Sugar-Free Red Bean Paste – Queen Keto

Sugar-Free Red Bean Paste is impossible to find ready-made, but you can make your own easily.

With 1.6g of carbs per 20g serving, it is perfectly usable in a keto or low-carb Asian-style confection. What kind of confection you’ll use it for, is entirely up to you. Heads up, my incredibly low-carb Mochi recipe is coming next, and it needs red bean paste.

You may quickly notice that this Sugar-Free Red Bean Paste is, in fact, not red at all. I could have Photoshopped the photos to make it look more red, but a) I won’t join in the fake blog photos trend;  b)) I would never mislead and disappoint my readers; and c) I haven’t a scooby how to do it – I just know it’s a ‘thing’.

Read on and I will explain all about my brown bean paste and why I had to create a recipe for it.

Sugar-Free Red Bean Paste

In Asian cuisine, sweet red bean paste is created using Adzuki beans (aka azuki or aduki). However, Italian Borlotti beans have a lower carbohydrate content (11.8g per 100g when cooked) compared to adzuki, and they’re also much cheaper and easier to find in supermarkets. The only downside is that Borlotti beans turn brown after cooking them, hence the colour of the paste. In terms of flavour and texture, there’s hardly any difference, hence my choice.

The traditional method for making red bean paste is quite lengthy. However, by using canned beans – which are pre-cooked, and a blender, you can reduce the time considerably.

My recipe involves just beans, sweeteners, and a pinch of salt, plus a little xanthan gum, which is not strictly necessary but I find adds more body to the paste. Chinese red bean paste includes a fat addition, which allegedly adds better consistency and enhances the flavour. I am yet  to try and see what the difference really is. Plus I am not one to add extra fat to my keto recipes unless absolutely necessary. Maybe I’ll test my next batch with 1-2 tablespoons of coconut oil just to appease my curiosity – I will post back here when I do.

So. What on earth compelled me to make a Sugar-Free Red Bean Paste? The answer is: MOCHI!

I tasted Mochi in Korea recently, and I was hooked. Well, not hooked enough to repeat the high-sugar, high-starch experience…my guts weren’t happy, so I wasn’t going to put myself through that again. But it made me determined to create a keto version of Mochi once back home, so this paste is the first step.

Of course, sweet red bean paste isn’t just for Mochi. Korea, Japan and China produce all sorts of delicious confections with it, and I will explore other ways to use it.

Admittedly, red bean paste can be a ‘marmite’ love it or hate it affair. If you’re a low-carber in the ‘love it’ camp,  you’ve come to the right place.

Enjoy!

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• tip the rinsed beans into a blender, add 350ml water and blitz until liquid.

  250 g Borlotti beans (canned), 350 g water

• place a muslin cloth over a tall container or jug, and secure it with an elastic band whilst creating a well, or place the muslin over a strainer on top of your container.

• pour in the bean liquid and let it sit there until most of the excess water has drained away; it can help to use a spoon to swirl and swipe the bean pulp from the bottom of the muslin cloth to allow more water to drip through.

• when the dripping stops, gather the sides of the muslin cloth and lift the pulp out, then squeeze out the remaining liquid (you should obtain about 260g of dry, crumbly pulp).

• transfer the bean pulp to a frying pan over medium-high heat, add salt and sweeteners and keep stirring and swiping the bottom of the pan for a couple of minutes, until the dry pulp becomes more moist.

  100 g allulose, 1.5 tsp pure stevia powder, 1 pinch fine Himalayan salt

• sprinkle gum over the paste and keep stirring and swiping for another minute.

  ¼ tsp xanthan gum

• scoop the paste into a bowl and let it cool.

• once cooled, make a note of the weight (you should obtain approx 350g of finished paste) and use within the next 3-4 days.

Unless you’re planning to use the paste in the next few days, weigh it and divide it into small portions to freeze for later use.
For my upcoming MOCHI recipe (4 servings), you’ll need 80g total of Red Bean Paste.
Weigh ingredients using metric scales:
Metric Food scales (UK)
Metric Food Scales (U.S.)

Serving: 20g | Calories: 13kcal | Carbohydrates: 1.6g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 0g

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