How Do You Eat Natto?

“What’s the best way to eat natto?” We get asked this all the time. Without fear!

We think Natto can be quite a versatile ingredient and can incorporate well into an endless array of global dishes.

Old School: How is Natto Eaten in Japan?

The most traditional Japanese way of serving natto is simply on a bowl of rice. The vast majority of Japanese consume natto as a quotidien meal in this way, with only some variation of add-on ingredients or condiments used.

How to Prepare Natto Rice

The preparation is simple, start with a basic steamed Japanese rice then prepare the natto with a vigorous stir it to enhance this “neba-neba” quality. Our Natto on Rice recipe explains it all!

Do I Need to Stir My Natto?

No, it’s optional. Personally, sometimes I stir and sometimes I don’t! It’s an aesthetic choice.

Stirring up natto before eating is a Japanese custom that many believe also enhances natto’s healthful properties. In Japan, the question of how many times one must stir one’s natto inspires serious debate. Popular answers range from 30 to 300 times.

Whipping natto introduces air into the sticky biofilm that surrounds the beans, creating a light, foamy mouthfeel, a bit like a freshly made smoothie but stickier. So if you enjoy neba-neba, then stir away because stirring only enhances this quality! If you don’t, no need to do it.

Some people feel that stirring makes the natto taste better by bringing out more umami flavor. This is plausible because the sticky biofilm produced by the natto cultures is made of polymers of glutamic acid (the umami molecule). Vigorous agitation may release some of this glutamate, producing a deeper umami flavor experience.

**What is Neba-neba?**

**NEBA-NEBA**: a slippery, slimy, sticky texture quite common in Japanese cuisine (e.g. okra, taro, wakame seaweed, konjac, squid, raw egg, nemako mushrooms, bubble tea). The word is an “ideophone” meant to mimic the sound of slurping up these foods. Many people also associate the organic, almost sensual mouthfeel *neba-neba* with “healthfullness” in foods.

Does Stirring Natto Really Make it Healthier? No.

There is no scientific evidence that stirring enhances any of the health benefits of natto.

Let’s break it down for each of the three main functional properties:

Probiotics: Since stirring occurs immediately before eating the natto, there is no time for this action to have any impact on growth of the bacterial population.

Vitamin K2: There is no logical reason to expect stirring to have an impact on Vitamin K2 content or function.

Nattokinase: Its function may be more likely inhibited than enhanced by vigorous mixing, as many protein enzymes can easily be damaged by physical agitation and aeration.

How To Eat Natto Rice

Be warned, it’s goopy! Eating natto this way without getting some of its spider web strings everywhere takes some practice. It may be easier to use a spoon than chopsticks.

Some people like to mix the whole thing together; others like to keep the rice/natto more separated. Scooping the rice & natto up in pieces of nori seaweed is another handy way to consume natto rice. Old school natto rice is the dominant recipe for serving natto in Japan, but some alternative regional natto traditions exist.

Natto & Miso: Two Great Tastes Taste Better Together

In some parts of Japan, natto is often consumed in hot miso soup (natto-jiru) instead of rice. Like natto, miso is a traditional fermented soybean product but the two certainly look and taste quite different. Three major differences are (1) miso is made with a very different fermentation process driven by a rice-associated fungus Aspergillus oryzae (2) miso is highly salted and (3) the soybeans are mashed into a paste rather than kept whole during miso production.

A typical Natto-Jiru is a hearty winter dish with origins in Yamagata prefecture in the northern mainland Japan. It consists of a basic miso soup base, loaded with hearty vegetables (e.g. daikon radish, potatoes, carrots, shitake mushrooms), tofu and natto. Traditionally, the natto would be chopped or mashed into a paste before adding into the soup, which would then be boiled for some time before serving.

Can I Cook Natto?

To maximize preservation of natto’s probiotic and other functional components like nattokinase enzymes, we generally recommend to try to avoid boiling or cooking natto extensively at high temperatures.

Adding natto to hot foods at the very end of cooking or just before serving will allow it to retain its full activity.

Miso soup is increasingly popular and easily available here in the US. Miso is an easy-to-use, savory soy-based broth base that can be used as a versatile alternative to meat or vegetable stock.

So here’s our easy modern spin on Natto-jiru, a simple Natto Miso Soup. The earthy, nutty flavor of the natto is complemented nicely by the umami-rich flavor of the miso broth. When diluted into soup the sticky texture of the natto becomes barely noticeable. This is a definite bonus for those still acquiring a liking for neba-neba!

If you’re using an instant miso soup mix, no recipe is needed! Simply dissolve the miso soup components in hot water according to instructions and mix in a tablespoon of our fresh natto!

If you’re making natto from miso paste for the first time, here is a recipe -- so simple, healthy & good!

New World Natto

As many of you know if you’ve been following our Facebook or Instagram news feeds, we are all about using natto in innovative and creative ways! You can find inspiration and ideas for melding natto into cuisines from all around the world on our recipe page.

Adding natto to dishes that bring their own strong flavors and textures to the plate makes it easier to acquire a taste for natto’s novel qualities. As a rule, we think the best way to eat natto is to incorporate it into the foods that you enjoy and eat everyday.

We warmly invite you to share your own ideas and recipes with us. We would love to see!

How to Eat Natto: the Old School Way