Red yeast rice

Red yeast rice (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: hóng qū mǐ; literally: "red yeast rice"), red rice koji (べにこうじ, lit. 'red koji') or akakoji (あかこぎ, also meaning 'red koji'), red fermented rice, red kojic rice, red koji rice, anka, or ang-kak, is a bright reddish purple fermented rice, which acquires its colour from being cultivated with the mold Monascus purpureus.

Red yeast rice is what is referred to as a "koji" in Japanese, meaning "grain or bean overgrown with a mold culture", a food preparation tradition going back to ca. 300 BC. In both the scientific and popular literature in English that draws principally on Japanese, red yeast rice is most often referred to as "red rice koji". English works favoring Chinese sources may prefer the translation "red yeast rice".

Because of the low cost of chemical dyes, some producers of red yeast rice have adulterated their products with the dye Sudan Red G.

Red yeast rice is used to colour a wide variety of food products, including pickled tofu, red rice vinegar, char siu, Peking Duck, and Chinese pastries that require red food colouring. It is also traditionally used in the production of several types of Chinese huangjiu (Shaoxing jiu), Japanese sake (akaisake), and Korean rice wine (hongju), imparting a reddish colour to these wines. Although used mainly for its colour in cuisine, red yeast rice imparts a subtle but pleasant taste to food and is commonly used in the cuisine of Fujian regions of China.

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