Japanese red beans (adzuki) is soaked and then cooked until soft sweetened with sugar and processed into a paste. It is called anko in Japan and hong dou sha in Chinese.
Sweet red bean paste (anko) is very commonly used as filling for steamed buns, breads, pastry. Some even used it in popsicles and ice cream. I remember my grandma making red beans popsicles. Oh my gosh….childhood memory! Making me all soft and teary!
The “traditional” way of making this is by straining it with cheese cloth, etc..etc… lots of work to me. So, thank goodness for the discovery of what we called a “food processor” 😉 That gadget does improve our life, doesn’t it ?
Sweet red bean paste (Anko)
Ingredients
- 10 oz Red beans / Azuki beans
- 1 cup Sugar
Instructions
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Soak the bean for at least 8 hours. I soaked mine overnight and then discard the water
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Prepare a big pot of water and boil the beans until they are soft or cracked open in most cases. Turn off the heat and set aside for about 15 minutes. Drain off the water
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Pour the beans into your food processor and puree until they become a paste consistency. Don't worry about discarding the shells of the beans, this will all be blended and I don't mind extra "starchiness" for my red bean paste
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Place the paste in a non-stick skillet and add the sugar. The sugar will melt and the paste will seem a bit "runny" at first but continue to cook it on medium-high heat until the color darkens and the paste is thickened again
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Let them cool off before filling if you are using this for pastry. They will thicken further
never used this lovely picture
thanks for this, I am making mochi, with red bean paste and i was disappointed that it was a bit runny. this helped a lot.
Hi Tiffany, I’m glad the red bean paste worked out for you 🙂 It’s my favorite too 🙂 and I love mochi
Hi , thanks for the recipe , my children love to eat tau sau pau , definitely I will try it, thanks
Hi Lilian, hope they like the tau sha 🙂 Thanks for stopping by
Hi Marvelina,
I am a Polish girl living in the UK who loves mochi – I was making anko paste yesterday and it was too runny (I got sloppy when cooking it due to kid number 3 distractions) – your recipe gave me the encouragement not to give up on my pot of mushy beans and I did manage to make it thicken in the sugar adding step. Thanks to you I could bring a plate of mochi to my sensei as promised, thanks!
Hi Iga,
was it my recipe that makes the beans runny ?