A tempeh crisp is what it sounds like: tempeh, sliced thin and cooked until crunchy.
If that raises more questions than it answers, this is for you.
First, what tempeh is
Tempeh is a firm cake made from whole soya beans that have been cooked and then fermented. A culture grows through the beans and binds them into a solid block — you can see the individual beans in it, held together like a very dense nut brittle.
It's Indonesian, it's been eaten daily there for centuries, and it's been in British supermarkets for a few years now, sitting in the chilled aisle near the tofu.
Slice that block thin, cook it, and you get a crisp.
What they actually taste like
Nutty, first and foremost. Closer to a roasted peanut than anything else, with a savoury depth underneath and a faint earthy note from the fermentation — the kind of savouriness you get from mushrooms or a good stock rather than from added salt.
The key difference from a potato crisp is where the flavour comes from. A potato crisp is a fairly neutral base carrying salt and seasoning; almost everything you taste has been applied to the outside. A tempeh crisp already tastes of something before anything is added to it.
Whether that appeals depends on you. If you like the savoury end of things — Marmite, mature cheddar, dark miso, roasted nuts — you'll probably take to it. If you mainly want salt and crunch and would rather the base disappear, a potato crisp does that job better.
The texture
Firmer and denser than a potato crisp. Less of a light shatter, more of a proper snap — somewhere between a crisp and a well-baked cracker, with a slight graininess from the beans.
That density has a practical consequence: a good baked tempeh crisp holds up. It doesn't fold or break in a thick dip the way a tortilla chip can, and it's less prone to reducing to dust at the bottom of a bag. There's a fair bit you can dip them in as a result.
They also feel more substantial to eat. A handful registers as something you've actually had rather than a puff of air.
Baked or fried?
Both exist, and it makes a real difference.
Traditional Indonesian tempeh crisps are deep-fried, usually with a light rice-flour batter, and they're excellent — light and shattering in a way baking doesn't reproduce.
Baked ones are a different proposition. Frying puts a meaningful amount of oil into the finished crisp, and oil carries its own flavour that sits between you and the tempeh underneath. Baking keeps that out of the way, at the cost of some lightness.
Worth checking which you've got, because packaging doesn't always lead with it.
Are they new?
Not remotely. Indonesia has made tempeh crisps for generations; Sanan in Malang, East Java, is a major centre for tempeh and tempeh-crisp production, with around 500 producers.
Should you try them?
If you've never had tempeh at all, a crisp is a low-commitment introduction. You'll find out what it tastes like without planning a meal around an unfamiliar ingredient.
And if you've had tempeh before and found it dull, it's worth knowing that a badly cooked block and a good tempeh crisp are very different experiences. If your first encounter with tempeh was an under-seasoned slab in a stir fry, that's not the ingredient at its best.
Keep reading
- Are Tempeh Crisps Healthy?
- Why We Make Snacks From Tempeh
- Why Some Snacks Leave You Hungry
- What to Put on a Cheese Board (That Isn’t Crackers)
- What Food to Take on a Hike
- Tempeh, Miso, Natto, Koji: What's the Difference?
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