Is tempeh healthy?

Is tempeh healthy, or just well marketed? The tempeh benefits you see quoted are mostly real, but they come from three different places: a few small trials of tempeh itself, a much larger body of soy protein research, and some rat and test-tube work that doesn't tell you much. The tempeh probiotic claim in particular needs an asterisk.

Tempeh comes from Java, Indonesia. It's a firm, nubbly cake of cooked soybeans knitted together by the white threads of a Rhizopus mold, and it has become a go-to protein for plant-based cooks and for lifters who want something denser than tofu. This page covers what 100 grams of tempeh contains, the health benefits of tempeh that human studies support, whether tempeh is probiotic once you cook it, how it compares with tofu, whether it causes bloating, and who should go easy on it.

Tempeh Nutrition per 100g

To make tempeh, producers soak, dehull and cook soybeans, then ferment them with Rhizopus mold for a day or two until the mold binds the beans into a solid cake. Because it keeps the whole bean, tempeh holds on to more of the soybean's fiber than tofu does. Here's what USDA FoodData Central lists for plain tempeh:

Values from USDA FoodData Central entry 174272, rounded. USDA's entry doesn't report fiber, so the fiber row uses the UK food composition data that Norway's Matvaretabellen lists for tempeh. Daily values are the FDA's adult figures.

Tempeh protein per 100g is about 20 grams, more than double what cooked beans carry gram for gram. A 3-ounce serving gives about 17 grams. The calories are moderate, and most of the fat is unsaturated: USDA lists 4.3 grams of polyunsaturated and 3.2 grams of monounsaturated fat against 2.5 grams of saturated fat per 100 grams. Cooking barely moves the numbers. USDA's entry for cooked tempeh (172467) has 195 calories and 19.9 grams of protein per 100 grams.

Two things stand out beyond the protein. Tempeh is rich in copper and manganese, two trace minerals most people never think about, and it brings real magnesium and iron. And it's almost sodium-free until you add a marinade. The fiber figure is the soft spot: tempeh made with rice, barley or other beans mixed in will differ from plain soy tempeh.

Health Benefits of Tempeh: What the Studies Found

Only a handful of trials have fed people tempeh itself. Most of the evidence comes from soy protein research, which applies because tempeh is a concentrated source of soy protein. Here's what holds up, with the tempeh-specific studies marked as such.

Complete protein that builds muscle like animal protein

Soy is one of the few plant proteins with enough of all nine essential amino acids to score at the top of the PDCAAS protein-quality scale. In Hughes and colleagues (2011), soy protein isolates scored 0.95 to 1.00, and 1.00 is the highest score the method allows.

That quality shows up in the gym. A meta-analysis by Messina and colleagues (2018) pooled nine resistance-training trials with 266 people. Soy protein supplements produced the same gains in bench press, squat and lean body mass as whey and other animal proteins. Those trials used soy protein powder, not tempeh, but 100 grams of tempeh delivers about 20 grams of the same protein. Our review of whey vs plant protein explains why soy is the one plant source that keeps up with dairy without blending.

Cholesterol: a small, real drop

Soy protein lowers LDL cholesterol a little. When the FDA reconsidered its soy heart-health claim, Blanco Mejia and colleagues (2019) pooled the 46 trials the agency had identified. At a median of 25 grams of soy protein a day for six weeks, LDL fell by 4.76 mg/dL and total cholesterol by 6.41 mg/dL. That works out to roughly a 3 to 4 percent drop in LDL.

That's a modest effect next to medication. Still, about 125 grams of tempeh supplies the 25-gram dose by itself. And if tempeh replaces processed meat on your plate, you also trade saturated fat and sodium for fiber.

Gut bacteria: a small tempeh trial

The most direct test of tempeh and gut health is a small Indonesian study. Stephanie and colleagues (2018) had 16 healthy women avoid soy for a week. Then 10 of them ate 100 grams of tempeh a day and 6 drank 200 mL of soymilk a day for 28 days. After the tempeh phase, stool levels of Bifidobacterium and Akkermansia muciniphila were significantly higher than at the start. Researchers link both bacteria to a healthy gut lining and metabolism, and the soymilk group showed a different pattern.

Keep the size of this in mind. Ten women, no placebo and four weeks make it a promising signal, not proof that tempeh improves gut health.

Memory in older adults: an early signal

The same Indonesian research network has also looked at the brain. Handajani and colleagues (2020) assigned 90 adults aged 60 and over with mild cognitive impairment to one of two tempeh groups (100 grams a day) or a control group for six months. Of the 84 who finished, both tempeh groups raised their global cognitive scores. It's one experimental study from one group, so it raises a question rather than answering it.

Isoflavones in a form your body absorbs well

Soybeans store most of their isoflavones, plant compounds such as genistein and daidzein, bound to sugar molecules. Soaking and fermentation free them into the unbound aglycone form. In tempeh made from Brazilian soybean varieties, Bavia and colleagues (2012) measured about 50 percent more aglycones than in the raw grains.

That form reaches your blood readily. In a crossover trial of 59 adults, Cassidy and colleagues (2006) found tempeh produced higher peak blood levels of daidzein and genistein than textured vegetable protein, though soy milk was absorbed fastest. Higher absorption isn't a benefit by itself. It means the research on soy isoflavones applies to tempeh at least as well as to other soy foods.

Is Tempeh Probiotic?

Not in the strict sense, once it's cooked. A probiotic is a live microorganism that gives a health benefit when you take in enough of it. That's the FAO/WHO definition, which an expert panel of the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics reaffirmed in Hill and colleagues (2014).

Tempeh does start out full of microbes. Besides the Rhizopus mold, it picks up bacteria during fermentation. Researchers have isolated a lactic acid bacterium, Limosilactobacillus fermentum, from tempeh and tested it as a probiotic supplement in older adults (Handajani and colleagues, 2022). But that was the isolated strain given as a supplement, not a slice of cooked tempeh.

Two steps stand between tempeh's microbes and your gut. Most commercial tempeh is pasteurized: when CDC investigators traced a 2012 outbreak to one producer, they noted its tempeh was unpasteurized, unlike other commercial brands. And you cook tempeh before eating it. So does cooking tempeh destroy the mycelium? Yes, and most of the bacteria with it.

That doesn't make cooked tempeh useless for your gut. Two things survive the pan:

• Fiber and fermentable compounds. These feed the bacteria already living in your colon, which is a prebiotic-style effect rather than a probiotic one.
• Dead microbial cells and their by-products. Inactivated microbes that give a health benefit now have their own name, postbiotics, defined by another ISAPP panel (Salminen and colleagues, 2021). Whether cooked tempeh qualifies hasn't been tested directly.

So the accurate label is a fermented food that may feed your gut bacteria. If you want live cultures specifically, a fermented food you eat uncooked, such as yogurt or kefir with live cultures, is the more reliable route.

Which Is Healthier, Tofu or Tempeh?

Both are soy, made two different ways. Tofu is soy milk curdled and pressed into a block, while tempeh keeps the whole cooked bean. Here's 100 grams of each, using USDA's entries for tempeh and for firm tofu set with calcium sulfate:

USDA entries 174272 and 172475. Tempeh fiber from UK data, as above.

Neither one is healthier across the board. Tempeh wins on protein per gram, fiber, magnesium and potassium, and it's the fermented one. Firm tofu made with calcium sulfate carries about six times the calcium and slightly more protein per calorie, which helps if you're counting calories closely. The calcium comes from the calcium sulfate used to set it, so tofu set another way has much less. Check the ingredient list.

The bigger difference is in the kitchen. Tempeh is firm, chewy and nutty, and it holds together in a pan. Tofu is mild and soft and takes on any flavor. Pick the one you'll actually cook twice a week.

Can Tempeh Cause Bloating?

It can, but usually less than whole beans do. Bean gas comes mostly from raffinose-family sugars such as stachyose, which your small intestine can't digest, so they ferment in your colon instead. Egounlety and Aworh (2003) tracked these sugars step by step as soybeans became tempeh:

• Soaking, dehulling and cooking removed about half the raffinose and more than 55 percent of the stachyose.
• Fermentation then cut the remaining stachyose in soybeans by 83.9 percent.
• Raffinose stayed roughly flat during fermentation.

A Monash University analysis of plant-based foods by Tuck and colleagues (2018) classified tempeh as low FODMAP, at 0.26 grams of FODMAPs per serve. FODMAPs are the fermentable carbohydrates that trigger symptoms in people with irritable bowel syndrome. That makes tempeh one of the easier legume foods to try if beans usually bother you.

Tempeh still brings fiber, and a large portion of anything new can leave you gassy. If you rarely eat legumes, start with about 50 to 85 grams and build up over a couple of weeks. If you have IBS, try a small portion first, ideally with a dietitian's guidance. Our look at whether chickpeas are healthy covers the same gas question for a legume with far more of these sugars.

What Fermentation Changes in Soybeans

Fermentation is the reason tempeh gets talked about differently from plain soybeans. It changes some things a lot, some a little, and one thing less than its reputation suggests.

Trypsin inhibitors: mostly handled by cooking

Raw soybeans contain trypsin inhibitors, proteins that block one of your protein-digesting enzymes. Heat does most of the work here. In Egounlety and Aworh's study, cooking the soaked, dehulled soybeans cut trypsin inhibitor activity by 82.2 percent, and fermentation nudged it slightly back up. Bavia and colleagues measured an average drop of about 83 percent in finished tempeh compared with the raw grains.

Phytic acid: a partial drop

Phytic acid binds iron and zinc and makes them harder to absorb. Fermentation lowered it by 30.7 percent in Egounlety and Aworh's soybeans. But Bavia's team found phytic acid similar in tempeh and in the raw grains for most of the soybean varieties they tested. So fermentation may help mineral absorption a little. It doesn't strip phytate out.

Vitamin C is the reliable fix. Hallberg and colleagues (1989) showed that phytate cut iron absorption in a dose-dependent way and that ascorbic acid counteracted it. Peppers, broccoli, tomatoes or a squeeze of lime in the same meal help you absorb tempeh's plant iron.

Vitamin B12: don't count on it

Older papers made tempeh famous as a vegan B12 source. A review by Watanabe and colleagues (2014) cites 0.7 to 8.0 micrograms per 100 grams, and suggests the B12 comes from bacteria that get into the beans during traditional production, since the mold doesn't make it. Tempeh made with clean starter cultures has far less. Mo and colleagues (2013) detected only 0.16 to 0.72 micrograms per kilogram of tempe, well under a tenth of a microgram per 100 grams, and USDA lists 0.08 micrograms.

The adult daily value is 2.4 micrograms. If you eat little or no animal food, get B12 from a supplement or fortified foods rather than from tempeh.

Is Tempeh Good for Weight Loss and Training?

It's a useful food for both, because protein is the nutrient that keeps you full and protects muscle while you eat less. The International Society of Sports Nutrition's protein position stand (Jäger and colleagues, 2017) suggests 20 to 40 grams of protein per meal for people who train. About 100 to 150 grams of tempeh covers that range in one portion, at roughly 190 to 290 calories before cooking oil. Our guide to how much protein you need per day shows how to set your daily total.

Two cautions keep it a weight-loss food rather than a calorie trap:

• Watch the oil. Tempeh soaks up fat when it's deep-fried. Steaming, baking or searing with a teaspoon of oil keeps it close to 192 calories per 100 grams.
• Watch the marinade. Soy sauce and sweet glazes add sodium and sugar. Plain tempeh has almost none of either.

Food is only half of the plan. Losing weight and keeping muscle also depends on training you repeat week after week, and that's where most people stall. If that's the part that keeps slipping, our roundup of the best workout apps for weight loss compares the apps built to keep you training. FitCraft is one of them: a 3D AI coach demonstrates every exercise and says your name during home workouts with your bodyweight and dumbbells, and streaks and leaderboards give you a reason to show up tomorrow.

Is There a Downside to Eating Tempeh?

A few, and most are easy to manage:

• Soy allergy. Soy is one of the nine major food allergens the FDA requires labels to declare. If you're allergic to soy, tempeh is out.
• Raw or undercooked unpasteurized tempeh. In 2012, unpasteurized tempeh from one North Carolina producer caused a Salmonella outbreak that sickened 89 people and put 8 in the hospital. Griese and colleagues (2013) traced it to a contaminated starter culture. Cook tempeh until it's hot all the way through.
• Thyroid medication. Soy doesn't harm a healthy thyroid. A meta-analysis of 18 trials by Otun and colleagues (2019) found no change in free T3 or free T4 and only a very small rise in TSH. Timing matters if you take levothyroxine, though. In a case report by Bell and Ovalle (2001), a soy protein drink taken right after the pill cut its absorption until the two were separated. Ask your doctor how far apart to keep them.
• Kidney stones. Soybeans are high in oxalate. Massey and colleagues (2001) measured 16 to 638 mg of oxalate per serving across 13 commercial soy foods. If you've had calcium oxalate stones, ask your doctor or dietitian how much soy fits your plan.
• Calorie and sodium creep. Fried tempeh, sweet glazes and salty marinades turn a lean protein into a heavier dish.

Does soy mess with your hormones?

For men, the evidence says no. A meta-analysis of 41 clinical studies by Reed and colleagues (2021) found no effect of soy protein or isoflavones on total testosterone, free testosterone, estradiol, estrone or SHBG, whatever the dose or study length.

For women, the long-running worry is breast cancer. The best-known data point is the Shanghai Breast Cancer Survival Study by Shu and colleagues (2009), which followed 5,042 breast cancer survivors. Women in the highest quarter of soy protein intake had a 29 percent lower risk of death and a 32 percent lower risk of recurrence than women in the lowest quarter. It's an observational study, so it can't prove soy protects, but it doesn't fit the idea that soy foods are dangerous for women either.

Is It Okay to Eat Tempeh Every Day?

Yes, for most people. Many Indonesians eat tempeh daily, as the Stephanie study notes, and the trials above fed 100 grams a day for 28 days and for six months. A sensible daily amount is one 3-ounce to 150-gram portion, which covers the protein for a meal.

Daily doesn't have to mean only. Rotating tempeh with eggs, fish, chicken, dairy, lentils and beans gets you nutrients tempeh lacks, such as vitamin B12, and more calcium if you eat dairy or calcium-set tofu. Our page on why legumes are so healthy covers the pooled research on the rest of the bean family.

What Is the Best Way to Eat Tempeh?

Tempeh can taste slightly bitter straight from the package. A short simmer fixes that and helps it soak up flavor. Here's a simple method:

1. Simmer or steam it first. Cut the block into slices or cubes and simmer or steam them for about 10 minutes.
2. Marinate briefly. Lime juice, garlic, ginger and a small splash of soy sauce for 15 minutes is plenty.
3. Sear, bake or grill. Use a teaspoon or two of oil in a hot pan, or bake on a lined tray until golden at the edges.
4. Build the plate. Add vegetables high in vitamin C and a grain such as rice for a full meal.

Crumbled tempeh also works in place of ground meat in chili, tacos or pasta sauce. However you cook it, cook it through, and keep the package refrigerated and within its date.

What This Means for You

Tempeh earns its health-food reputation. A 100-gram serving gives you about 20 grams of complete protein, real fiber and a solid run of minerals for under 200 calories. Its soy protein lowers LDL a little and builds muscle as well as animal protein, and fermentation makes it gentler on most stomachs than whole beans. Cook it, keep the oil and marinade in check, pair it with a vitamin C vegetable, and get your B12 somewhere else.

No single food changes your results on its own, though. What changes them is what you repeat: decent meals most days and workouts you actually show up for. Mike, 23, got visibly stronger in four months and said it plainly: "The streak system got me hooked. I didn't want to break my chain." A block of tempeh in the fridge and a short workout on the calendar are both easy places to start.