tried this recipe and it worked GREAT! I was really surprised at how good the tempeh tasted, and more importantly I was shocked that Angie and Elvis seemed to really enjoy the finished product.

A few things to note if you are going to try and make this at home is (1) don’t overcook the beans and (2) it took MUCH longer in my Instapot then the recipe suggested. In fact, I think it took 72 hours or longer on the “Less” Yogurt setting on my Instapot.

Ingredients:

2 cups of Adzuki Beans

4 tbsp of rice wine vinegar

1 packet of Tempeh starter

6 cups of water

Below are the steps and a few pictures to help you.

(1) Buy quality Organic Dry Adzuki Beans

(2) Measure 2 cups

(3) Soak the beans in water

(4) Add them to the pressure cooker in 6 cups of water and set to “Normal”

(5) Set to “High” for 7 minutes. When done let sit for another 10 minutes and then vent the steam and check that the beans are cooked.

(6) While the beans are cooking, prepare a ziplock bag by punching wholes 1″ apart through both sides. Also, get the metal rack to use later inside the pressure cooker.

(7) Strain and rinse the beans, then pat dry. Then transfer to a bowl, add the 4 teaspoons of rice wine vinegar and the tempeh starter pack.

(8) Add the beans to the ziplock and roll the top down pulling the beans tight.

(9) Place the bean package on the metal rack in the Instapot with the ziploc seam face down.

(10) Set the pressure cooker to the “less” setting on the Yogurt mode. I originally did 24 hours, but on my second batch I set the timer for 72 hours.

(11) Check the tempeh after 24 hours and every 12 hours thereafter until you see the growth of the mold and crust.

(12) Remove when ready and cut in half.

(13) You should be able to see the mold on the outside and the inside. This will last 10 days in a sealed container in the refrigerator or 2 months in the freezer.

(14) Now slice into 1″ to 1 1/2″ pieces and saute in your favorite way – ghee, miso tamari, olive oil, etc. and then serve over your favorite dish. Below is an example of Adzuki Bean Tempeh over Vegan Pesto Chickpea Pasta.

(15) Here is the same sauteed miso glazed tempeh over cauliflower fried rice. Garnish with mung bean sprouts, scallions, and sesame seeds. If you are making Lettuce Wraps, you can actually use the same dipping sauce and toppings over your tempeh.

I hope you enjoy and remember be kind to yourself and just do the work today!