Basic soybean tempeh
This is the most basic, traditional style of tempeh. While we encourage you to play with different beans and grains, don’t look past plain soy tempeh yet. It is delicious and has a distinctive nutty taste and meaty texture; we recommend you start here or with the variation below that steps it up with the addition of chickpeas. Tempeh can be a little finicky, especially with alternative substrates, so it is a good idea to practise with the easier ones first. In Indonesia, sometimes they make tempeh from beans laid out in a single layer, which yields a higher mycelium-to-bean ratio. You don’t need to go to the width of a single bean, but you can make this tempeh thinner to be used as patties for myriad sandwiches.