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Soy and legumes from Sweden, Peru and Australia

Modern non-traditional tempeh (faba bean, lupin, oats)

Outside Indonesia, researchers grow tempeh mould on local pulses instead of soybeans, such as faba beans and oats in Sweden or lupin (tarwi) in Peru. The beans are soaked, boiled briefly, cooled, mixed with Rhizopus spores and packed into pierced bags at 30 °C. Bitter lupins must first be soaked for days to reduce their toxic alkaloids.

Fully documentedSoy and legumes8.2 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceLaboratory recipe of Fernandez Castaneda et al. (2025) for faba bean tempeh; amounts are per 100 g of beans.
Dehulled faba beans100 g (dry)Or faba beans with 8 % or 15 % whole-grain oats by wet weight[castaneda2025]
Sodium bicarbonate1 % of the dry beansIn the soaking water, to shorten boiling[castaneda2025]
Lactiplantibacillus plantarum (optional)0.1 g per 100 gAdded to the soak in one treatment[castaneda2025]
Rhizopus microsporus spore suspension (about 10^8 per mL)1 mL per 100 g wet beans[castaneda2025]
StarterRhizopus microsporus spore suspension (faba bean study); commercial starters of R. oligosporus (lupin study) and R. oryzae (Australian study)

Total time across the recorded steps: 8.2 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
shapes, not to countL. plantarumClose-up: water moving into a bean25 °C

What changes: Dehulled faba beans soak for 12 hours in water with a little baking soda

Step 1 of 5
Soak the beans
Time
12 h
Reported
Temperature
25 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
L. plantarum
Rhizopus microsporus
Rhizopus oligosporus
Rhizopus mycelium

Output: soaked beans.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

L. plantarum is added to the soak in some treatments; the finished tempeh from those soaks tasted more sour

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Outside Indonesia, researchers grow tempeh mould on local pulses instead of soybeans, such as faba beans and oats in Sweden or lupin (tarwi) in Peru. The beans are soaked, boiled briefly, cooled, mixed with Rhizopus spores and packed into pierced bags at 30 °C. Bitter lupins must first be soaked for days to reduce their toxic alkaloids. Made in 5 steps over 8.2 days. The longest step, debitter lupins (lupin only), takes 6.1 days (Alarcón R. et al. 2026). Rhizopus microsporus and Rhizopus oligosporus do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step6.1 daysReported[alarcon2026]Debitter lupins (lupin only)
Temperature25 °CReported[castaneda2025]Soak the beans
AciditypH 3.5–4.5Reported[alarcon2026]Boil briefly (and acidify, lupin study)

What makes this one different

Unlike Indonesian tempeh, these are made from pulses that grow in cooler climates, often in labs with pure spore cultures, perforated bags or foil and controlled incubators. Lupins need a long debittering soak first.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Faba bean and oat tempeh (Sweden)8 % or 15 % whole-grain oats mixed with faba beans; a soak with L. plantarum improved the flavour.
  • Tarwi and quinoa tempeh (Peru)Andean lupin and red quinoa, each fermented with R. oligosporus at 30 °C.
  • Faba bean tempeh from split beans (Australia)Autoclaved split or crushed faba beans soaked to about 50 % moisture, inoculated with R. oryzae starter (culture to substrate 1:200) and incubated at 25 °C for up to 48 h in a laboratory study [luo2026].

Safety

Bitter lupins are debittered before use to reduce their toxic alkaloids; one study soaked them for 5 days with frequent water changes (Alarcón 2026) and reports no alkaloid level for the tempeh. In a separate test, debittering left all eight lupin samples above the 200 mg/kg limit Australia and New Zealand set for lupin flour (Peloso 2026), so this is not a tested home method for bitter lupin. Faba beans contain L-DOPA, and also vicine and convicine, which can cause favism, an acute haemolytic anaemia, in people with G6PD deficiency (Khazaei 2019). Anyone with that deficiency should not eat ordinary faba bean tempeh.

Hazards the sources name: Quinolizidine alkaloids in lupin (plant toxins, not microbes); Vicine and convicine in faba beans, which can cause favism in people with G6PD deficiency (plant compounds, not microbes).

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Research on faba bean and oat tempeh in Sweden gives the reason for the shift. Soybean is seen as less sustainable in Northern Europe because of its reliance on imports and consumer links to deforestation, GMOs and allergens (Fernandez Castaneda 2025).

  1. [castaneda2025] Fernandez Castaneda L.A., Saini S., Laaksonen O., Kårlund A., Leong S.L., Newson W.R., Passoth V., Hanhineva K., Langton M., Zamaratskaia G. 2025, Sensory and volatile compound profiles in tempeh-like products from faba bean and oats, Current Research in Food Science, article 101029paper
  2. [alarcon2026] Alarcón R. et al. 2026, Tempeh-type fermentation kinetics of tarwi (Lupinus mutabilis) and red quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) with Rhizopus oligosporus, Frontiers in Nutrition 13:1904999paper
  3. [peloso2026] Peloso M., Prizio I., Minkoumba Sonfack G., Molgora E.B., Caprai E. 2026, Quinolizidine alkaloid profiles in lupin-based products, monitoring of the Italian retail market and efficacy of the debittering process, Foods 15(13):2269, doi:10.3390/foods15132269paper
  4. [khazaei2019] Khazaei H. et al. 2019, Eliminating vicine and convicine, the main anti-nutritional factors restricting faba bean usage, Trends in Food Science and Technology 91:549–556paper
  5. [luo2026] Luo J., Pang X., Agarwal D., Buckow R. 2026, Physical, Volatile, and Flavour Precursor Changes in Faba Bean During Rhizopus oryzae Fermentation, Foods 15(20):3683, doi:10.3390/foods15203683paper