Of all the different types of gluten-free flour alternatives out there, soy flour is one that most people only ever really buy in a pre-prepared packet, and never consider making it themselves.
However, many cultures actually prepare their own soy flour at home, using nothing more than some simple soybeans to make a versatile and delicious flour, usable in all kinds of different recipes.
How Can I Use My Homemade Soy Flour?
Homemade soy flour can be used as a direct replacement for regular wheat flour, so long as you aren’t looking for gluten, as soy flour is obviously gluten-free.
You can use it to make flatbreads, thicken sauces, or just as the main ingredient in pretty much any kind of baking.
Soy flour has a unique, earthy flavor that is familiar to those who love tofu, and can be a great addition to pretty much any recipe that you would normally add flour to.
What Kind Of Special Equipment Do I Need To Make Soy Flour?
Just like with making any other kind of flour at home, the only thing you really need to make soy flour is a blender to easily crush up the soybeans into a flour particulate.
However, an oven is also a pretty useful tool to not only help dry out the soybeans but to help develop an earthy rich flavor if you are looking to make toasted soy flour instead.
Ingredients
1 cup Soybeans
How To Make Homemade Soy Flour
Step 1 – Pour your soybeans out onto an oven tray, and dry roast them in an oven set to 100 Fahrenheit for 1 hour, or as low as your oven can reasonably maintain its temperature.
Step 2 – Remove your soybeans and transfer them to a blender, and pulse the beans on and off, before setting your blender to medium speed and blending until totally fine.
Step 3 – Pour the soy flour through a sieve to catch any of the errant pieces of unblended soybean, and then store your soy flour in a sealed container for up to 1 month.
Troubleshooting Tips
• One problem with using soy flour in any kind of recipe is that, while it is a great thickener when added to sauces, it struggles to help thicken things like bread that need to rise up and hold their own weight. This is because of its total lack of gluten, meaning that you won’t really be able to use soy flour to make a risen bread. However, if you are looking for a little bit more thickening and enriching power, you might consider adding some ground-up flaxseed or chia seeds to help encourage a little more stability in any breads you bake with it.
• When trying to blend your beans into a powder, you might find that the soybeans tend to clog up at the bottom of your blender, preventing the rest of them from catching the blade and actually getting broken down. If this happens, just try mixing them together a little bit with a rubber spatula, to help dislodge them from the nooks and crannies of your blender.
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Nutritional Facts
For the health-conscious out there, here are the nutritional details for ¼ cup of soybean flour.
Calories: 207
Total Fat: 0.1 grams
Saturated Fat: 0 grams
Cholesterol: 0 milligrams
Sodium: 594 milligrams
Total Carbohydrates: 17.7 grams
Dietary Fiber: 2.3 grams
Sugars: 4.1 grams
Protein: 1.6 gram
Potassium: 386 milligrams
FAQs
Roasting the soybeans in this recipe is a pretty vital step, both for developing added flavor and for helping to dry them out.
If you didn’t dry roast your beans before grinding them, you would probably find that the soybeans refuse to turn into flour when you blend them, instead turning into a damp, mushy paste of soybeans.
The dry roasting helps to expel all of the water inside your soybeans and ensures that they crumble up properly.
If you really didn’t want any of that roasted flavor, you could also leave your soybeans out on the counter, drying in the sun, for around 2 days to achieve the same amount of dehydration, but that’s up to you.
This recipe calls for using dried soybeans, which typically come in sealed packets in the dry foods section at the supermarket. However, you could absolutely use canned, cooked soybeans instead, if that was all you had.
The only thing to keep in mind is that the canning liquid needs to be totally rinsed and dried, to ensure that you are left with something that can actually be ground up into flour.
The best thing to do is to rinse and drain your canned soybeans thoroughly, and then leave them in a low oven for at least 4 hours, until they are totally dry and crisp, ensuring that they won’t clog up your blender.
After sifting the soybean flour, you will be left with a whole bunch of unground soybean bits that are basically just the dry husks that refuse to be blended.
While you absolutely could just throw this away, ideally into your compost pile, there is also nothing stopping you from eating it!
Fried up in a little bit of oil, and with a good amount of salt, those scraps of leftover soybeans can turn into a tasty soybean fritter, perfect as a little chef snack!
How to Make Soy Flour at Home
Ingredients
1 cup Soybeans
Instructions
Step 1 – Pour your soybeans out onto an oven tray, and dry roast them in an oven set to 100 Fahrenheit for 1 hour, or as low as your oven can reasonably maintain its temperature.
Step 2 – Remove your soybeans and transfer them to a blender, and pulse the beans on and off, before setting your blender to medium speed and blending until totally fine.
Step 3 – Pour the soy flour through a sieve to catch any of the errant pieces of unblended soybean, and then store your soy flour in a sealed container for up to 1 month.
Nutrition Facts
- Serving Size: 1/4 cup
