red bean

English

Azuki beans (sense 1)

Azuki-bean paste (sense 4)

Rice beans (sense 2)

Dried kidney beans (sense 3)

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːn

Noun

red bean (countable and uncountable, plural red beans)

1. (countable) The azuki bean (Vigna angularis), most common in East Asia.
2. (countable) The rice bean (Vigna umbellata).
3. (countable) Any of various red varieties of the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), including the kidney bean, Honduran red bean, and Salvadoran red bean.
5. (uncountable) A paste made of azuki beans.

   Synonym: anko

   • 2009, Nina Lilian Etkin, Foods of Association: Biocultural Perspectives on Foods and Beverages that Mediate Sociability, Tucson, Ariz.: The University of Arizona Press, →ISBN, page 135:

     China’s dragon-boat festival ensures fishermen’s safety through consumption of meat, lotus seed (Nelumbo spp., Nelumbonaceae), date, water chestnut (Trapa spp., Trapaceae), and zongzi, which are glutinous-rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves (Poaceae) and filled with red bean (Luard 2001).

   • 2018, Eat Like a Local TOKYO, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 26:

     Freshly made red bean treats hot from the griddle are popular here: crispy-hot snapper-shaped taiyaki cakes filled with red bean; dorayaki (red bean sandwiched between two hand-held, pancake-esque cakes); the famous ningyōyaki (doll-shaped bite-sized red bean cakes traditional to the old neighbourhood Asakusa).

   • 2018, Peter Tieryas, Mecha Samurai Empire, New York, N.Y.: Ace, →ISBN:

     Griselda returns, holding a bag full of wasabi peas and anpans. She knows I like the ones filled with custard rather than red bean, so I’m grateful she got my favorites.

   • 2020, Erin Yun, Pippa Park Raises Her Game, New York, N.Y.: Fabled Films LLC, published 2021, →ISBN:

     In the book, the protagonist is a Korean American girl, and a lot of her favorite things—from her love of walnut cakes filled with red bean to the Korean drama Boys Over Flowers—were my favorite things growing up as well.

   • 2022, Weike Wang, Joan Is Okay, New York, N.Y.: Random House, published 2023, →ISBN, page 164:

     Buns filled with sweet custard, buns filled with red bean, savory buns with spinach and minced meat, sticky rice and pork belly wrapped in bamboo leaves and tied with string.

   • 2022, Carla de Guzman, Some Bali to Love, Midnight Books:

     Manju originated from Chinese mantou, that deep fried bread thing you dip in condensed milk that you can get in Binondo. But this is Japanese. And the Japanese version is made with red bean instead of chocolate or custard.

Derived terms

• red bean porridge

Further reading

• Adzuki bean on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Rice bean on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Phaseolus vulgaris on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Red bean paste on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Bearden, Braeden, breaden