Making your own homemade tempeh is very easy and way more tasty than store-bought tempeh. It’s a healthy side dish or snack. Here in Indonesia it’s very common and versatile. It’s an excellent protein source as well. Besides that, soy beans are common, making your own tempeh at home is cheap and doable. So there are plenty of reasons to try out this recipe. I made a video available: How to make Tempeh from Scratch (it’s on the bottom)
Ingredients
- Soybeans (500 gr)
- rice flour
- tempeh starter
- vinigar
Read my how-to guide if you are interested in making your own tempeh starter.
Preparing the soybeans
The first step is just washing the soybeans. Wash them good and massage the beans a little bit by stirring with your hands. Some foam will come just rinse and repeat several times.

After washing, boil the soybeans. You shoul boil them for about 10 minutes. This makes them softer and easier to remove the skin. After boiling them, wash the beans with cold water. Now when it’s not hot anymore, stir with your hands. This makes the skin lose. They will float by themselfs. Seperate the skin from the beans,




Boil again and add vinegar
Now when the skin is removed, boil the soybeans again. This time for about 30 minutes. During this process add some vinegar. It’s not that mush. 2 teaspoons should be enough. After this, drain the water.
Drying the beans

You can dry in different ways. The purpose is to remove as much as possible water. I just heat a wok and remove the moist that way. If you do this, remember to keep stirring so you won’t burn it.
Mix with the starter tempeh

After the soybeans are dry, spread them out. Cool them off. After that you can mix them with the rice flour and starter tempeh. Mix the starter tempeh and rice flour first. As you can see, I don’t need a lot.
Pack the tempeh
When everything is mixed well you can start packing the soybeans. make sure that the tempeh can breath so poke a few holes. This allows for spore growth. Put them flat under a table cloth and cover it with a table cloth as well. The next step (waiting) depends a bit on the room temperature.
TIP: Store this in a warmer darker place of the house. This could be the dryer room for example.
24 hours later
After 24 hours, we can see clear growth of spores on the soy beans. It’s almost ready! I am waiting 5 hours more.
We have now homemade tempeh
what a beautiful sight. The fermentation process worked as expected. We have now our own home made delicious tempeh. Much better than what you buy outside. As you can see it’s very dense with soybeans. Per 100gr about 20% is protein. This is now ready to be cooked in dishes.
Try cooking tempeh in Indonesian Vegetarian Fried Rice. It’s super delicious, and quick to make. You would only need 10 minutes for that dish
Homemade Tempeh summary

Homemade tempeh from scratch
Ingredients
- 500 gr Soybeans
- 1/2 tsp riceflour
- 1/4 tsp tempeh starter
- 2 tsp vinegar
Instructions
- wash the soybeans very good
- Boil soybeans for 10 minutes
- Wash soybeans with cold water, remove the skin
- Boil soybeans for 30 minutes
- Dry the soybeans, can be done in a hot pan but keep stirring
- Cool the soybeans
- Add a mix of rice flour and tempeh starter
- pack it up and make holes for the tempeh to breath
- wait for about 29 hours depends on room temperature
thank you was looking how to make tempeh