The humble soybean is a remarkably versatile little seed.
Capable of being made into tofu, flour, and all manner of different recipes and useful ingredients, but one thing that not a lot of people think about when they consider soybeans is just how much oil they have inside them.
The soybean is actually an incredibly oil-rich seed, and be processed and turned into a huge amount of soybean oil, with only a very small amount of work.
But instead of paying through the nose for soybean oil from the store, why not learn how to make it yourself?
How Can I Use My Homemade Soybean Oil?
Homemade soybean oil is a wonderful finishing oil, perfect for all sorts of different applications.
Whether you top a salad with it, or using to flavor meat or fish, soybean oil is a great way to add that little bit of richness and intensity of flavor to your finished dish.
While you should probably avoid directly cooking with it, due to the oil’s low smoke point, it is still a remarkably versatile oil in the home kitchen.
What Kind Of Special Equipment Do I Need To Make Soybean Oil?
Making any kind of homemade oil can be as simple as cooking the seed you are planning to extract, and then squeezing the oil out of it using a mesh cloth or nut milk bag.
However, domestic oil extractors, which mechanically extract the oil with basically no cooking required, are another great tool, and make the whole process incredibly quick, so do use that if you happen to have one on hand.
Ingredients
1 cup Soybeans
How To Make Homemade Soybean Oil
Step 1 – Measure out 1 cup of soybeans and arrange them on a baking tray in a single layer.
Step 2 – Dry roast your soybeans in an oven set to 300 Fahrenheit for 30-60 minutes, or until your soybeans are totally dry and just beginning to develop color, and the shells are starting to crack.
Step 3 – Blend your soybeans (or crush them in a pestle and mortar) until they begin to clump up and turn slightly tacky.
Step 4 – Pour your soybean mixture out into a nut milk bag or cheesecloth, tie it tightly, and squeeze it until the oil begins to leech out.
Step 5 – Collect the oil in a separate bowl, and then store this in a sealed container for up to 3 months.
Troubleshooting Tips
• Making soybean oil is all about heating the soybeans until they begin to release their oil, and then squeezing the oil out – this can be pretty tricky, though, because the shells of soybeans seem to really want to cling onto whatever oil they have. If your soybeans just aren’t releasing any oil, you might need to put them back in the oven for a short while and continue to roast them for a short while, until the outer shells are completely cracked, and try again.
• Depending on the size of your blender, you might not be able to easily break the soybeans down into a useable powder. This is because of the oils that you’ve worked so hard to release seem to want to cling to the outer shells, slowing down the blender blades and clogging everything up. If you start to notice everything turning into too much of a thick paste, try to break it up a bit using a rubber spatula and get the tops pushed down to the blades, to help ensure everything blends evenly.
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Nutritional Facts
For the health-conscious out there, here are the nutritional details for 1 tablespoon of soybean oil.
Calories: 120
Total Fat: 13.6 grams
Saturated Fat: 2.1 grams
Cholesterol: 0 milligrams
Sodium: 0 milligrams
Total Carbohydrates: 0 grams
Dietary Fiber: 0 grams
Sugars: 0 grams
Protein: 0 gram
Potassium: 0 milligrams FAQs
FAQs
While this method will definitely produce some soybean oil, it will not have the exact same clean, pure taste that chemically extracted soybean oil has.
This is because industrial processes are used to extract literally every microgram of oil in the soybean, usually using a whole host of different chemical solvents and corrosive chemicals.
While that method does produce a larger quantity of cleaner, more consistently flavored soybean oil, this simpler method will give you a robust, soybean-forward flavor that is truly your own, rather than the somewhat artificial clarity of a manufactured soybean oil.
A lot of recipes for making soybean oil, or really any kind of soybean produce, will call for you to remove the soybean hulls, which are the tough, fibrous outer layer that encases the soybean.
While it is true that this outer layer definitely gets in the way of extracting the oil, it isn’t totally necessary to remove it. So long as you squeeze really hard and ensure it is heated properly, it should still give up a good quantity of soybean oil.
If you want to take the time to meticulously go through and remove the hull of each soybean, you will definitely get a much higher yield, but it isn’t totally necessary.
Once you have extracted all the soybean oil that you want, you will be left with a dry, slightly roasted soybean particulate that is fibrous and a little bit tacky from any leftover oil.
While you absolutely could just compost it, you could also use it in recipes as a sort of soybean flour! It would also cook up really well if you seasoned it lightly and then fried it in a high smoke point oil, to end up with a crunchy soybean fritter!
How to Make Homemade Soybean Oil
Ingredients
1 cup Soybeans
Instructions
Step 1 – Measure out 1 cup of soybeans and arrange them on a baking tray in a single layer.
Step 2 – Dry roast your soybeans in an oven set to 300 Fahrenheit for 30-60 minutes, or until your soybeans are totally dry and just beginning to develop color, and the shells are starting to crack.
Step 3 – Blend your soybeans (or crush them in a pestle and mortar) until they begin to clump up and turn slightly tacky.
Step 4 – Pour your soybean mixture out into a nut milk bag or cheesecloth, tie it tightly, and squeeze it until the oil begins to leech out.
Step 5 – Collect the oil in a separate bowl, and then store this in a sealed container for up to 3 months.
Nutrition Facts
- Serving Size: 1 tablespoon
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