Cooking Green Soybeans

Soybeans are a good source of vitamins A and C.

Children may like green soy nuts. Prepare soy nuts by cooking shelled green soybeans in boiling, salted water for 30 minutes or until they're tender. Eat the soy nuts like boiled peanuts.

Fresh, green soybeans are available in some areas in late summer or fall. Vegetable soybeans are the kind used for cooking.

They are larger and milder than the field soybeans used for making oil and commercial flour. Vegetable soybeans look like butter beans or lima beans. When you're buying vegetable soybeans to cook, each pod will usually have two beans and the pods should be bright green and plump. Soybean pods are fuzzy on the outside and the pods are not edible.

To shell fresh soybeans. Cover them with boiling water and let them soak for three minutes. Remove the beans and rinse them in cold water. Break the pods crosswise and squeeze out the beans. One pound of beans in the pod will yield about one and two thirds cups of ready-to-cook beans.

To cook soybeans. Add two cups of shelled soybeans to one cup of boiling water. Add one-half teaspoon of salt or salt substitute. When the water and the beans return to a boil, cover them and cook them gently for ten or twenty minutes.

The beans will become tender as you cook them, but they won't get mushy because they contain a lot of protein and oil and almost no starch. Season the beans with margarine and serve them as a vegetable or use them instead of limas in some of your favorite recipes.

Children may like green soy nuts. Prepare soy nuts by cooking shelled green soybeans in boiling, salted water for 30 minutes or until they're tender. Eat the soy nuts like boiled peanuts.

Soybeans are a good source of vitamins A and C, too.

For more information on cooking green soybeans, contact your local county Extension office.