Mung Bean Soup

Mung bean soup consists of mung beans boiled in water and then sweetened with sugar. Mung beans are considered “cool” foods (in the yin and yang of Chinese foods) and, accordingly to Chinese medicine, restores balance if you are “hot” (e.g., canker sores, warm body temperature, ruddy complexion).

This soup can be enjoyed either hot or cold, and is refreshing and healthy.

Note: you can soak the beans in water overnight (or at least for 3 hours) in order to shorten the cooking time. However, even with dry beans, the soup can be make in about an hour to an hour and a half.

It’s hard to write an exact recipe for this dish, since so much of the ratios are personal taste. Please use this as a ROUGH guide, but feel free to adjust accordingly.

Recipe
1 bag of dried mung beans
water (about 3-4x the volume of the beans)
sugar to taste

Put 1 bag of mung beans and about 2 L of water in a large stock pot. Bring to a boil and then simmer for about 1 hour. Add sugar to taste.

TinyUrbanKitchen Tip:  When I was in college, I used to keep a rice cooker in my dorm room and I would sometimes make mung bean soup in the rice cooker!  Depending on the size of the rice cooker, you probably need to reduce the amount of beans (e.g., the whole bag might not fit inside!)  Remember, the beans expand!!