Warming Winter Miso Soup Recipe

I lived in Japan for 6 months in my early 20's and fell in love with Japanese cuisine.

When I trained as a Whole & Natural Foods Chef I loved exploring all things miso paste. 

Miso is known as a functional food. Interest in functional foods, particularly fermented foods, has grown in recent years due to the bacteria found in them, which provide additional health advantages, nutrition, and the potential to fight/resist certain diseases. Miso possesses anticancer, antihypertensive and anti‐inflammatory properties, as well as the ability to eliminate gastrointestinal diseases. (1)

Warming Winter Miso Soup Recipe

Serves 4 as a snack or 2 as a main meal

Ingredients:

Dashi

• 1 litre (4 cups) water
• 2 teaspoons dashi powder (I like the Spiral brand avail at most good health food stores)
• (or make your own dashi using either bonito flakes, kombu, shiitake mushrooms)

Miso

• 2 generous tablespoons shiro or brown miso paste
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce or shoyu (optional – see note below)
• 1 teaspoon grated finger (or more to taste)

Instructions: 

To make the dashi, bring the water and dashi powder to a gentle boil in a large saucepan over a medium heat.

Add any hard vegetables, tofu or seafood that you have chosen to use and simmer until they are tender.

Lower the heat.

Spoon some miso paste into a ladle and add a little bit of dashi at a time in the ladle to liquefy the paste. Or place the miso paste in a small glass jug – ladle ½ cup of the dashi then whisk. Once you have a smooth paste, add that back into the dashi and you now have your miso soup. Mix or whisk gently.

Add grated ginger. Keep on low-medium heat for 5 mins. Add any optional tender greens (eg thinly sliced spring onions) and let them soften.

Turn off the heat.

Taste for saltiness and add a dash of soy sauce or water, if needed.

For the additions, choose one of the options suggested below or use whatever you have available.

Serve warm. 

Enjoy!

Optional Extras

• wakame or seaweed sprinkles
• tofu cubes
• sliced carrots
• thinly sliced spring onions (aka scallions or green onions)
• thinly sliced bok choy
• cubes or sliced pre-cooked potatoes
• soaked and sliced shiitake mushrooms
• enoki mushrooms
• sliced poached chicken
• cockles, prawns or clams
• daikon cubes
• aubergine cubes
• handful pre-soaked rice or mung bean noodle
• pepper to taste
• coriander leaves
• dash mirin
• squeeze lemon juice and or zest of lemon
• turmeric – freshly grated – makes a lovely addition too

Cooking Notes:

Miso is a fermented soybean paste made by combining cooked soybeans, a grain, sea salt and koji. Sweet white rice miso (shiro) is ideal for soups. Alternatively use brown miso paste.

The saltiness of different miso pastes varies so exactly how much soy sauce you need will differ depending on this.

Remember not to boil the soup after the miso has been added. Always cook miso gently. The enzymes it contains, beneficial to good digestion, are assisted by gentle heat but are denatured by boiling. It is said that adding a pungent flavour such as ginger, lemon or spring onions to miso soup just before serving will activate the enzymes, making them more beneficial.

Happy Cooking.

Katie xx

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