Miso Soup

Name: Miso Soup
Prep time: 10 min
Total time: 10 min
Cuisine: Japan
Ingredients: 1 l (4 cups) dashi, Dashi, or instant dashi made to the packet; 5 g (2 tbsp) dried wakame; 200 g (7 oz) silken or soft tofu, cut into 1.5 cm cubes; 60 g (¼ cup) miso, white (shiro) or mixed (awase); add up to 75 g to taste; 2 scallions, thinly sliced

Dashi, miso, tofu and wakame — ready in ten minutes

Serves: 4
Hands-on: 10 min
Total: 10 min
Level: Easy

The everyday Japanese soup, and a lesson in restraint. Good dashi and good miso do all the work; the only technique is to never let the miso boil.

Ingredients

1 ldashi (4 cups)Dashi, or instant dashi made to the packet
5 gdried wakame (2 tbsp)
200 gsilken or soft tofu (7 oz)cut into 1.5 cm cubes
60 gmiso (¼ cup)white (shiro) or mixed (awase); add up to 75 g to taste
2scallionsthinly sliced

Diet: Dairy-free, Pescatarian
Allergens: soy, fish
Origin: Japan

Method

Soak the wakame in cold water for 5 minutes until it unfurls and softens. Drain and squeeze dry. 5 min
Meanwhile, bring the dashi to a simmer in a pot.
Slide in the tofu and simmer gently for 1–2 minutes to heat through. 2 min
Turn the heat to its lowest. Put the miso in a ladle or small sieve, lower it into the pot and whisk it with chopsticks or a spoon until dissolved. Taste and add more miso if you like.
Add the wakame. Heat until steaming but not bubbling, then serve immediately with scallions on top.

Why it works

Miso is a living, fermented paste whose aroma compounds are volatile; boiling drives them off and makes the soup taste flat and grainy. Dissolving it in a ladle first prevents lumps. Dashi brings glutamate and inosinate, two savory compounds that amplify each other, so a little miso tastes deeply savory.

Common mistakes

Boiling after the miso goes in: the flavor dulls. Keep it just below a simmer.
Dumping the miso straight into the pot: it clumps. Dissolve it in a ladle or sieve.
Reheating leftovers hard: warm gently, or better, make only what you'll eat.

Variations

Mushroom miso: Simmer 100 g sliced shiitake or enoki in the dashi for 2 minutes before the tofu.
Clam miso: Simmer 400 g scrubbed small clams in the dashi until they open, then add the miso.

Make ahead and storage

Make dashi ahead (keeps 3 days in the fridge); assemble the soup fresh.

Notes

Instant dashi granules almost always contain fish; for a vegan soup, use kombu-and-shiitake dashi (see Dashi). Many misos are made with barley or rice; check the label if you avoid gluten.