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What To Do With Pulp From Plant Milks

Just about anybody who makes their own plant milks at home has ended up with a bowlful of strained-out pulp at the end and wondered whether to toss it or keep it. To a beginner, the pulp left over from soy milk, almond milk, and other milks might seen like culinary deadweight. However, as we’ll cover in this post, there are a host of delicious and nutritious ways to cook with plant milk pulps!

Why Keep The Pulp?

Home cooking can open our eyes to the practices of processed food and foster a better connection with our food. Commercial soy pulp usually diverted to animal feed, or even worse, dumped to rot, but when you make your own soy milk, you can retain the whole food that was made for you. In fact, you can find dehydrated soy pulp at Japanese grocery stores, so why not use your own!

The pulp of a bean, seed, or nut milk is packed with nutrients. One of these is fiber, which is shown to support heart health, gut health, and satiety. There are also the remaining complex carbohydrates, proteins, and fats that weren’t extracted into the milk. This makes the pulp a nutritional powerhouse – all we need is some creativity to turn it into a delicious dish.

Recipe Ideas

Without further ado, here are 15 different sweet and savory ideas you can make with pulp. You can find freely available recipes for almost all these dishes online. Many of them also work better with very finely ground pulp, which our SoyaJoy machines provide due to the advanced blending design.

  1. Granola – Mix it in with rolled oats and all your favorite granola fixings when making homemade granola. Depending on how dry your okara is, adjust the amount of liquids added to achieve a good consistency (not too crumbly or wet) before baking.
  2. Loaded toast – Simply pile a hearty helping of pulp on toast and add savory toppings, sauces, and seasonings. With okara, we like Asian-style toppings such as green onions, dried shrimp, and some classic Lao Gan Ma chili crisp.
  3. Hummus – Stir in some olive oil, lemon juice, tahini, and spices for a deliciously hearty hummus to slather on veggies, chips, wraps, and sandwiches. It helps to let the pulp drain extra long first to avoid a soupy spread – simply let it rest in the sieve or nut milk bag.
  4. Baked Goods – Add a scoop of pulp to boost your muffins, breads, breakfast bars, loaf cakes, and cookies.
  5. Pastry Crust – Use dried pulps to add flavor and fiber to crusts for pies, tarts, and dessert bars.
  6. Crackers – Make crispy crackers by adding pulp (usually dried) to a simple cracker base with oil, seasonings, and some flour if needed
  7. Oatmeal – Stir it into your porridge of choice to add some more nutrition for a breakfast that sticks.
  8. Polenta – Plant pulps are a natural fit for a polenta addition
  9. Smoothies – A high-powered blender helps blast pulp particles into a perfectly smooth and filling fruit smoothie or protein shake
  10. Tempeh – This classic Indonesian food was thought to originate with the use of okara, or soy pulp. It’s surprisingly easy to ferment tempeh at home – give it a try!
  11. Meat Substitutes – Especially with protein-rich pulps such as okara, there are tons of recipes for seitan, burger patties, nuggets, meatballs, mock fish, and more!
  12. Unohana – Try this Japanese side dish of sauteed okara
  13. Tuna Salad – Try your classic tuna salad or even a vegan tuna salad recipe with some pulp blended in
  14. Pancakes – Use fresh pulp to make sweet or savory Asian-style pancakes, or add some dried pulp to a classic buttermilk pancake batter.
  15. Scrambled Eggs – This might seem weird, but a fine-ground pulp blends smoothly into scrambled eggs or vegan scrambles
  16. Quiche – Use pulp in a quiche crust or filling. The fiber teams up with the eggs to make an even more hearty and satiating slice!

Tips for Cooking With Pulp

Just a few bits of know-how can help you get in the habit of cooking up delicious foods with the pulp from plant milks.

  • Preservation is key – Make sure to store your pulp after making plant milks if you don’t intend on using it right away. Depending on your favorite recipes, that might mean drying it the oven or a dehydrator, freezing it, or just popping it in the fridge for a quick stay.
  • Remove moisture – Even in recipes with fresh pulp, you usually want to press out all the moisture possible from the pulp first. With a sieve, simply press with a spatula or wooden spoon, and with a nut milk bag, give it a good squeeze. Then, let it rest in the sieve or bag for a little while to continue draining. Remember, it’s always easier to add water once you’ve started cooking!
  • Get adventurous – Enjoy the opportunity to explore new foods and recipes you might not otherwise! Feel free to reimagine and invent your own recipes along the way.

Not all okara is equal

While the okara you get from straining soymilk made with your Sanlinx soymilk machine is completely cooked and safe to eat, be aware that okara from other sources may be raw. Other sources may include tofu shops and factories and store-bought okara. Raw okara is not safe because it contains anti-nutrients, which must be destroyed by wet cooking (eg. boiling and steaming) for at least 20 minutes, as our machines do. You can identify raw okara by its strong, fresh, soybean aroma.

Non-Food Uses for Pulp

Lastly, if all the above fails and you’re looking for something to save the pulp from going straight into the trash, consider some of these unique uses for pulp.

  • Compost – Make sure to follow composting guidelines as with all food waste
  • Skin Scrub – Plant pulps make for a gently exfoliating and deeply nourishing scrub for the body

Go forth and pulp!