Korean soy pastes improve butter’s flavor and health benefits
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Researchers in South Korea discovered that adding extracts from traditional fermented soybean pastes to butter increases beneficial bacteria, enhances flavor, and improves appearance.
Scientists at Kongju National University and Chungnam National University experimented with three Korean pastes, cheonggukjang, doenjang, and meju, to see if they could ferment butter in a new way.
They found that butters made with these extracts had higher counts of lactic acid bacteria and a more appealing golden color compared to butter fermented with a standard commercial starter. The team diluted each fermented soybean paste with water, then added it to cream before churning it into butter. They tested the resulting butters for qualities like pH, color, and taste, comparing them to a control batch.
Butters fermented with the soy paste extracts had a higher pH, which the researchers believe could reduce sourness and allow for more flavor development. The meju-fermented butter performed best in taste tests, receiving high scores for flavor, taste, and overall acceptability. The research suggests that traditional Korean fermentation techniques can improve the quality and potentially the health benefits of modern dairy products, offering consumers a richer, more flavorful butter.
