This study was carried out to investigate antioxidant substances (phenolic compounds and brown pigment), antioxidative effect and nitrite scavenging ability (NSA) of solvent extracts (hexane: HE, methanol; ME, water: WE) from fermented soybean foods, Chungkukjang and Doenjang. The antioxidant activities were determined by the measurements of peroxide value (POV) on the linoleic acid system, electron donating ability (EDA) and superoxide dismutase (SOD)-like activity. The contents of phenolic compounds and total brown pigments in Doenjang were $28.5{pm}0.3mg/100g$ and optical density (OD) $1.98{pm}0.03$, respectively, whereas their contents in Chungkukjang were significantly lower with $5.8{pm}0.3mg/100g$ and OD $0.95{pm}0.02$. The brown pigment contents of hydrophilic extracts increased more than that of lipophilic extracts through the fermentation and ripening processes. The ME of Doenjang exhibited higher inhibitory effects against the peroxidation of a linoleic acid system than that of Chungkukjang. The EDA and NSA of MEs were higher than those of WEs. Among the MEs, Doenjang showed the highest levels of EDA and NSA. On the other hand, the SOD-like activities of WE were higher than those of ME at the same concentrations and their activities of Doenjang were significantly higher than that of Chungkukjang. In conclusion, the antioxidative effects and NSA of Doenjang was significantly higher than those of Chungkukjang. It seemed that phenolic compounds and brown pigments formed during fermentation and ripening partly affect the antioxidative activities of fermented soybean foods.