edamame
Americanplural noun
Usage
What are edamame? Edamame are unripe soybeans. Edamame are soybeans that are picked while green and unripe and then steamed, boiled, or roasted in their pods. Each pod contains one to four beans. Edamame is normally eaten as a side dish or appetizer in Japanese and Asian fusion cuisine. When eaten as a side dish, it’s usually served within the pod with a soy sauce or glaze. Generally you only eat the beans, not the pods. The pods aren’t poisonous, but they are hard to chew and don’t digest well. Shelled edamame can be used in salads, poke bowls, noodle dishes, soups, and other dishes. Edamame is both singular and plural, meaning it can refer to each seed individually, a group of seeds, each pod, or a group of pods. Example: The first time I had edamame, I didn’t know you were supposed to take off the shells before eating them.
Etymology
Origin of edamame
1950-55; < Japanese eda branch, twig + mame beans
Explanation
Edamame are young, green soybeans. In Japanese restaurants, edamame are served steaming hot, sprinkled with salt, still inside their pods. Half the fun of eating edamame is squeezing the tasty little beans out of the pod into your mouth. They can also be incorporated in dishes, taking the place of peas or other beans. In Japan, there's a different name for shelled soybeans: mukimame. Edamame means "stem beans" or "twig beans" in Japanese, for the fact that they were traditionally sold in markets still attached to their stems.
Vocabulary lists containing edamame
Foods from Asia
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5th Grade World Cuisine, List 2
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Legendary Frybread Drive-In
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
High protein frozen foods like edamame and Marie Callender’s Chicken Parmigiana Bowl are seen as potential growth areas.
From Barron's ● Jun. 29, 2026
Soy foods include tofu, soy milk, edamame, tempeh, and miso.
From Science Daily ● May 26, 2026
But this place has the best edamame so I can’t help but enjoy it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 14, 2025
"Plant-based foods that have adequate amounts of all nine essential amino acids include tofu, tempeh, edamame, pistachios, chia seeds, nutritional yeast and buckwheat," she said.
From Salon ● Oct. 11, 2023
There were milkshakes, lemonade, sweetgrass tea, NDN tacos, bison burgers, elk stew and cornbread, fries, veggie roast, edamame with wild rice, and so much more.
From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
