Featured comment
I LOVE THIS WITH ALL MY HEART! I’m Kenyan, we eat this too only we call it ndengu. I love it sooo much. The recipe is on point as well. God bless you!
Christial
Whoa! There it is, in all it’s shockingly green wonderfulness.
If I just saw that picture and post title on someone else’s blog, I would think two things:
- It’s veryvery green.
- Monggo, Mung, Malunggay? Way too scary.
If this is any comfort to how you might be feeling, Bjork was watching me take pictures of this green mess and he said with a crinkled nose, “What is that again?” So no, you’re not the only one wondering what this craziness is all about. PS. He might not want me to tell you this, but he ate it and totally loved it. Psh, boys.
Today I’m gonna get all y’all excited about some delicious green international food. Yeah? Let’s do it.
Starting with the monggo beans.
Monggos are the same thing as mung beans. They are widely used in Asian countries and they cook almost exactly like lentils. LENTILS! My favorite! And something you can almost for surely buy wherever you live. Whether you use lentils or monggo (mung) beans, you’ll pretty much turn into a walking picture of health. These little guys are your friend.
Now these beauties. These are malunggay leaves.
Malunggay leaves a new to me – and apparently they’re like the world’s best superfood. Of course I learn this just a few weeks before leaving the land full of malunggay. But I haven’t been living with my head under a rock or anything.
If you are cooking in a place that doesn’t have malunggay leaves available, just use fresh baby spinach. Chop it up and use it in the exact same way. It’ll be almost the same except the little malunggay leaves are 200 times cuter than spinach could ever be.
A reader actually commented on my post about the market and asked suggested trying a recipe with kamungay, but when I asked for some help finding it, the guy at the grocery store told me that kamungay is the same as malunggay. Is that right? Anyways, thank you Melissa for inspiring me to go find something new even if I ended up with something that starts with a different letter.
So now that you know about monggo beans and malunggay, let’s talk about what this tastes like.
The main flavors here are coconut milk, garlic, ginger, and onion. The creaminess comes from the coconut milk but also the monggos, because as they cook the skins start to fall off, and some of the beans sort of just dissolve into the soup. The fresh malunggay gets stirred in and the end because Melissa told me to. And it’s fresh and yummy.
This is going to be weird, but I cannot tell you how much this is like comfort food to me. Not because I am so familiar with monggos, but because it’s like a hot, creamy, flavorful gravy sauce that’s just gets soaked up and mixed in with the rice. I love that kinda stuff.
I have a confession that I feel really guilty about. I did add a little curry paste to this which is totally not authentically Filipino, but I couldn’t resist. I looked from the brand new jar of yellow curry paste, to the pot of boiling monggos, to the sauteing onions and garlic and ginger, back to the curry paste, back to the monggos… and suddenly my house smelled like curry. I loved it and regretted it all at the same time.
When I’ve had this made by Filipinos, there’s no curry flavor – just a beautiful combination of fresh ginger, coconut milk, maybe even lemongrass? and these cute little beans. I will put the curry in the notes but I think you should try it without first.
Speaking of curry like I do allthetime, this recipe reminds me so much of those green curry lentils I made a while back with the spinach, coconut milk, and bulgur. Except instead of bulgur, I used the last of my brown rice blend for a little bed to serve it on. We just stirred it all up and kept the leftovers that way, too.
In fact, I’m going to go finish those leftovers when I’m done writing this post and I.am.excited.
I know there’s somebody out there that will like this with me, even though it’ s a lot green and has two unfamiliar double G ingredients.
Right? Somebody?
Print
Monggo Beans with Malunggay (or Mung Bean Soup)
- Total Time: 55 minutes
- Yield: 6 1x
Description
This recipe for Filipino-style monggo beans (aka mung bean soup) is so easy! Made into a creamy soup with coconut milk, ginger, garlic, and malunggay.
Ingredients
- 2 cups dry monggo beans, mung beans, or green lentils
- 6 cups vegetable broth
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 onion, minced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoons freshly grated ginger
- 1 cup coconut milk (I used the canned kind)
- 1 bunch chopped or pulled malunggay leaves (or spinach)
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Boil: Bring the broth to a boil in a large pot. Add the rinsed monggo beans and cook, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. I checked on mine every 10 minutes and added more water as needed (mine needed more water every time I checked it). You want the consistency to be like a very thick soup.
- Saute: Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute the onion, garlic, and ginger in the oil in a large nonstick skillet until soft and fragrant, about 3 minutes. Add to the monggo pot and allow the mixture to simmer together for a few minutes.
- Mix: Stir in the coconut milk and malunggay leaves. Remove the monggo pot from the heat. It just needs to be hot enough to very slightly wilt the leaves. Serve over rice or plain, like a soup.
Notes
I cooked 1 cup of dry brown rice and stirred it together with the monggos for easy leftovers. It worked great.
You can also add 1 tablespoon curry paste to enhance the flavor of this dish – I would suggest adding it to the saute pan with the garlic, onion, and ginger.
- Prep Time: 5 mins
- Cook Time: 50 mins
- Category: Dinner
- Cuisine: Filipino
Keywords: monggo bean, mung bean soup, filipino soup
Really delicious on its own or over white rice, I substitute 2 T soy sauce with fish sauce hehe
That is anything but a soup. That looks like a stew, or curry
This is one of our favorite comfort dishes! And the mung bean has so much protein in it’s little self. My mom always added shrimp in shell for a delicious flavor and I have added bagoong alamang ( a shrimp paste ) in place of salt which takes it to another level.
And it goes so well with white rice too.
It goes so fast in my household .
This is basically the same recipe my mom made!! I’m going to take a crack at it. Can it be made in the crockpot? If you have a recipe for the crockpot it would be great. And, I’d like to add pork to it like my mom did, when do you suggest I add it to the soup? Thank you.
We haven’t tested this in the crockpot yet, but we’d love to hear if you try it! Enjoy!
The monggo and malunggay plants are just a few of the wondrous things that grow in the rainforest I live in. Came here in my 60s with all kinds of conditions. Now starting a new family in my 80s with no conditions. Healthier than I was in my twenties. But it’s my brain that has been the real beneficiary. This is gonna sound dumb but I’m smarter today than I ever was. Gonna have some banana heart salad and turmeric tea for lunch.
Just a little tip. If you soak the beans in water to cover overnight (for lunch) or in the morning (for dinner), you will substantially cut down on the cooking time. 😊
These ming beans are great I didn’t have all the ingredients so I did it from memory and your recipe my son usually makes this for me and I love it.. but we will see what happens now..lol alittle this a little that aww we can do anything with brown beans so try and I will try again and see what we get..
Absolutely delicious and easy recipe using mung beans! Thank you!
Hello! I’m so glad I found your recipe because it’s the closest one to what I was used to growing up in the Philippines. My mom’s recipe is basically a grocery list which doesn’t help if one can barely cook. 🙂 Thank you for this! I have a question which you may not remember the answer to since this is a very old post but… what type of curry paste did you add in, yellow, red or green?
Hi Michelle! Lindsay used yellow curry paste.
I really admire your love of Filipino cuisine and culture. As a Filipino, true appreciation over appropriation means so much.
One recommendation about the malunggay/mornings. Use only the leaves and make sure you fully cook them rather than using them raw. The twiggy parts and uncooked leaves are hard to digest.
Malunggay is so good for you. The World Health Organization did studies on its nutritional value many years ago and it packs a punch in terms of vitamins C, D, E and A, and has more calcium than milk. It’s kind of pricey where I live and is hard to grow around here so I take moringa capsules daily.
I usually include a little ground pork, patis (Filipino fish sauce), and either fresh or tiny dried shrimp but your vegetarian version of monggo looks DELICIOUS and healthier! Can’t wait to try it!
I really admire your love of Filipino cuisine and culture. As a Filipino, true appreciation over appropriation means so much.
One recommendation about the malunggay/mornings. Use only the leaves and make sure you fully cook them rather than using them raw. The twiggy parts and uncooked leaves are hard to digest.
Malunggay is so good for you. The World Health Organization did studies on its nutritional value many years ago and it packs a punch in terms of vitamins C, D, E and A, and has more calcium than milk. It’s kind of pricey where I live and is hard to grow around here so I take moringa capsules daily.
I usually include a little ground pork, patis (Filipino fish sauce), and either fresh or tiny dried shrimp but your vegetarian version of monggo looks absolutely DELICIOUS! Can’t wait to try it!
Thank you for bringing my mom (who passed away 16 years ago) into my kitchen after cooking this. Filipino cooking smells wonderfully permeated into my kitchen. And the taste was so amazing. I added fresh baby spinach leaves over my bowl of munggo and rice.
This is beautiful. Thanks you so much for sharing!
Hi Lindsay & Bjork,
I have been stranded in a southern province of the Philippines since the outbreak of Covid 19. As a senior citizen I am under heavy quarantine restrictions (Virtually house arrest) and can not obtain travel permits to visit even the closest town. To stave off boredom I have taken to experimenting in the kitchen with whatever ingredients I can get my hands on locally. Monggo beans are readily available and I have a Malunggay tree growing in the garden. I cannot obtain kidney beans, but miss my spicy Chilly con Carne. Stumbling on your recipe it seemed to lend itself to a variation. This is what I came up with and I find it delicious if not authentic!
Monggo Beans, Malunggay Leaves & Ground Pork Chilli con carne .
Ingredients make 6 full serves
3 tbsp. oil
2 pc. lge red onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 kg. ground pork
5 pcs. medium ripe tomatoes, chopped
2 pcs. pork flavour cubes
2 ½ cups monggo beans
1 bunch of malunggay leaves only, (separate and discard stems.)
1 sachet 150g tomato paste
1/2 tsp. paprika
1/2tsp. chili powder (Add more if you like HOT)
1/2 tsp. cayenne powder
1/2 tsp. chili flakes (Add more if you like HOT)
¼ tsp each of salt and ground black pepper (Add to taste)
2 cups water (Enhance the flavour by adding 1 cup of red wine and 1/2 cup of dark chocolate pieces)
Method
(1) Half cook the monggo beans in 6 cups water (About 20 minutes add extra water if necessary)
Drain if necessary and set aside.
(2) Get a large pan nice and hot over medium heat. Pour in the oil and add the onions, garlic and ground pork.
Saute for a few minutes separating the ground pork as it cooks.
(3) Gently add the tomatoes, followed by disolved or crumbled pork cubes. Then add the half cooked monggo beans and tomato paste. Stir and cook for about 3 to 5 minutes to blend flavours.
(4) Give this mix a nice seasoning of paprika, chili powder, cayenne powder, black pepper, salt and chili flakes.
Add the water 2 cups, then the wine, and chocolate pieces.
Cover and simmer stirring occasionally until the meat and vegetables are cooked and the mix has thickened.
Add and stir in the Malunggay leaves towards the end as they should not be overcooked.
Serve over Rice or Potato variants. (Baked and mashed go very well)
Can be served in smaller amounts as a pulutan [Filipino for Appetizer/Snack] with fingers of toast, corn chips or cheese crackers, as an accompaniment to alcoholic beverages.
You could reduce the amounts if there is only a couple of you, or do as I, containerize the surplice and freeze for later use.
Cheers,
Robert
One KEY ingredient missing here, if you want to be truer to Filipino tradition, is fish sauce (bagoong or patis), the umami (savory taste) for this dish!! I would recommend just a bit of Red Boat fish sauce. Yum.
Thanks for sharing, Lisa! 🙂
hi Lindsay,
I have been using your recipy for a couple of years now and make a pot of mongbean soup every momth at least, i add a tbs of Garam marsala and add shredded kale in place of the malunggay leave which i can’t get locally.
it is a really great soup, thanks for all your inspiring recipies
best regards Seb
Glad to hear you’ve been enjoying this, Seb! 🙂
my wife just found a place near Atlanta where we can get malunggay leaves, she’s been searching for months since she got to America, finally got to try this dish, she did add ham and said that also goes good with a small type fish – not anchovies.
So happy you were able to find the leaves, Joe!
This is among my favorites if the things my Filipina bride has made for me in the year I’ve been in the Philippines. Simple (even humble) food that’s healthy, filling and delicious!
Molunggay is more than just a “superfood”. My type 2 diabetes is well controlled with daily tea of these leaves, without all the side effects of metformin.
Love to learn food photography,is there cost,how much???
I love this recipe
I went looking for a mongo bean soup recipe (got a love the internet) as my mom who was born and raised in the Philippines would make it a lot, especially when I was sick. This isn’t the same so I’ll keep trying to replicate it but this sounds good so I’ll let you know how it goes.
Always loved this recipe. My grandparents always feed this to us
Hi! I just saw your website. And I was intrigued about the nutritional facts thingy and your food choice. May i ask if you’re a nutritionist?.
I was looking for a new twist to the typical ginisang munggo recipe when I came across your site. I never thought I’d see coconut milk being used in this dish! It sounds weird, but I’d certainly love to try! And this is coming from a Filipino (who is based in MN as well)! TFS this recipe.
So good, totally making this again 🙂
Hi Lindsay, I’ve made vegetarian ginisang monggo a few times already, luckily I grew up in the philippines! my family moved to chicago in the 70’s when I was 8 years old. my mom’s hobby was gourmet cooking and baking so she didn’t make mongoo that much but when she did it was delicious comfort food it was an easy for my mom to make since most of the foods she made was so complicated…when I moved to nyc on my own i met my longterm partner and she loves my filipino foods all the national dishes are great…lumpia, adobo, pansit later on I introduced my partner to monggo or mung beans and she loved it amazing since she’s a little particular about certain foods..I use to put sauteed tomatoes, onion, garlic and pastrami we were kosher now we are vegetarians for almost 10 year. I had forgotten about Moringa growing up I always thought was spinach. Recently for Christmas and New Year we went to the Phils to visit my Mom she has since moved there and the maid made mung beans with moringa and low and behold I remembered wait! that’s right that’s what I had growing up the moringa in the mung beans it was very good! tonight I looked up mung beans recipe and found yours thank you it’s incredibly good the ginger is new but it’s good in there and the coconut milk we didn’t have any so I used flax milk with vanilla and used coconut oil to saute the onion, garlic, ginger and spinach can’t find moringa at the moment..we live in maimi beach so we’ll find it soon…thank you again will post photos on IG soon!
I forgot to mention I used vegetarina broth and a little bit of water to make the mung beans…