This homemade soy milk is naturally flavored with pandan leaves (use fresh or frozen leaves). Pandan adds a fragrant and gentle vanilla-like element to fresh soy milk. It's easy to make. Just blend, strain, and simmer. Serve it hot or cold, it's delicious both ways.
Why This Recipe Works
Have you followed along on our homemade soy milk adventures?
We started with making plain/classic soy milk. Then we made black sesame soy milk.
Today we are making pandan soy milk! It is easy to do and requires only four ingredients (one of which is water haha).
Pandan soy milk is popular in Vietnamese cuisine (it's called sữa đậu nành lá dứa). We use pandan leaves often in Vietnamese cooking, especially for desserts!
For this recipe we follow the same order and process used for classic soy milk, except we add one extra step. And that step is blending pandan leaves with the soybeans and water in the blender.
The entire pandan leaf is blended right in, It turns the soy milk this beautiful soft green shade. Pandan is such a subtle and elegant flavor. It is fragrant and unassuming. The vanilla-like flavor of pandan gets incorporated into every sip of this soy milk.
To "cook" the soy milk, we simply strain the blended liquid into a pot. Then we cook it over low heat for 15-20 minutes. Sweeten it a little, and then it's ready to enjoy!
You can drink it hot or cold. I prefer it hot, but both ways are delicious.
What Is Pandan?
Pandan is a tropical plant with super fragrant leaves. We use these leaves for cooking. The plant is bold green in color. It is long, slender, and overall just very nice and simple to look at. Pandan is grown all over Southeast Asia.
Because pandan isn't really grown in the US, we buy frozen pandan from the market. You can find them at most Vietnamese markets (and some Chinese and Korean markets).
Note: You can also find pandan extract, powder, and paste at the markets, but I like to use the whole leaves when possible.
As far as flavor goes, pandan has a fragrant vanilla-esque flavor. I like it even more than vanilla. The flavor is more sophisticated and dreamy.
The leaves are used in both savory and sweet dishes...we'll have more pandan recipes soon.
For the soy milk, we defrost frozen pandan leaves and quickly rinse them to clean. Then we pat it dry and cut into smaller pieces (so that it's easy for the blender to break down the fibrous leaves).
Ingredients
Here's what you'll need:
- Dried soybeans
- Pandan leaves - Fresh or frozen leaves work.
- Water
- Honey or sugar - This is just to sweeten the drink.
Step by Step Directions
Let's get cooking:
Soak soybeans.
Place the soybeans in a large bowl. Cover with water and let soak in the refrigerator overnight.
Drain and rinse.
The next day, drain the soybeans and quickly rinse.
Prepare pandan leaves.
Wash the pandan leaves, and cut them into 2-inch pieces.
Pro Tip: Pandan leaves are pretty fibrous. We cut the leaves to make it easier to blend (and so that the blender blade won't be overworked).
Blend.
Place the soybeans and pandan leaves in a blender. Add the water. Blend.
Strain.
Use a nut milk bag or cheesecloth to strain the soy milk into a pot. You can discard the leftover pulp. Bring the strained liquid to a boil and then quickly reduce heat to low.
Cook.
Let soy milk simmer for 15-20 minutes on low heat to fully "cook" the soybeans. Sweeten.
Note: You can't drink the soy milk right after it reaches a boil. The soy beans are raw and they need to be slowly cooked through.
Drink and enjoy.
Pour into cups, drink and enjoy! Serve hot or chilled.
FAQs and Tips
The leftover soybean pulp is called okara. Okara is also the name of a popular dish.
When making plain soy milk, we often use the leftover soy bean pulp to make the okara dish.
But because we blend pandan leaves with these soybeans and the pandan flavor don't match other ingredients in the okara dish, we usually just discard the pandan soybean pulp. (Some people have suggested making okara cookies, we will try this next time).
It's best fresh, but will keep in the refrigerator for 2-3 days.
Keep a close eye on the pot when boiling the soy milk. This is because the soy milk goes from not boiling to overflowing the pot very quickly!
I've made the mistake of stepping away for a minute...and then came back to a stove covered in soy milk.
So do we ^_^ One of the neatest parts about soy milk is that you can create many flavor variations.
Make sure to try our recipes for:
- Homemade Soy Milk - the original, a classic and forever favorite.
- Black Sesame Soy Milk - homemade soy milk with roasted black sesame. Super fragrant and rich.
This is a personal preference. You can use any type of sweetener you prefer. Sometimes we rock sugar / brick sugar. We've even made it with ginger syrup and date syrup. Every sweetener will alter the flavor of the drink a different way. There is no right or wrong, so just go with the one you like best.
Pandan Soy Milk Recipe
See below and enjoy ^_^
Pandan Soy Milk
This homemade soy milk is naturally flavored with pandan leaves (use fresh or frozen leaves). Pandan adds a fragrant and gentle vanilla-like element to fresh soy milk. Easy to make. Just blend, strain, and simmer. Super delicious hot or cold.
Ingredients
- ½ cup dried soybeans
- 3-5 pandan leaves, fresh or frozen
- 4 cups water
- 1-2 tablespoons honey (or sugar)
Instructions
- Place the soybeans in a large bowl. Cover with water and let soak in the refrigerator overnight.
- The next day, drain the soybeans and quickly rinse.
- Gently wash the pandan leaves, and cut them into 2-inch pieces.
- Place the soybeans and cut pandan leaves in a blender. Add the water. Blend for 1-2 minutes on "high."
- Use a nut milk bag or cheesecloth to strain the soy milk into a pot. You can discard the leftover pulp. Bring the strained liquid to a boil and then quickly reduce heat to low.
- Let pandan soy milk simmer for 15-20 minutes on low heat to fully "cook" the soybeans. Sweeten with the honey or sugar.
- Pour into cups, drink and enjoy! Serve hot or chilled.
Notes
- Keep a close eye on the pot when boiling the soy milk. This is because the soy milk goes from not boiling to overflowing the pot very quickly!
- If you are making plain soy milk, use the leftover soy bean pulp to make okara.
- For another variation on soy milk, try this homemade black sesame soy milk.
Mahalo for Reading!