Raise your hand if you love miso soup! Same. The cloudy broth is warming, nourishing, and deeply flavorful. On a cold, gray winter day, there’s nothing I crave more. It clears my head and warms me up from the inside out.
For years, I only ate miso soup at Japanese restaurants. But after Jack and I traveled to Japan for the first time, we got curious about Japanese cooking at home. We cooked soba noodles, we made matcha, and we decided to try a miso soup recipe. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I certainly didn’t imagine the process to be so simple. We had steaming bowls of miso soup on the table in under 20 minutes!
Now, this miso soup recipe is a staple in our house. It has a rich, savory, umami flavor, and it’s brimming with chewy seaweed, crisp scallions, and soft tofu. Serve it as a starter or a side dish with your favorite Japanese food, or enjoy it as a meal on its own.
In Japanese food culture, miso soup is a representative of soup dishes served with rice. Miso soup is also called Omiotsuke. Typically, the paste and the soup have a salty-sweet richness and deep savory flavor, with a variety of textures. But its flavor and aroma also depend on the ingredients and fermentation process.
How to Make Miso Soup
This miso soup recipe is super simple to make! Here’s what you need to do:
Rinse the kombu, place it in a medium pot with the water, and gently simmer over low heat. Careful not to let it boil! If you do, the kombu flavor will become bitter. After 10 minutes, remove and discard the kombu.
Place it in a medium bowl, and cover it with warm water. Set it aside for 5 minutes. You won’t believe how much it grows!
When the dashi is ready, you can add the miso paste.
The best way to do this is by making a miso slurry. Ladle some of the hot dashi into a small bowl, add the miso paste, and whisk until smooth.
Then, stir the miso mixture into the remaining dashi.
Why make the miso slurry? It loosens the miso paste so that it incorporates evenly with the dashi. Were you to add the paste straight to the pot, your soup would be lumpy.
Drain the wakame and add it to the soup, along with the green onions and tofu. Simmer the soup over very low heat for 1 to 2 minutes, just to warm it through.
When the soup is warm, enjoy! I like to serve it with tamari to taste.
Don’t bring the soup to a boil! Because miso is a fermented food, it’s teeming with probiotics. Boiling miso kills these beneficial bacteria, so you’ll miss out on some of its health benefits.
What is miso soup?
Miso soup is a traditional Japanese soup. Its base is dashi, an umami stock that’s typically made with a mix of dried bonito flakes and dried kombu kelp. The soup is then flavored with miso, or fermented soybean paste.
Numerous varieties of miso soup are made throughout Japan. They might feature different types of miso paste, such as red miso, yellow miso, or the shiro miso I call for here, or include meat or vegetables like shiitake mushrooms or daikon radish. This recipe is a riff on the simple miso soup offered at many Japanese American restaurants.
The key ingredient in this recipe is miso paste.
I recommend making this recipe with white miso, also called shiro miso. It’s fermented for less time than darker types of miso, such as red miso, and has a milder, sweeter flavor that works well with this miso to dashi ratio. Find it in the refrigerated section of Asian markets and most grocery stores.
Here’s what else you’ll need to make this recipe:
- Kombu – For flavoring the dashi. In traditional miso soup, dried bonito flakes would also season the soup stock, but I skip them to keep my recipe vegetarian. The dashi is still plenty flavorful without them! Look for dried kombu in Asian markets, the Asian section of your grocery store, or online.
- Silken tofu – I like to use extra-firm tofu when I’m baking tofu, but in this miso soup recipe, silken tofu is a must. With its super-smooth texture, it practically melts into the savory soup.
- Wakame – Find this dried seaweed in an Asian market, the Asian section of your grocery store, or online. 3 tablespoons might not seem like much for a whole pot of soup, but don’t be deceived. Soak the dried wakame in a little warm water, and it’ll expand like crazy!
- Green onions – They add a nice crunch and sweet, oniony flavor to the soup.
- Tamari – For serving! Add a drop at a time until your soup has a well-balanced savory flavor.
Find the complete recipe with measurements below.
Sushi Soup – La Sopa de Sushi (NSE)
FAQ
What is the famous Japanese soup called?
What is Japanese broth called?
What is miso broth made of?
What is the Japanese noodle soup called?
What are the most common sushi terms?
While there are hundreds of sushi-related terms, you can use this quick guide to the most common sushi vocabulary to help you navigate your first few sushi experiences. Bara – Sushi ingredients mixed together in a bowl as a rice salad. Daikon – A white radish that is often served sliced into thin strips and pickled.
Is sushi considered as healthy food?
Sushi is a healthier choice, but it depends on which variety of fish is used to make sushi. Fatty fishes like tuna and salmon adds much omega 3 fatty acids to the dish. Fish is high in protein and sushi is prepared with plant based proteins like tuna and other vegetables, so sushi is regarded as a high protein food. It also contain more vitamin D, B12, than other foods, provides a source of essential minerals like selenium, zinc and iodine, it is a good source of omega 3 fatty acids. Hence sushi is considered as a wholesome food with a store house of all the essential nutrients.
What is Japanese clear soup or osumashi?
Japanese Clear Soup or Osumashi features a simple dashi-based broth lightly seasoned with soy sauce. With this elegant soup, you can easily switch up the colorful ingredients depending on what‘s in season. Here, I added kamaboko fish cake slices, mitsuba leaf, shiitake mushrooms, and flower-shaped fu (wheat gluten).
Is sushi a language?
The first time in a sushi restaurant can be intimidating. The menu, although written in English characters, is in a language all its own. While there are hundreds of sushi-related terms, you can use this quick guide to the most common sushi vocabulary to help you navigate your first few sushi experiences.