SUMMARY–A study was undertaken to determine the effect of the dry‐roasting process on the quality of soybean protein as indicated by amino acid analyses and PER. Amino acid analyses revealed losses in tryptophan, available and total lysine, cystine and histidine of 35, 31, 17, 15 and 6% respectively. These losses are reflected in both the essential amino acid index (EAAI) and PER. Average EAAI values decreased with increasing degree of roast (68.4, 67.7 and 63.8) compared with a value of 71.4 for the raw samples. The PER values for the same roasted samples were 1.70. 1.46 and 1.28 respectively. A depressed PER value of 0.6 was obtained for the raw sample because of anti‐nutritional factors in the raw beans. Results indicate that the dry roasting process is a means of producing a palatable, nutritious food from soybeans. However, optimum palatability is gained at the expense of protein utiliz