Making Mung Bean Milk from Peeled Mung Bean
Mung beans are a familiar ingredient in every Asian kitchen. They not only serve as the filling in various traditional cakes but are also used in making milk and milk tea. If you’re seeking a plant-based milk option, consider trying mung bean milk. It’s the quickest vegan milk to make and offers a wonderful taste and color.
I have many cherished memories associated with mung bean milk. Years ago, during every Lunar New Year, my mom would start cooking the beans for a variety of dishes, from sticky rice cake, mung bean cake to tapioca dumplings, sticky rice to dessert. She would often take a small portion of the cooked beans to prepare a cup of mung bean milk for me. Sometimes she would blend cow’s milk with mung bean, and other times it was a vegan delight made with mung bean and soy milk. I was always excited watching her prepare it.
Finally, I recall the my mom’s mung bean recipe and the way she made them in the shortest time. I also learned my mom’s secret tip for achieving the best flavor: using pandan leaves. Pandan leaves add a pleasant aroma and a beautiful green color when blended with your milk.
Ingredients
Mung beans
For mung bean milk, you’ll naturally need mung beans. There are two popular types of mung beans: peeled and unpeeled. When you remove the dark green skin of a mung bean, it reveals a bright yellow interior. You can use either peeled and split or unpeeled mung beans for making milk; however, the final color and taste will vary slightly depending on your choice.
I typically use peeled and split beans, which result in a natural pastel yellow color for the milk. If you cook them with pandan juice, you can achieve a pastel green hue. Morever, peeled mung beans allow me to make multiple dishes in one cooking session. For example, the last time I used 500g of peeled beans, I made 1 liter of mung bean milk, 4 mung bean cakes and 2 Vietnamese green rice cakes in a night with 500g peeled beans.
With unpeeled beans, the resulting milk will have a dark green color due to the beans’ skins. This imparts a subtle earthy flavor, which can be quite interesting and unique.
Cow milk, Soy milk or Almond milk
Depend on your preference, you can opt for cow milk or soy milk. You can also try almond milk. Although I haven’t tried it, I guess the flavor would be unique.
If you would like to make a fully plant-based, vegan version, soy milk is the perfect match. When I don’t have enough time to make soy milk at home, I buy it in supermarket. Indeed, making soy milk requires more skills and equipment.
Cow’s milk is also an excellent choice to blend with mung beans. Its creaminess and richness complement the sweetness and texture of mung beans perfectly.
Pandan leaves
Pandan leaves are long, green leaves from the pandan plant. Native to Southeast Asia, they are known as the ‘Asian vanilla’ because they add a pleasant aroma and flavor to food. People often tie them or crush them to release their fragrance into rice, desserts, and drinks. Additionally, pandan leaves can naturally impart a vibrant green color to dishes without the need for artificial coloring.
You can typically find pandan leaves in Asian food stores, either fresh or frozen. Frozen pandan leaves are a convenient option and can be stored in the freezer, lasting for more than 6 months. I bought 250g of frozen pandan leaves and have kept them in the freezer for extended use.
This is an optional ingredient. With pandan leaves juice, you can enhance the smell and make the unique green milk. Without them, just go on with several drops of vanilla extract.
How to make mung bean milk
With all the necessary ingredients in your kitchen, let’s get started. This is a straightforward and quick process. I’ll be using a part of the cooking process I previously wrote for making mung bean paste, a key component in cakes and dumplings. The steps are identical. The total time to prepare it is 30 minutes (with a blender) or 1 hour and 30 minutes without a blender.
Step 1. Preparation
- Soak the beans: Start by washing the beans and removing any damaged seeds. Then, soak them in water for at least 3-4 hours, or overnight, until they have fully absorbed the water. After soaking, rinse them again until the water runs clear.
- (Optional) Blending pandan leaves: If you want to create “green” mung bean milk, you can prepare pandan leaves juice. To do so, cut 3-4 clean pandan leaves into small pieces, blend them with 2 cups of water, and then filter the blended leaves to extract a dark green juice.
Step 2. Cook mung bean milk
Once your beans are ready, let’s cook the milk.
- Turn on medium heat and boil the beans (and pandan leaves if using) in water until they soften. To check if your beans are well-cooked, perform a ‘squeezing test’: squeeze a bean between your fingers to see if it can be easily mashed. If it can, your beans are ready for the next step. Typically, from 100g of peeled beans, you can yield 300-400g of cooked mung beans.
- Next, if you have a blender, you can save time by blending the beans. If you’ve prepared pandan leaves juice, blend all of your cooked beans (remember to drain all the remaining water) with the pandan juice. If not, you can blend the cooked beans with 2 cups of water. Alternatively, you can blend the mung beans on their own and mix them with water or pandan juice later. Once this step is completed, you’ve completed most of the cooking process.
- If you don’t have a blender, don’t worry, you can still make it on the stove. Reduce the heat to low and stir the beans in the boiling water until they are crushed. To speed up the process, you can use a spatula to help crush them. If the water is almost evaporated but the beans are still uncrushed, add more water and continue stirring. This step can take up to an hour. Then, add your prepared pandan juice or more water to the cooked beans.
- Finally, add the milk and sugar to the mung bean mixture. I typically follow a 1:2 ratio, meaning the amount of milk is half of the amount of the beans and water mixture. You can adjust the level of sweetness to your preference. For me, to reduce sugar consumption, I only add 4-5 tablespoons per 1 liter of milk. Turn on medium heat and stir the milk evenly until it’s completely dissolved.
Allow the milk to cool down and then pour it into an airtight bottle. You can enjoy it either warm or chilled. Personally, I love to have it warm and savor it with a piece of cake, tapioca pearls, or black grass jelly.
How to store mung bean milk
Because mung bean milk has cooked mung beans, you must keep it in the fridge in a bottle or airtight container. Consume it within a maximum of 5 days to ensure its freshness, as milk can start to lose quality and potentially go stale if kept longer.
Otherwise, freezing the milk is an idea for longer preservation. Remember to label the date you freeze it, and don’t keep it longer than 3 months. To unfreeze the milk, let it thaw naturally or reheat in microwave.
Try making it and share me your result!
Mung Bean Milk
Ingredients
Pandan juices (optional)
- 3-4 pandan leaves
- 2 cups of water
Mung beans
- 2/3 cup peeled split mung beans
Milk
- 2 cups soy milk/ cow milk/ almond milk
- 4-10 tbsp sugars
Instructions
Step 1. Preparation
- Soak the beans: Start by washing the beans and removing any damaged seeds. Then, soak them in water for at least 3-4 hours, or overnight, until they have fully absorbed the water. After soaking, rinse them again until the water runs clear.
- (Optional) Blending pandan leaves: If you would like to make “green” mung bean milk, prepare pandan leaves juice. To make it, cut 3-4 clean pandan leaves into small pieces, then blend all of them with 2 cups of water. Then, filter the blended leaves to get a dark green juice.
Step 2. Cook mung bean milk
- Turn on medium heat and boil the beans (and pandan leaves if using) in water until they soften. To check if your beans are well-cooked, do a 'squeezing test': squeeze a bean between your fingers to see if it can be easily mashed. If it can, your beans are ready for the next step. Typically, from 100g of peeled beans, you can yield 300-400g of cooked mung beans.
- Next, if you have a blender, you can save time by blending the beans. If you've prepared pandan leaves juice, drain the boiling water and blend all of your cooked beans with the pandan juice. If not, you can blend the cooked beans with 2 cups of water. Alternatively, you can blend the mung beans on their own and mix them with water or pandan juice later. Once this step is completed, you've completed most of the cooking process.
- If you don't have a blender, you can still make it on the stove. Reduce the heat to low and stir the beans in the boiling water until they are crushed. To speed up the process, you can use a spatula to help crushing them. If the water is almost evaporated but the beans are still uncrushed, add more water and continue stirring. This step can take up to an hour. Then, add your prepared pandan juice or water to the cooked beans.
- Finally, add the milk and sugar to the mung bean mixture. I typically follow a 1:2 ratio, meaning the amount of milk is half of the amount of the beans and water mixture. You can adjust the level of sweetness to your preference. For me, to reduce sugar consumption, I only add 4-5 tablespoons per 1 liter of milk. Turn on medium heat and stir the milk evenly until it's completely dissolved.
- You can enjoy it either warm or chilled.
Video
Nutrition
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Other Mung Bean Dishes
As a Vietnamese, I had a bunch of Mung Bean Recipes. Let’s try:
- Mung Bean Mooncake
- Fresh Mung Bean Cake
- Vietnamese Tapioca Dumplings (banh bot loc)
- Vietnamese Glutinous Rice Balls (Che troi nuoc)
- Banh com (Vietnamese Green Rice Cake)
- Mung Bean Milk Tea
- Mung Bean Sweet Soup