Miso soup: fifteen minutes and one rule — never boil it
Miso is a fermented soybean paste, often made with rice or barley too, with a deep, salty umami. Its aroma is delicate, though, which is why miso soup is never boiled: at a boil the fragrance escapes, the flavour turns dull and the broth loses its silkiness. The paste is whisked into broth off the heat, through a sieve, and served at once. The whole soup takes a quarter of an hour.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Dashi broth 10 min
- Additions 5 min
- Miso paste 5 min
Step by step
0 / 5 doneSteep and warm the broth
Cover the kombu and dried mushrooms with cold water and heat slowly, about 10 minutes, until the water reaches 60–70 °C — it should steam but not boil. Then lift the kombu out: boiled, it releases slime and a bitter, marine taste. Leave the mushrooms in the hot broth.
Ingredients: 1200 ml water · 10 g kombu seaweed · 15 g dried shiitake mushrooms
TipThis is a vegetarian dashi, the foundational Japanese broth (the classic version adds bonito flakes). Don't wash the white bloom off the kombu — it is a natural deposit that carries umami flavour. If you have time, soak the kombu and mushrooms in cold water for 30 minutes beforehand: the broth will be fuller and the mushrooms softer.
Sixty degrees, kombu out before it boilsCut the tofu and spring onion
Cut the silken tofu into 1.5 cm cubes — it is very fragile, so cut it on a board, not in your hand, and move it with a spatula. Slice the spring onions into thin rings, keeping the white and green parts separate. If using wakame, soak it in a bowl of cold water for 5 minutes (it swells a lot) and squeeze it out.
Ingredients: 250 g silken tofu · 3 pcs spring onions · 5 g dried wakame
A 1.5 cm dice, moved with a spatulaAdd everything for two minutes
Lift the mushrooms out, squeeze them, discard the tough stalks, slice the caps and return them with the white parts of the spring onion and the soaked wakame. Add the tofu and heat 2 minutes, watching all the time that the soup does not boil.
Whisk the miso through a sieve
Take the pot off the heat. Put the miso in a small sieve submerged in the soup and press it through with the back of a spoon until it disappears. Dropped straight into the pot it leaves lumps that will not break up again.
Ingredients: 4 tbsp miso paste · 1 tsp soy sauce
TipAt a boil miso loses its aroma, and in unpasteurised paste the live cultures die too. That is why the paste always goes in last, off the heat.
Sieve submerged, pot off the heatSeason and serve at once
Taste and add soy sauce if needed — miso pastes vary greatly in saltiness. Ladle into bowls, scatter with the green parts of the spring onion and serve immediately. Miso soup separates after a few minutes, so stir before each mouthful.
Green onion on top, straight to the table
Before you start
Which miso to choose
Light (shiro) is mild and slightly sweet, the best place to start. Dark (aka) is markedly salty and intense — three tablespoons will do instead of four.
Without kombu
Vegetable stock will stand in for dashi. The result tastes less Japanese and more European, but the soup is still good. The dried mushrooms matter all the more then, as the source of umami.
What else to add
Spinach, Chinese cabbage, soba noodles, sprouts, a poached egg. Add everything before the miso, never after — once the paste is in, the soup should not boil again.
Storing
Miso soup is best fresh; reheat leftovers gently, without letting them boil. The dashi, however, keeps 4 days in the fridge, so make it ahead and whisk miso into each portion separately, just before eating.
