Mung bean is always a familiar ingredient in every Asian kitchen. It not only becomes the filling in various traditional cake, but is also used in making milk and milk tea. If you are looking for a plant-based milk, try mung bean milk. This is the quickest vegan milk to make with a wonderful taste and color.
I have a lot of memory with mung bean milk. Many years ago, in every Lunar New Year, my mom started to cook the beans for several dishes, from sticky rice cake, mung bean cake to tapioca dumplings, sticky rice to dessert. She usually took a small portion of cooked beans to make me a cup of mung bean milk. Sometimes she combined cow milk and mung bean, and sometimes it was a vegan milk with mung bean and soy milk. I was always excited watching her make it.
Finally, I remember the mung bean recipes and how to make it in the shortest time. I also learn my mom’s tip to achieve the best flavor for it: pandan leaves. Pandan leaves have a pleasant aroma and can also bring a beautiful green color to your milk when you blend it.
Ingredients
Mung beans
It’s mung bean milk, so of course, you will need this genre of bean. There are two popular types of mung bean, peeled and unpeeled. When you remove the dark green skin of a mung bean, it reveals a bright yellow inside. For making milk, you can use either peeled & split or unpeeled mung bean; however, the final color and taste will be slightly different.
With peeled & split beans – the one I usually use, the color can be natural pastel yellow, or pastel green if you cook it with pandan juice. I prefer peeled beans because I can make more dishes from them in just one time cooking. Last time, 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 milk will be dark green because of the beans’ skin. You’ll feel a hint of earthy flavor; it’s also an interesting taste.
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. I didn’t have enough time to make soy milk at home, so I bought it in supermarket. Indeed, making soy milk requires more skills and equipment.
Cow milk is also a good option to mix with mung bean. It’s creamy and fatty, too good to mix with sweet and fleshy mung bean.
Pandan leaves
Pandan leaves are long, green leaves from the pandan plant. Native in Southeast Asian, it adds a nice smell and taste to food, as an “Asian vanilla”. People tie them or crush them to release their smell into rice, desserts, and drinks. They can also make food a vibrant green color without using artificial coloring.
Usually, you can find pandan leaves in Asian food stores, fresh or frozen. Frozen pandan leaves are also nice to use. I bought 250g frozen pandan leaves and kept them in the freezer, which can last more than 6 months.
This is an optional ingredient. With pandan leaves, 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 necessary ingredients in your kitchen, let’s start to make it. It’s a very easy and quick process. I’m going to borrow a part of the cooking process I wrote for making mung bean paste, an important component in cakes and dumplings. It’s totally the same. The total time to make it is 30 minutes (with a blender) or 1 hour 30 minutes without a blender.
Step 1. Preparation
Soak the beans: wash and remove damaged seeds, and soak them in water for at least 3-4 hours, or overnight, until they fully absorb water. Rinse them again until the water is clean.
(Optional) Blending pandan leaves: In case 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
Once your beans are ready, let’s cook the milk.
Turn on medium heat and boil the beans and pandan leaves (if any) in water until they soften. Do a “squeezing test” to check if your beans are well cooked: squeeze a bean between your fingers to see if it can be mashed easily; if it is, your beans are ready for next step. Normally, from 100g peeled beans, you can make 300-400g cooked mung beans.
Next, if you have a blender, save your time by blending the beans. If there is pandan leaves juice, drain the boiling water and blend all of your cooked beans with prepared pandan juice. If not, just blend it with 2 cups water. You can even blend mung bean only and then mix with water/pandan juice later. Once done, you have passed almost of the cooking process.
What if you don’t have a blender? Don’t worry, you can still make it on stove. Reduce to low heat and stir the beans in boiling water until they are crushed. To proceed more quickly, you can use your spatula to crush them. If the water almost evaporates but the beans are still uncrushed, add more water and keep up stirring. It can take you an hour. Then, add your prepared pandan juice or more water into the the cooked beans.
Finally, add milk and sugar to the mung beans mixture. I follow 1:2 ratio, it means the amount of milk is a half of the amount of beans & water mixture. The level of sweetness is up to you; for me, to reduce sugar consumption, I only added 4-5 tbsp per 1 liter of milk. Turn on the medium heat and stir the milk evenly until completely dissolved.
Wait the milk to cool down and pour it into an airtight bottle. Drink warm or cool. I love to have it warm and enjoy with a piece of cakes, or tapioca pearls or black grass jelly.
How to store mung bean milk
Because it has cooked mung bean, you must keep it in the fridge in a bottle or airtight container. Drink it in maximum 5 days. It shouldn’t be longer because the milk can start to reduce the quality and even go stale.
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
If you are looking for a plant-based milk, try mung bean milk. This is the quickest vegan milk to make with a wonderful taste and color.
Ingredients
Pandan juices (optional)
- 3-4 pandan leaves
- 2 cups of water
Mung beans
- 100g (2/3 cup) mung beans
Milk
- 400ml (2 cups) soy milk/ cow milk/ almond milk
- 4-10 tbsp of sugars
Instructions
Step 1. Preparation
- Soak the beans: wash and remove damaged seeds, and soak them in water for at least 3-4 hours, or overnight, until they fully absorb water. Rinse them again until the water is clean.
- (Optional) Blending pandan leaves: In case 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 any) in water until they soften. Do a “squeezing test” to check if your beans are well cooked: squeeze a bean between your fingers to see if it can be mashed easily. If it is, your beans are ready for next step. Normally, from 100g peeled beans, you can make 400g cooked mung beans.
- Next, if you have a blender, save your time by blending the beans. If there is pandan leaves juice, drain the boiling water and all the cooked beans with prepared pandan leaves juice. You'll get a beautiful green color for the milk (image below). If not, just blend it with 2 cups of water.
- If you don't have a blender, reduce to low heat and stir the beans in boiling water until they are crushed. To proceed more quickly, you can use your spatula/ a masher to crush them. If the water almost evaporates but the beans are still uncrushed, add more water and keep up stirring. Once done, pour prepared pandan leaves juices/ 2 cups of waters in and mix well.
- Finally, add milk and sugar to the mung beans mixture. You can adjust the amount of sugar based on your preference. Cook on medium heat and stir the milk evenly until completely dissolved.
- Drink warm or cold.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 4 Serving Size: 200ml (1 cup)Amount Per Serving: Calories: 354
Nutrition information isn’t always accurate.
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 (bánh bot loc)
- Vietnamese Glutinous Rice Balls (Che troi nuoc)
- Banh com (Vietnamese Green Rice Cake)
- Mung Bean Milk Tea
Other Vegan Milk:
