The Simple Ingredients To Mix With Natto To Take The Edge Off
Fermented foods have been dividing eaters for ages, but with a little bit of love and care, they are delicious sources of nutrition. Take natto, the cooked and fermented soybeans traditional of Japanese cuisine. Natto is a sticky, pungent plant-based protein that often comes sold in small, single-serving packages. Natto might turn off those slightly averse to fermented foods, but give it a chance and know that it's usually not just served on its own. Just like any other fermented food, it's all about the seasonings and foods you choose to pair it with.
Packages of natto traditionally come served with small packets of soy sauce and a powerful mustard sauce. Combine these sauces with the natto and you give the soybeans a savory, salty layer to offset the funky fermentation flavor. In Japan, you can find natto served like many other Japanese proteins: over a steaming bowl of white rice. The white rice will absorb the sauces and act as a creamy textural companion to the fermented soybeans.
Preparing natto at home
When you open up your package of natto, you'll see what looks like ordinary soybeans. But the first crucial step in preparing natto is to give the beans a mix, usually with a pair of chopsticks. As you rapidly mix, you'll see a milky white substance begin to froth up between the beans, giving the natto its signature texture. You'll also get a whiff of that funky fermented smell, but that's all the good-for-your-gut bacteria at work!
If you taste the natto on its own, you won't get any of the sour notes that you also smell. Natto can have an earthy taste like other beans, but for the most part tastes fairly neutral. That's where the seasonings come in. Now that the natto is gooey and stringy, you get to mix it in with the sauces and serve it over rice or another choice of carb, like toast. Try garnishing with thinly sliced green onions and Japanese furikake seasoning for an extra punch, and you'll have an easy Japanese breakfast at home.
More Japanese breakfast delights to eat with natto
Natto is popularly consumed as a breakfast food packed full of nutrients and a high amount of protein, making it a perfect food to start the day. Natto fits right in with other popular Japanese breakfast foods, frequently savory, pickled, and paired with rice. You can add some pickled vegetables to your bowl of rice and natto to give a fresh crunch to each bite. Japanese pickles, or tsukemono, can include pickled cucumbers as well as pickled daikon radish, ginger, carrot, and cabbage.
Fermented soybeans make another appearance in a more widely known Japanese dish: miso soup. Miso paste, made from fermented soybeans, is the key component of miso soup. A cup of miso soup can usually be found paired with a steamy bowl of rice for a typical Japanese breakfast. The dashi, or broth, brings umami to the soup, making a slurp of miso soup a great palate enhancer in between your bites of natto. When properly seasoned and paired with other Japanese foods, natto unlocks a depth of flavor for breakfast that you never knew existed.