What Is Miso Soup? Ingredients, Origins, And How To Make It
By Lisa Bot | Published 29 October 2023
Introduction To Miso Soup
What Is Japanese Miso Soup?
Miso soup, or "misoshiru" in Japanese, is a significant part of the Japanese cuisine. In the basics, this invigorating soup comprises mainly miso paste, dashi (a traditional Japanese broth), tofu, and additional ingredients such as seaweed and vegetables. Over the years, it has evolved into a versatile and hearty dish with many variations, tailored to regional tastes and seasonal ingredients. It's interesting to note that even in a top restaurant, miso soup can present different profiles.
For instance, if you've sampled Japan's top sushi restaurant's miso soup or a cup from a distant outlet which your brother finds irresistible even after wisdom tooth surgery, you'll note the adaptability of this modest dish. Whether you desire something light before bed or a hearty soup to satiate your taste buds, learning the basics of creating your version of restaurant miso soup can be a fulfilling culinary adventure.
Tracing the Origins of Miso Soup
The story of miso soup dates back to ancient times in Japan, where it was a daily meal for the Samurais during the Kamakura period of 1185–1333. Its recipe is such an integral part of the Japanese culinary repertoire that it could easily fill an entire cookbook. This practice of eating this soup persisted through the age of Japanese civil wars when the concept of 'instant paste' was conceived for military commanders' easy consumption, thus transforming miso soup from a laborious process into a quick, easy-to-prepare and readily accessible meal. If we delve older into history, miso is believed to have originated in China. It was introduced to Japan over 1,300 years ago by Buddhist priests, imbuing its long-established culinary and cultural significance akin to a prized cookbook passed through generations.
Unraveling the Magic of Miso Soup
What is Miso Soup Made Of?
Miso soup is crafted from three foundational elements: miso paste, dashi broth, and a selection of ingredients such as vegetables, tofu, and seaweed. Whether you're stirring in nutritious cabbage, eggplant, or enriching the soup with awase miso, the addition of ingredients like these provide unique flavours that make this soup a memorable experience.
Miso Paste: This is the heart of the soup. Miso is a fermented paste typically made from soybeans, but yellow miso paste such as awase miso, a blend of white and red miso, can provide a balanced flavour profile.
Dashi Broth: The broth forms the liquid foundation for miso soup — a mix of dashi powder or dashi granules can be utilised to create this base, accentuating the robust flavours of miso and other ingredients.
Added Ingredients: The choice of additional ingredients is where creativity shines. From livening up the dish with soy sauce, adding proteins like pork or serving it with chicken noodle soup, these choices can vary widely and are often tailored to personal taste or seasonally available ingredients.
Note: Miso soup is inherently adaptable and can be made to suit vegetarian and vegan diets by using plant-based stock instead of dashi. Nutrition information is essential, so always keep an eye on the sodium content, especially when using ingredients like soy sauce. Stews prepared with miso can also be a healthier variant to consider.
Understanding the Role of Miso Paste
Miso paste plays an integral role in miso soup. It's the secret to the soup's umami flavour, a rich, deep, savoury sensation often described as the fifth taste. The spectrum of miso paste types helps achieve this unique taste.
Miso paste results from fermentation of soybeans with koji, a type of fungus, and salt — the miso mixture. The length of the fermentation process can vary from a few weeks to several years. The resulting miso paste becomes deeper in colour and more robust in flavour as fermentation continues over time.
Miso paste is available in a number of varieties with the two broadest ones being red and white—both represent a range of colours and strengths. Red miso, which experiences a longer fermentation period, boasts a higher quantity of soybeans and gives the soup a richer, stronger flavour. Its counterpart, white miso (shiro miso), is known to be the sweetest and mildest of all miso pastes due to its shorter fermentation period, made with 40% soybean and 60% rice or barley grains.
Always remember, adding the miso mixture should be the final step while cooking miso soup to maintain the probiotics and nutrients it carries. Boiling the soup post the addition of miso could potentially compromise these health benefits.
The Importance of Dashi in Miso Soup
What is Dashi?
Dashi is a fundamental component of Japanese cuisine, imparting a distinct umami flavour to the dishes it graces — including miso soup. Translated as 'stock' in English, dashi is a light, golden broth made typically by simmering kombu, a type of seaweed, and bonito flakes, which are shavings of dried, fermented, and smoked skipjack tuna. Additionally, dashi granules, which are an easy-to-use version of the broth, have become popular for quick flavouring. The dashi granules are 100% vegan, making it ideal for those who are on a plant-based diet.
This infusion results in a subtly complex yet richly savoury broth. Aside from this traditional type known as 'ichiban dashi', there are other variations of it like kombu dashi (made exclusively from kombu) or shiitake dashi (made using dried shiitake mushrooms), supporting specific dietary requirements, adding flexibility to this core Japanese ingredient. For example, people have switched from liquid concentrated to HonDashi granules, which offer the same great taste with added convenience.
Dashi is your secret to imbuing any dish with a profound depth of flavour — an invaluable tool in any cook’s arsenal.
Read more in our guide: What Is Japanese Dashi? Your Essential Guide To Japanese Soup Stock.
Preparing the Dashi Broth
Creating dashi broth is an uncomplicated task, often compared to brewing tea due to its simplicity. All it requires is a ladle, water, kombu, and katsuobushi, heated and strained. In some recipes, wherein dashi powder is used as a base, the Riken brand was recommended by a grocery owner, though using the powder form is generally not recommended due to the presence of MSG and additives. Here is a basic recipe for a widely-used form of dashi:
Ingredients
- 4 cups of water
- 1 packet of kombu (dried kelp) - (⅓ oz, 10 g per packet; 4 x 4 inches or 10 x 10 cm)
- 1 cup of katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes)
Instruction
- Place the kombu in a bowl of water and let soak for about 30 minutes.
- After soaking, move kombu and water to a saucepan and put it on medium heat. Using a ladle, remove kombu just before the water boils — this is a crucial step as boiling the kombu can cause a bitter taste.
- Add katsuobushi to the pan and let the water come to a boil. Once boiling, lower the heat and let it simmer for around 30 seconds to a minute. Then, remove the pan from the heat and let the bonito flakes steep for about 10 minutes.
- Next, strain the liquid to remove the flakes. What remains is your authentic dashi broth - the backbone of miso soup and many other Japanese dishes, enhanced with the addition of ingredients like mushrooms or rice noodles for added depth and heartiness.
Remember, moderation is key when it comes to extracting the flavour of the ingredients. Overdoing it might result in an intense and potentially off-putting flavour.
Key Ingredients of Miso Soup
Tofu: The Protein Powerhouse
Tofu is a central element in many Japanese dishes, including miso soup. This soup often employs the use of fermented soybean paste, known as miso, and it's made from soybeans, grains - where you may see rice koji coming into play, especially when using koji miso - salt, and koji culture (a fermentation starter). It's an exquisite source of plant-based protein, making it instrumental in vegetarian and vegan diets. Made by condensing soy milk, tofu comes in different textures: silken, soft, firm, and extra firm, each with its unique role. Silken tofu, for example, is the choice for miso soup due to its tender texture that blends seamlessly into the broth and easily absorbs flavours - like that of the rice koji - enhancing the soup overall.
As well as offering protein, tofu also contains all nine essential amino acids, several minerals including calcium and iron, makes it an essential component in a well-rounded diet. For its performance in boosting nutritional values and contributing a soothing flavour, tofu unarguably enhances the profile of miso soup.
Wakame Seaweed: A Key Ingredient
Wakame seaweed is a crucial component of miso soup, offering a subtle oceanic flavour profile that enriches the dish. This large seaweed, a type of brown algae, has been a staple in Japanese cuisine for thousands of years, dating back to 6000-300 BC.
One of the most fascinating aspects of wakame is its ability to expand when rehydrated, allowing a little to go a long way. This attribute, combined with a lengthy shelf life, has made dried wakame a preferred choice among Japanese families. Not only does it pair beautifully with tofu, but it also adds texture and enhances the soup's nutrient count with iron, calcium, and vitamins.
How To Cook Miso Soup
Step 1: Making Dashi
Preparing dashi is the first and one of the most crucial steps in cooking miso soup. This soup's heart lies in its broth, providing a robust infusion of the umami flavour. To shake things up, you could try using a dashi packet, a convenient alternative to dashi powder, speeding up the process without sacrificing authenticity. Perfect if you're in a pinch.
For making Dashi you'll need:
- 4 cups of water
- 1 piece of kombu (dried kelp)
- 1 cup of katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes) or a packet of awase dashi with no additives for a short cut.
Instructions:
- Start by soaking the piece of kombu in the water for at least 30 minutes, or simply add your awase dashi packet to the water.
- Once the kombu has soaked, or your packet has infused enough flavour, bring the water to a simmer, take care to remove the kombu just before boiling to avoid a bitter taste.
- Add the bonito flakes and bring the water to a boil. Lower the heat and let it simmer for about 30 seconds to one minute. Remove the saucepan from the heat and let it sit for 10 minutes, allowing the bonito flakes to steep.
- After steeping, strain out the bonito flakes. Your dashi broth, or your sneakily simple packet dashi, is now ready to use.
Being mindful of timings and heat is crucial at each step, as a lapse can affect the dashi’s taste significantly.
Step 2: Introduce the Miso Paste
The introduction of miso paste comes as the second step in the process of making miso soup. You might use any of the several miso paste types available, but the three most prominent ones include white miso paste, which is the sweetest and mildest and works well for miso soup. It requires careful handling as miso is a live food with valuable probiotic activity, which can be destroyed by high heat.
For this stage you will need:
- Dashi broth
- 3 tablespoons of Miso Paste, ideally a mild type like Shiro Miso 白味噌
Instructions:
- To introduce the miso paste, use a strainer to prevent lumpiness. Place the strainer into the saucepan with the prepared dashi broth, making sure enough liquid covers the paste.
- Create a smooth miso mixture by using chopsticks to stir the paste within the strainer until all lumps dissolve completely into the broth. This method not only prevents chunks of miso, but also allows the unique flavours of the miso paste types to mature and blend seamlessly into the soup.
- Once the miso mixture is perfectly melded, remove the strainer from the pot and consider adding a sprinkle of heat to your soup with a dash of ichimi.
Ensure to keep the heat low. Boiling the soup after adding in the miso mixture can kill the beneficial bacteria that result from the fermentation. The goal here is to retain the probiotic benefits and smooth texture of the miso paste, lending a balanced flavour to the soup, with a sprinkle of ichimi to intensify the depth of flavour.
Step 3: Add Tofu and Other Ingredients
The final step in the process involves the addition of the other ingredients. Firm (momen) tofu, known for easily absorbing flavours, pairs well with seafood, making it an excellent option. The sequence of adding these additions is important, starting with those that take longer to cook and ending with the quickest-cooking items.
For this step you can opt for:
- 1 (8 ounce) package silken tofu, diced,
- Seafood as desired, and
- 2 green onions, sliced diagonally into 1/2 inch pieces,
- Seaweed, softened and chopped, as desired.
Instructions:
- Begin with the tofu. It's important to drain and pat the tofu dry before cutting it into cubes. Once this is done, introduce it into the already simmering dashi and miso blend. For a flavourful bonus, consider adding seafood after the tofu as both components enrich the broth.
- Cook until the tofu and seafood are heated through, but be careful not to boil the soup at this point to preserve the probiotics and nutrients.
- If you're adding vegetables, start with harder kinds such as carrots or potatoes, allowing them to soften. Consider tossing in marinades to give an extra flavour boost.
- Add softer greens such as spinach and seaweed last, so they maintain their vibrant colour and don’t overcook. Sprinkle a little ichimi for that warmth you crave.
- Finally, garnish the dish with sliced green onions.
With ingredients added, your nutritious, comforting bowl of Miso Soup is now ready to be enjoyed!
Remember, the beauty of miso soup lies in its versatility. It's your canvas; paint with veggies, meats, and seafood to make your own unique version of this beloved Japanese soup staple.
Twisting it Your Way
Variations of Miso Soup Recipes
Miso soup is incredibly adaptable and open to experimentation. It's no wonder why it's a favourite dish in many households. You can create endless varieties of it simply by switching up the ingredients, the ratio of red to white miso, or even the type of dashi. If you've developed a fondness for the miso soup from your favourite sushi restaurant, why not try recreating it at home? Here are a few variations that you might want to try:
- Tofu Miso Soup: This classic version keeps it simple with tofu, green onion, and wakame. It's mild, soothing, and has gained popularity even outside Japan.
- Mushroom Miso Soup: Adding mushrooms like shiitake or cremini elevates the soup with an earthy depth and chunkier texture.
- Wakame Seaweed Miso Soup: Sea vegetables like wakame bring an oceanic touch to the soup. Try adding different seaweed varieties for a surprising twist.
- Daikon Miso Soup: Incorporating daikon radish adds a fresh, slightly sweet crunch to your bowl—a perfect complement to the richer ingredients.
- Kabocha Miso Soup: For a heartier spin, reminiscent of your warming autumn flavours, add chunks of kabocha squash to your dashi before introducing the miso.
- Summer Vegetable Miso Soup: This can include a medley of fresh vegetables like zucchini, bell peppers, and tomatoes, bringing a colourful array of nutrients.
- Natto Miso Soup: If you're feeling adventurous, try adding natto — a type of fermented soybean known for its intense taste and health benefits.
Ingredient Swaps and Substitutions
One of the many beauties of miso soup is its adaptability. Depending on your dietary needs, preferences, and what you have available in your cupboard, there are numerous ways to make delicious and nutritious adaptations. For example, you may struggle to find miso paste in the local supermarket, but don't be discouraged. Most of the ingredients can be ordered online. Here are some swap and substitution ideas:
- Miso Paste: Whether it's red or white, or a blend of both, it all depends upon your preference for a stronger or milder flavour.
- Dashi: Traditionally made from kombu and bonito flakes, a vegan-friendly option can be created using the recommended HonDashi granules. These granules not only carry a stronger seaweed flavour but being 100% vegan, are beneficial for those adopting a plant-based diet.
- Tofu: Not a tofu fan? Consider substituting with tempeh, seitan, or even protein-rich chickpeas.
- Vegetables: Available veggies can change the game. Root vegetables like radish and potato, or leafy greens such as spinach, can easily slide in to provide added nutrients.
- Seaweed: Can't find wakame? Other seaweeds like kombu or nori can be a great alternative.
- Ginger: Fresh grated ginger is a beautiful addition, making the miso soup more fragrant and warming.
Remember: Miso soup isn't a recipe, it's an art — feel free to play around with the canvas to create a masterpiece that suits your palate. Add a serving of sushi rice, Japanese fried chicken, agedashi tofu, katsu chicken, or ginger pork for a complete meal.
Serving and Storing Miso Soup
What to Serve with Miso Soup
One of the delights of miso soup is its versatility as a culinary companion. Not only is it a popular choice in its home country, but the soup is frequently enjoyed in kitchens around the world, often becoming a favourite pairing with many dishes. Traditionally, it is served alongside various dishes in a Japanese meal setting. Here are some enticing suggestions:
- Rice Dishes: A bowl of steamed sushi rice or a serving of onigiri (rice balls) complements the delightful aroma and flavours of miso soup perfectly.
- Protein: Serving the soup with a slice of grilled fish or chicken offers a wholesome and balanced meal, which enhances the favoured taste of miso.
- Pickles: Japanese pickles (tsukemono) add a crunchy, tangy contrast to the soft, savoury aroma of miso soup.
- Noodles: Soba or udon noodles can be served alongside or even included in your soup for a more substantial meal.
- Japanese Breakfast: Traditionally, miso soup, with its charming aroma, is served at breakfast, accompanying dishes like tamagoyaki (rolled omelette) and grilled fish.
In western cuisine, miso soup can make a fantastic start to a sushi night at home or as a soothing, warm appetiser before a main course. With the diverse options available, discovering your own favourite pairings with miso soup becomes an enjoyable culinary journey!
Can You Freeze Miso Soup? How to Store It?
Storing miso soup requires a bit of know-how to retain its freshness and flavour. Here are some guidelines:
In the Refrigerator:
Miso soup lasts about 1-2 days in the refrigerator. While you can prepare a big batch of dashi and store it in the refrigerator for up to 3-5 days, if your final soup contains miso, its best to consume it within a day or two. To store it, allow the soup to cool down to room temperature first, then transfer it to an airtight container before refrigerating.
In the Freezer:
Yes, miso soup can indeed be frozen, making it an excellent option for meal prep. If you're looking to make a larger batch for the future, it’s recommended that you freeze the soup before adding in the miso to keep its unique taste intact. Transfer the cooled batch to freezer-friendly zip-top bags or ice trays, allowing about an inch of space at the top for expansion. Then, you can easily store the soup in the freezer for up to two months.
However, note that it's advised to add ingredients like tofu and green onions after you thaw and reheat the soup, as they may not retain their texture well when frozen and reheated. For reheating, utilise a microwave or stovetop but be careful to stop just as it comes to a simmer, as boiling can harm the probiotics in the miso paste.
Remember, while it's convenient, fresh is always best — miso soup is ideally consumed right away to enjoy its utmost freshness and flavour.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Is Miso Soup Healthy?
Yes, miso soup is healthy and loaded with numerous nutritional benefits. Here's why, further substantiated by nutrition information:
- Rich in Essential Nutrients: Miso soup is a good source of several vitamins and minerals such as manganese, copper, zinc, and vitamin K, which are fundamental nutrition information for your body.
- High in Protein: Thanks to tofu and miso paste, it's high in protein content, an essential nutrition detail instrumental for muscle growth and recovery.
- Low in Calories: It is typically low in calories yet quite filling, making it nutritionally efficient for weight control, based on nutrition information and caloric content.
- Healthy Gut: Miso, being a fermented food, offers nutrition information about probiotics that can foster gut health.
However, the nutrition information of miso indicates it is high in sodium, so those on a low-sodium diet may need to limit their intake or opt for a low-sodium variety of miso paste. Always consult with a healthcare professional if you have specific dietary restrictions or health concerns.
Is Miso Soup Vegetarian?
As traditionally prepared, miso soup is not vegetarian or vegan because the dashi broth is made with katsuobushi, which are dried smoked bonito (fish) flakes. However, it's easy to make a vegetarian or vegan version at home by substitifying the dashi with a plant-based broth.
Homemade vegetable stock or a kombu (seaweed) base can be used to imitate the umami flavour without any animal-based ingredients. For those who can't find these ingredients at their local supermarket, you can also find vegetarian and vegan-friendly instant dashi mixes online or at larger supermarkets. So even though some ingredients may be difficult to find in a regular supermarket, miso soup can certainly be modified to suit a vegetarian or vegan diet while maintaining its unique taste and charm.
Can you eat miso soup every day?
Yes, it's common in Japan to consume miso soup daily, sometimes even more than once a day. Understanding the basics of preparing miso soup can make it a regular part of your diet. It's traditionally served with breakfast and can be included in other meals as well.
Not only does miso soup offer a comforting warmth and rich umami flavour, but it's also filled with nutrition, making it an excellent addition to daily meals. However, remember that while you can enjoy miso soup daily, like many dishes, balance is the key. Miso paste, the critical ingredient, is high in sodium content, so depending on your particular diet and health condition, you might need to moderate your intake. Always discuss dietary changes with a healthcare professional.