If you are a fan of Japanese desserts then you are most likely a fan of red bean paste! Used in Japanese cuisine, red bean paste, or anko (餡子) has a sweet flavor similar to sweet potatoes with a sticky, almost creamy texture. Only two ingredients are needed to make red bean paste – sugar and adzuki beans.
Sweet red bean paste, known as anko (餡子) in Japanese, is one of the most iconic ingredients in traditional and modern Japanese desserts. It’s the mashed purple bean found in sweets such as dorayaki, taiyaki, daifuku, anpan, and shaved ice. If you’ve ever wondered how Japanese sweets get their signature flavor, chances are, anko is the answer.
While it’s easy to find canned versions at Asian grocery stores, making anko at home gives you complete control over the sweetness and texture. I find that certain canned versions are a bit too sweet for my taste, so making it at home is a better option. This simple recipe requires only four ingredients and the taste can be adjusted to your liking.
Table of contents
What Is Red Bean Paste?
Red bean paste, called anko (餡子) in Japanese, is a sweet paste made of adzuki beans (red beans) and sugar that have cooked until the beans get mushy. It’s often used in Chinese, Korean and Japanese cooking, primarily in confections such as dango and dorayaki, and sometimes in soups (red bean soup called zenzai).
Types of Anko (Chunky vs Smooth)
There are many different types of red bean paste available but the most popular ones in Japan are:
- Tsubuan (粒餡) – Chunky: Whole adzuki beans boiled with sugar and left as they are.
- Tsubushian (粒あん) – Lightly Mashed: Boiled adzuki beans that have been mashed with the skin on.
- Koshian (漉し餡) – Smooth: boiled adzuki beans that have been passed through a sieve to remove the skin.
- Sarashian (晒し餡) – dehydrated adzuki bean powder that is reconstituted with water.
- Ogura-an (小倉餡) – a mixture of koshian and tsubuan paste.
Red Bean Paste Ingredients
- Adzuki beans (荅): Dried adzuki beans. The quality of the beans matters, so try to use fresh, high-quality azuki beans whenever possible.
- Sugar: Plain granulated white sugar.
- Water: 4 cups to boil the sugar and adzuki beans.
- Salt: Just a pinch to balance the sweetness and nuttiness of the paste.
How To Make Red Bean Paste
For this anko recipe, I’m using the tsubushian technique of boiling the beans and mashing them with the skin on. The texture isn’t as smooth as mashing them through a sieve but it’s just as delicious and pleasant to the palate.
- Soak the beans. I recommend doing it overnight or for 6-8 hours.
- Rinse and drain the adzuki beans. Then transfer them to a pot along with 4 cups of water.
- Simmer the beans. It will take approximately 1 hour for the beans to get soft.
- Add the sugar and salt. Keep stirring as you add the sugar and salt until a paste begins to form.
- Place anko in a bow and let cool. Serve and enjoy!
Texture and Sweetness Tips
Small adjustments can make a big difference in how your anko turns out.
For Smoother Anko
- Mash thoroughly while warm
- Pass through a fine sieve if desired
- Cook a little longer for silkier texture
For Chunkier Anko
- Mash lightly
- Leave some beans intact
- Reduce final cooking time slightly
Adjusting the sweetness
- Less sweet: Reduce sugar by 10–20%
- Not sure how sweet you want your anko to be? Then start slow and add sugar gradually and taste as you go
Common Cooking Mistakes
If your anko didn’t turn out perfectly, one of these may be the reason:
- Cooking beans too aggressively (leads to broken skins)
- Not cooking long enough (watery paste)
- Adding sugar too early
- Skipping stirring near the end (burning risk)
- Overcooking (dry, crumbly texture)
Low, steady heat and patience are key to making a success red bean paste.
Storage
Fridge. Store red bean paste in an airtight storage container and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.
Red bean paste can also be frozen! Simply place the paste in an airtight storage bag or container – once the mixture has cooled down to room temperature – and freeze for up to 2 months.
How To Use Anko
There are several ways to enjoy red bean paste.
Some of the more popular uses are:
- As a topping for green tea flavored shaved ice or matcha ice cream, topped with anmitsu and dango (rice dumplings)
- As a filling for mochi (rice cakes), dorayaki, manju (steamed cakes), and daifuku (strawberry wrapped in anko and mochi)
- In yokan (red bean jelly) and green tea popsicles
- As a spread for toast (ogura toast)
- In zenzai which is a traditional Japanese dessert soup
Other yummy Japanese desserts you might like to try: Fluffy Japanese cheesecake, coffee jelly, castella cake, matcha mochi cookies, mitarashi dango.
Sweet Red Bean Paste (Anko) – 餡子
A traditional Japanese sweet red bean paste made with azuki beans.
- Prep Time: 5 minute
- Cook Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Yield: about 1 cup 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Boiling
- Cuisine: Japanese
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (about 105 grams) adzuki beans
- 4 cups water
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt (optional)
Instructions
- Soak the beans. Soak azuki beans for 6-8 hours or overnight. Rinse under cold water and drain.
- Boil them. Add the beans to a pot along with 4 cups of water and bring to a boil. Lower heat to a simmer, cover and cook for 1 hour or until beans are soft enough that you can easily squash them between your fingers.
- Drain them. Drain well and return beans to the pot.
- Season them. Add sugar and salt and turn the heat on to medium high. Stir constantly for 7-10 minutes and occasionally mash the beans against the side of the pot until the mixture turns into a paste.
- Serve. Turn the heat off and transfer the paste into a bowl. Cool to room temperature before using. Serve with ice cream, use a topping for pancakes, as a filling for dorayaki or taiyaki, etc…
Notes
Storage: Transfer the anko in a storage container and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks. Or, freeze adzuki bean in an airtight storage bag or container for up to 2 months.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/4 cup
- Calories: 215
- Sugar: 33g
- Sodium: 74mg
- Fat: 0.1g
- Saturated Fat: 0.1g
- Unsaturated Fat: 0g
- Trans Fat: 0g
- Carbohydrates: 49.9g
- Fiber: 3.3g
- Protein: 5.2g
- Cholesterol: 0mg
Frequently Asked Questions
Like bean jam. The taste is quite sweet but with an earthy and nutty flavor coming from the beans themselves. It’s close to a Japanese sweet potato but with more complex flavors.
No. Adzuki beans are about half the size of kidney beans. They are higher in calories than kidney beans, but also contain more protein and fiber. Adzuki beans originate from China whereas kidney beans are native to Central America and Mexico.
The color will get darker and the smell will be less sweet, more earthy, and pungent.
Traditional anko uses azuki beans. Other beans won’t produce the same flavor or texture.
Really try not to use any sugar. How about using stevia for sweetening?
I also see fermenting this paste for long term use. Have you tried this?
Hi Tanya! I have never tried making this dish with stevia so I’m not sure how it would turn out. But I have made it using less sugar and it was still tasty 🙂 As for fermenting, I don’t think it would taste good since the taste of anko is mild and sweet (not fermented flavor). But if you do try to do it, please let me know how it turns out! 🙂
Hi Caroline! Thank you so much for your recipe.
I want to make a batch in advance, can I keep it in a sterilize sealed jar in my pantry for some time? And then once I opened it, in the fridge?
Thank you so much
Hi Iliana! yes you can but I would keep it in the fridge the entire time just in case 🙂
Great recipe! I cooked the beans in my instant pot to reduce prep time and used 1/3 cup of sugar which was the right amount of sweetness for me.
While this is a very easy recipe, I also have seen red bean paste in cans, which is even easier. Do you think the taste of home-made paste is markedly better? My son loves red bean confections, but even so,I can’t see myself using a whole lot of it.
Hi Alice, I wouldn’t say it’s better, but the advantage of making it at home is you get to control the level of sweetness in the anko. I find anko to be too sweet at times so I enjoy making it at home 🙂
Hi, can I use kidney beans instead? Is it very different this way? And thanks for your good recipe
Hi Setare! I wouldn’t recommend using kidney beans as adzuki beans have a different texture and slightly different taste. You should be able to find adzuki beans at a natural food store or Whole Foods, or you can order them on Amazon 🙂
Hello!
I just made anko and it the color isn’t as pretty as yours! It’s a very pale color and although it tastes good, it doesn’t look very appealing. Is there a way to fix this? Thank You!
Hi Joha! The color of the anko should be a rich brownish red color, but if the taste is good my guess is that you didn’t anything wrong, it was probably the color of the beans that caused the color to be pale. There are pale white beans called shiro-ingen-mame that are also used to make white anko so don’t worry too much about the color, as long as it tastes good, enjoy! 🙂
Do you eat this by itself or what can you eat this with? Thank you 🙂
Hi Mary, anko is best when used as a topping for desserts (over ice cream, spread on cookies or pancakes). Also, here’s a recipe I have for a traditional Japanese dessert called dorayaki https://pickledplum.com/recipe/dorayaki-red-bean-paste-pancakes/
I know it’s Caroline NOT … UGH I really dislike autocorrect sometimes. Sorry!
Love the family pic Catoline! Brain Freeze? LOL
Haha yes! Let’s just say I had a major sweet tooth as a kid, especially when it came to ice treats!