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Chilli Garlic Edamame

The bar snack you can make at home in ten minutes from a bag in the freezer. Add the garlic off the heat, or it burns in the hot oil and turns bitter before the beans are coated.

Snack

10

Serves 2

Bowl of chilli garlic edamame beans in their pods with sesame and lime

Ingredients

  • 400g frozen edamame beans in their pods
  • 1 tsp toasted sesame oil
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  • Half a tsp chilli flakes, or to taste
  • 1 tbsp tamari or reduced-salt soy sauce
  • Half a lime
  • A pinch of flaky salt, optional

Method

  1. Boil the edamame from frozen in plenty of water for 4 to 5 minutes, until the beans inside are tender. Drain well and shake off the water, or the sauce will not stick.
  2. Heat the sesame oil in a wide frying pan over a medium heat. Add the drained edamame and toss for a minute, until the pods start to blister in places.
  3. Take the pan off the heat, then add the garlic and chilli flakes and toss for 30 seconds. The heat of the pan cooks the garlic without burning it.
  4. Add the tamari and a squeeze of lime and toss until every pod is glossy.
  5. Serve warm, with a bowl for the empty pods. To eat, draw each pod between your teeth to pop the beans out; the pod itself is too tough to eat, and the flavour is on the outside.

Why it works

Edamame are young soya beans, and a portion here carries around 13g of protein and only about 5g of carbohydrate, with fibre on top. Few snacks from the freezer come close, which is why they are tagged for blood sugar.

The question men ask: does soy lower testosterone? No. A 2021 meta-analysis in Reproductive Toxicology pooled 41 studies in men and found that neither soy protein nor soy isoflavones changed testosterone, free testosterone or oestrogen levels. The fear comes largely from a handful of case reports, one of them a man drinking nearly three litres of soy milk a day, and from animal studies at doses no one eats. The full answer, with the evidence, is in does soy lower testosterone?

For women around menopause, the isoflavones in soy are the point of interest. A 2012 review of 13 trials found that isoflavone supplements cut the number of hot flushes by about a fifth more than placebo, and the effect builds over weeks rather than days. Those trials used extracts, and a bowl of edamame provides a smaller and more variable dose, so soy foods are a reasonable addition, not a replacement for treatment: soy and phytoestrogens, the truth and what helps with hot flushes.

Soya is also one of the few plant foods that provides all the essential amino acids in useful amounts, which is why tofu and other soy foods anchor so many vegan diets.

The salt comes almost entirely from the tamari, so use a reduced-salt one if you snack on these often, and taste before adding flaky salt. For a crunchy snack you can keep in a jar, see the smoky roasted chickpeas.