kinako mochi | きな粉餅
Kenji Morimoto is a London-based Japanese American food writer and content creator who specializes in fermentation. He draws from his cultural heritage to teach, write, and share culinary knowledge through various platforms, including his popular Instagram @kenjcooks and his upcoming book "Ferment."
Kenji Morimoto•
September 10, 2025
Everyone has that one dish where the mere mention brings backs memories of a person, and for me, that's kinako. It's a perfect sweet snack or dessert.
Kinako is roasted soybean powder and my maternal grandmother always loved eating it, mixed with sugar, and covering sticky and glutinous mochi. It's an earthy ingredient and I'm often surprised it hasn't become more mainstream as time has passed but when mixed with sugar (and perhaps even with a pinch of salt), it becomes a rather addictive flavour. I tend to think mochi is really just the vehicle to enjoy this kinako sugar mixture.
My mother also loves kinako mochi and as she showed me her process of making it, much as my grandmother did, it's one of those "recipes" where ingredients are more-or-less eyeballed and to personal taste. My family (as well as Japanese, more generally) have a sweet leaning palette so feel free to adjust the below to your preferences!
My family tends to boil mochi as our preferred method however if you prefer to toast or grill it, it'll still be delicious.
Ingredients (3)
Ingredients (3)
Instructions
Boil the mochi (2) for 3-5 minutes until fairly gooey and cooked through.
As the mochi boil, mix the kinako powder (118 mL) and sugar (½) together in a bowl.
Aim for equal parts of these two ingredients but adjust to personal taste. If you're making a larger quantity of this mixture, move the excess mixture into a separate container before moving on to the next step.
Once the mochi is done cooking, immediately put them into the bowl of the kinako mixture. Mix this all together and ensure the mochi is fully covered and enjoy!
Notes
Notes
This recipe will inevitably make more of the kinako mixture than what's needed - keep it in an airtight container and use for other applications: on yogurt or oatmeal, mixed into a custard tart, incorporated into ice creams, or sprinkled on toast.
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