Any advice on how I should prepare Natto for the first time?

36 comments

1. Open the bin and put it in

2. I see people put it on rice with green onion, or on toast with butter and melted cheese.

   But from what I hear, it isn’t the flavor that gets you the first time so much as it is the texture/visual.

3. I hear natto’s pretty gnarly. If I were to eat it, I might buy instant miso ramen, then combine it with natto, kimchi, corn, bean sprouts, and cream cheese, like they do in Iwate Prefecture. I imagine having it combined with all those flavourful ingredients would help with the nasty gooeyness. https://koizumi-san.fandom.com/wiki/Natto_Kimchi_Rare_Cheese

4. I like mine served over rice. Not a super big fan of this particular packet though. I prefer the flavoured ones.

5. If you are comfortable making makizushi, that’s a pretty safe bet for an intro. I like mine with seasoned rice, green onions and shoyu, whether in a roll or in a bowl!

6. Agree with serving over rice. I would definitely recommend buying the type with the seasoning packet but in a pinch I’ve used some seasoned rice vinegar and chili oil. Be sure to stir well until it’s almost creamy. It may be an acquired taste for some but I loved it the first time I tried it.

7. It is great in miso soup.

8. I honestly will never eat it again. I got fooled by a Japanese friend on my first trip to Tokyo. They were like oh you definitely need to try this one (it was sushi natto) and waited till I had put the whole thing in my mouth to tell me “foreigners hate this one”. I for sure hated it and it killed my appetite haha.

9. Stir it really well it’ll become lighter in color and enjoy.

10. 1) remove package from fridge.

    2) do not open

    3) put in trash

    I kid. But the flavor is like strong cheese and the texture is like lumpy slime.

    It’s good in miso soup tho.

11. Don’t.

12. It’s actually kinda good with nachos in place of black beans/refried beans.

    Traditional and my favorite is with soy sauce and some scallions, over rice.

    Both the flavor and texture are unusual for westerners, but not inherently bad. My kids loved it immediately when it was given to them as toddlers and they still love it, although they’re now aware that a lot of their friends won’t eat it. Was the same for me growing up. I didn’t even realize it was ‘smelly’ until I ordered natto rolls for myself on a date in college and my date started looking around the restaurant suspiciously and said “did someone shit their pants?”

13. I would have to disagree with some here – I find the flavor (especially of these packaged frozen ones) to be pretty tame. I want to try making my own sometime.

14. Mix in some soy sauce and karashi and you could top it with green onion. If you don’t want the texture to be too sticky then don’t mix it up too much. Serve over rice.

15. Put it in the trash. That’s how I prepare it.

16. Throw in a bowl with a touch of soy and mustard if you like, and mix plenty until it becomes super gooey. Add to rice with some chopped scallywag greens and enjoy!

17. Simple is better, just get a small bowl of rice, add the included flavoring to the beans in the Styrofoam container (usually its a syrupy sweet soy sauce and a bit of hot mustard) and mix well, then dump into the rice and mix thoroughly l, then eat with nori. I dunno about these other guys but I eat it quite regularly and don’t notice that strong of a flavor

18. It’s very popular to eat it over rice with green onions (and often a raw egg, too). I don’t put that much effort into it though, I just eat it as-is with the included sauce (though it looks like yours doesn’t have one?) and then sprinkle some furikake on top for added texture. I eat it twice a week as part of my breakfast on my days off work.

    I hated it the first time I tried it and didn’t even finished the first pack I had tried. But then the following week I didn’t want to waste all three of them, so I just ended up eating the other two anyway on my days off that week. By the end of the third pack I could kind of tolerate it… so I ended up buying more because I figured it would be worth eating something I simply tolerated because it was so healthy.

    Anyway fast forward over a year later and I love it now. Think it took a few weeks to around a month of eating it twice a week to get to the point of actively enjoying it for me.

19. Hot rice with soy sauce and other stuff (scallions) maybe. Some people put it on toast but I’d personally season it if you do

20. Oh yeah……. There is a heaven , and the heaven is made of natto…….
    Do you want to known a way to prepare it ? To enjoy this pleasure of beans and smelliness?

    Imagine yourself swimming in a sea of natto… a sea , in direction of an isle of beans and colorfull vegetables. When you arrive there there will be an angel waiting for you, singing Melodies from heaven and saying: I natto you.

    Be naked and pass natto in your body…. Eat it.
    Or prepare it with shoyu and wasabi and mostard and green onion with rice .

    probably

21. Top steamed rice with it, then toss it in the bin.

22. I had it in gunkan sushi and honestly found it inoffensive, just a strange texture. If you’re terrified dip it in soy sauce and/or top with wasabi. But I honestly don’t get what the hype is about. I was expecting it to be on the level of chodofu and it’s definitely not.

23. Watch videos on how to stir it up. I put over rice with kimchi, crack an egg in there and top with furikake.

24. I eat it alone tbh love the stuff

25. Ok find a pack with the sauce and the mustard in it. Bonus points for green onion. Make some fresh
    Japanese rice. Open the styrofoam pack, take the packets out, remove the protective cover. Put the mustard and sauce into the beans and stir it up a bunch. You build up some viscous stuff but you want that. Add it to the hot rice and enjoy.

26. Mix it around until it’s foamy. You can add a touch of vinegar to it as well along with what comes with it. Like others have said, you can add sliced green onion to mix it with as well.

    I prep it different ways depending on how lazy I am. I’ve even used it as a filling for tamagoyaki or a topping for udon(natto, kimchi udon).

27. Steamed rice with a sunny side up egg, natto, kimchi, and some ponzu!

28. So how I learned how to serve and eat natto was doing a set at Yoshinoya..

    Mix up the natto with the seasoning packets, stir it a lot to get it really…sticky…

    Dump it over a bowl of rice.

    Now, Yoshinoya would serve it with this little packet of nori strips, so you’d get a strip, put it over the natto rice, and then use your chopsticks to pinch a bit of rice and natto together in the nori. It’s a neat, fun move, and all of the flavors and textures combined are tasty as fuck.

29. Don’t

30. this is something you’re gonna have to trust me on:

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    mix all packing, stir clockwise 50 times, counter clockwise 15 times, then 50 times clockwise.

    you need this amount of froth to really enjoy the taste bubbles.

31. I know it is going to sound crazy, but mix it with avocado. Add some salt, soy, or tamari, and the hot mustard and vinegar packet that comes with it. It is delicious this way and not as funky. Put the whole mixture with some rice and an egg for a larger meal.

32. Just toss it in the trash and eat something good instead

33. On a toast with a slice of cheese on top and grilled in the toaster 😉

34. Prepare yourself.

35. First time- put on grilled cheese sandwich. Then buy the stuff with the little sauce pack and eat it: over rice, on soba, in grilled tofu (Abura-age) pockets, in sushi, out of the container straight. Enjoy!

36. If you can get Negi, (spring onions) cut those up pretty finely and mix with the natto! This combination is a good kick of flavor