Make Miso Soup at Home (Savory and Umami Flavor)

• Food: Miso Soup
• Writer: Nicolas Wilson
• Content-Type: Food Blog

Learn how to prepare miso soup in the comfort of your own home! This simple recipe is a fantastic side dish, starter, or supper on its own, thanks to its savory, umami flavor.

Raise your hand if you’re a big fan of miso soup. Same. The murky broth is comforting, nourishing, and bursting with flavor. There’s nothing I want more on a chilly, bleak winter day. It clears my mind and invigorates me from within.

I used to solely eat miso soup in Japanese restaurants for years. However, after Jack and I visited Japan for the first time, we became interested in trying Japanese food at home.

We brewed matcha, cooked soba noodles, and decided to attempt a miso soup recipe. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I didn’t expect the procedure to be that straightforward.

In less than 20 minutes, we had steaming bowls of miso soup on the table!

This miso soup dish is now a household favorite. It’s full of chewy seaweed, crunchy scallions, and soft tofu, with a rich, savory, umami flavor. Serve it as an appetizer or side dish with your favorite Japanese dishes, or eat it all by itself.

Ingredients for Miso Soup

Making dashi is the first step in every miso soup recipe. This Japanese broth takes just minutes to produce, unlike meat or vegetable soup stocks. The dashi in traditional miso soup is produced from a combination of dried bonito flakes and dried kombu kelp. I leave out the bonito flakes in my recipe to keep it vegetarian.

The kombu contributes plenty of umami flavor to the soup’s base on its own.

You’ll also need the following items to complete this recipe:

• Miso paste is a fermented soybean paste that may be found in Asian markets and most grocery shops in the refrigerated area. Look for white miso paste for this recipe. It has a milder, sweeter flavor than darker forms of miso, such as red miso, due to the shorter fermentation time. It’s wonderful in this simple soup.
• Silken tofu – I like extra-firm tofu for baking tofu, but silken tofu is required in this miso soup recipe. It nearly dissolves into a flavorful soup thanks to its silky smooth texture.
• Wakame is a dried seaweed that can be found in Asian markets, the Asian area of your supermarket, or online. Don’t be fooled by the fact that 3 tablespoons aren’t much for an entire pot of soup. Soak the dried wakame in warm water for a few minutes, and it will explode!
• Scallions — They give the soup a great crunch and a sweet, oniony flavor.
• Tamari – To be used for serving! Add a drop at a time until your soup has a delicious, well-balanced flavor.

How to Make It?

This miso soup dish is incredibly easy to prepare! This is what you must do:

• Make the dashi first. Rinse the kombu and add it to a medium pot with water. Simmer on low heat for 15 minutes. Make sure it doesn’t boil! The kombu flavor will become bitter if you do so. Remove and discard the kombu after 10 minutes.
• Rehydrate the wakame in the meantime. Fill a medium bowl halfway with warm water and set aside. Remove it from the oven and set it aside for 5 minutes. You’ll be amazed at how much it grows!
• Make the miso slurry next. In a small dish, ladle some of the hot dashi, add the miso paste, and whisk until smooth. Making a smooth, well-combined miso soup requires this step. Your soup will be lumpy if you omit this step and add the miso directly to the saucepan.
• Add the miso mixture to the remaining dashi at the end. Drain the wakame and combine it with the green onions and tofu in the soup. Simmer the soup for 1 to 2 minutes over very low heat, just to warm it up. Don’t let it get to a boil again! Miso is high in probiotics because it is a fermented food. Because boiling miso kills these helpful microorganisms, some of the miso’s health benefits are lost.
• Enjoy the soup once it’s warmed up. To flavor, I prefer to serve it with tamari.

Serving Suggestions for Miso Soup

Serve this miso soup as an appetizer, side dish, or whole dinner. I serve it with cooked rice or soba noodles when I eat it as a main course. If I want the soup to be even heartier, I add more vegetables. Turnips, shiitake mushrooms, radishes, carrots, kabocha squash, and greens such as spinach or bok choy all work nicely in this recipe. Before stirring in the miso slurry, add them to the dashi and cook until soft.

If I’m serving this miso soup as a starter or side dish, I’ll serve it with Tamago Kake Gohan or okonomiyaki, both of which are Japanese-inspired dishes. For a fun, at-home sushi night, Jack and I enjoy it with vegan sushi, shiitake maki, or avocado mango sushi.

Miso Soup

Learn how to prepare miso soup in the comfort of your own home! For a fun at-home sushi night, serve this healthy, delicious soup with shiitake maki.

Ingredients

• 1 (3-inch) piece of kombu
• 4 cups water
• 3 tablespoons wakame dried seaweed
• ¼ cup white miso paste
• ⅓ cup chopped scallions
• 6 ounces silken tofu, cubed
• tamari, to taste

Instructions

1. Rinse the kombu piece gently. Place it in a medium pot with the water and cook for 10 minutes on low heat. If you allow it to boil, the kombu flavor will become bitter.
2. To rehydrate the wakame, soak it in a small basin of warm water for at least 5 minutes.
3. Take the kombu out of the soup. Stir the miso paste with some of the hot liquid together in a small bowl until smooth, then stir it back into the soup.
4. Drain the wakame and combine it with the scallions and tofu in the soup pot. Simmer for 1 to 2 minutes over very low heat. Season with tamari to taste.