What are soy curls, and why we keep a bag going
One ingredient. Whole soybeans. Not a fake meat, and better than most of them.
The BetterDay Kitchen2 min read
Soy curls turn up on the shelf next to a wall of plant-based products with twenty-item ingredient lists, and they have one. Soybeans. That is the whole package.
How they are made
Whole non-GMO soybeans are cooked, then extruded and dried into strips. Nothing is taken out. The fibre, the protein and the fat of the whole bean are all still in there, which is exactly the point and what separates them from products built out of isolated soy protein.
They come out of the bag dry and shelf-stable, rehydrate in warm water in about ten minutes, and land somewhere between shredded chicken and pulled pork in texture. They are also naturally gluten free, unlike seitan, which matters if you are cooking for someone with celiac disease.
What is actually in them
Per 30 gram serving, which is about three quarters of a cup dry:
- 100 calories
- 10 g protein
- 4.5 g fat
- 5 g carbohydrate, of which 3 g is fibre
- 0 mg sodium
Ten grams of protein for a hundred calories is a genuinely good ratio. The zero sodium is the quietly useful part, because almost every other plant-based protein on that shelf arrives pre-salted and you cannot take it back out. With soy curls you season them yourself.
Cooking them
- 1Soak in warm water for 10 to 15 minutes until soft all the way through.
- 2Drain and squeeze them out properly. This is the step that decides everything. Wet curls will not absorb marinade and will not brown.
- 3Marinate for at least 30 minutes. They are porous the whole way through, so they take flavour deeper than meat does.
- 4Cook them hot. Pan-fry, roast, grill or air fry. They want browning, not gentle heat.
Where they go
Anywhere you would use shredded chicken. Stir fries, curries, fajitas, tacos, wraps, salads, a barbecue sandwich, or tossed in hot sauce for buffalo. They hold their texture in a sauce far better than tofu does, which is why we reach for them for anything saucy.
Buying them in Calgary
Butler is the brand to look for and the one most recipes are written around. Community Natural Foods carries them locally, and they are easy to find online. A bag keeps for a very long time in the cupboard, which is the other reason we always have one.
Rather not cook tonight
We make this kind of food every week.
See this week’s menuRead next
- RecipesRoasted soy curls with garlic and oreganoMarinate, roast, done. The chewiest, most useful plant protein in your cupboard.
- IngredientsThe soy myths, and why we still cook with itSoy spent twenty years being the villain of the health aisle. The human research tells a different story.
- In the kitchenGoing plant-based in a house that is notThe hard part is rarely the food. It is cooking two dinners and defending your choice over both of them.