Basic Misoshiru - Japanese Miso Soup Recipe | MasalaHerb.com (2024)

Misoshiru, is a classic Japanese miso soup, and you might know it from your Japanese restaurant.

Here you will learn everything to make misoshiru from scratch at home. Tips and instructions from a Japanese home cook and restaurant owner.

Momoko shows you in this recipe the basic steps to make an easy Japanese miso soup from scratch in a saucepan.

📕 What is misoshiru?

Misoshiru is a traditional Japanese Soup made with miso, a fermented soybean paste from Japan.

Variations of miso paste exist, such as red miso, yellow and white miso. Regional Japanese miso paste varieties are prepared with fermented barley too.

Misoshiru is a quick clear soup, prepared with miso paste and other ingredients and varieties of miso soup are common.

The paste is used to make an instant soup. It only takes 5 minutes to make a bowl of miso soup.

🥣 Ingredients

Here are some pointers on what to look out for when making miso soup from scratch.

Miso Paste

Miso paste is the main ingredient, and you can choose to use your type of miso such as red, yellow, or a white miso paste.

Red miso paste is more common, white miso paste is usually considered superior in taste.

Mixing red and white miso paste can result in interesting soup flavors and is encouraged.

You can buy miso paste in a specialized Asian grocery store or get miso paste online.

Dashi

Classic misoshiru soup is based on dashi, which is a Japanese broth.

Dashi can be made of bonito flakes (dried fish flakes), kombu seaweed, wakame seaweed kelp, and dried shiitake mushrooms among other variations.

The best and most flavorful dashi is made with bonito flakes and kombu kelp and that one is known as awase dashi.

We are making shiitake dashi, in today's misoshiru soup bowl recipe. Today's recipe is a plant-based vegan miso soup variation.

If you don't have dashi on hand, then you can use a regular broth, but the taste will be different, and it won't make an authentic miso soup.

In that case, use instant cubes or flakes or liquid broth (Japanese version preferred above western broth).

The better option (vs western broth) is to use instant dashi powder in heated water!

Extra Flavoring

Soy sauce, some sugar, and salt can be added as well for extra flavor. Sliced green onion stalks can be used as a garnish.

Extra ingredients are not required if you are using a high-quality miso paste.

🔪 How to make it?

A homemade misoshiru soup essentially consists of 2 parts: the making of the dashi and the miso soup itself.

The focus today is a vegan dashi prepared with shiitake mushrooms.

Luckily, making dashi and the soup is easy. Here is how in a nutshell (full recipe in the recipe card further below).

Watch the how-to video to help you along.

Step 1

Make dashi by keeping the mushrooms to soak in water for a few hours.

Take out mushrooms before using the dashi for the soup.

Step 2

Simmer dashi over a medium heat setting and add flavoring ingredients when it's cooking.

Step 3

Reduce or turn off the heat and add in the miso paste. Combine paste into soup until it has dissolved.

Tip: Miso paste shouldn't boil in the soup or the flavors of the miso will get altered in a not so good way.

Pour into a bowl and garnish with green onion slices or scallions and serve up hot.

📜 Soup Additions

This is the most classic, simple, and basic misoshiru out there, and you can add ingredients and modify it to your needs.

Add the following to your soup, while the soup is cooking or to garnish, one at a time or combined:

• noodles – ramen, udon, soba
• tofu – uncooked in the soup or crispy fried as a topping. You can use silken tofu too.
• seafood – clams, surimi, crab, shrimp
• meat – stir-fried pork or chicken
• vegetables – radish, carrot, leek, potato, sweet potato, taro root, eggplant, cabbage, bok choy or green peas
• shimeji Mushrooms
• drop an egg in or serve with soft-boiled egg half (Ajitsuke Tamago)

🍲 Serving

Traditionally, Japanese homes enjoy miso soup mainly for breakfast with a bowl of rice and other small healthy seafood and vegetable bites.

However, a bowl of misoshiru soup is also served up for lunch and dinner the same way as for breakfast.

The combination of miso soup and sushi rolls is a great idea too.

Serve up your clear Japanese soup with a bowl of plain cooked rice, if you have the flu, a hangover or if you want to lose weight (probiotic properties).

The soup is low calorie, so it makes a great accompaniment with most Japanese themed meals.

💭 FAQs

👁️ More Recipes like this

• Japanese Onion Soup
• Bok Choy Soup
• Japanese Chicken Ramen Soup

📖 Recipe