How to make a wonderful miso soup: traditional Japanese soup

Miso soup (or miso soup) is a delicious Japanese soup very popular in the gastronomy of Japan. Discover how you can prepare it at home with this traditional recipe.

There is no doubt that  Japanese cuisine is gaining more and more followers in our country, especially with the opening of a wide variety of restaurants and places that offer the most typical dishes of the wonderful Japanese cuisine. And it is that, contrary to what many mistakenly think, the Japanese do not come only for  sushi, and the delicious  miso soup is a good example.

The truth is that Japanese gastronomy actually offers us a great variety of delicious dishes. An example is vegetable, seafood or meat tempura. The delicious toasted buckwheat noodles (Soba), the traditional yellow noodles served in hot broth (Ramen), or the popular Teriyaki, which consists of grilled or grilled meat, chicken, fish or vegetables glazed with soy sauce sweetened.

In any case, if you are a soup or broth lover and you are also passionate about Japanese cuisine, there is no doubt that  you will love miso soup almost without any doubt.

What is miso soup (or miso soup)?

It is a delicious soup known by the name of misoshiru  (み そ 汁), whose main ingredient is  miso, which is the food that precisely gives this dish its name. It becomes, in fact, one of the main dishes of Japanese cuisine and gastronomy.

And what is miso? It consists of a flavored paste made with soybeans and cereals, accompanied by sea salt, which is fermented with koji, a fungus also commonly used in the preparation of the equally traditional soy sauce.

This soup is made with both miso and  dashi, a traditional fish broth that is accompanied by other delicious ingredients such as leek and chives. Chunks of tofu, the popular tofu, may also be added.

How to make miso soup: delicious miso soup recipe?

As you will see, the preparation of miso soup is extremely simple and easy. But it is necessary to follow certain steps to make it in the purest Japanese style. Find out what ingredients you need and the steps to follow.

Ingredients for dashi broth:

• 1 liter of water.
• 20 gr. konbu (seaweed, dried).
• 40 gr. dried bonito flakes (katsuobushi).

Ingredients for miso soup:

• 2 cups dashi broth.
• Half a packet of tofu.
• 30 gr. wakame seaweed (rehydrated).
• 2 tablespoons miso (you can use black miso if you like your soup with a more intense flavor, if you don’t use white miso).
• A piece of chives.

Preparation of dashi broth:

1. First of all, we are going to learn how to make dashi broth. To do this, with the help of a clean and damp cloth, we are going to clean the konbu seaweed well. In this way we will remove the soft part that we find on its surface. Then put water in a large bowl and let the seaweed soak for 20 minutes.
2. Add the water to a large saucepan, put the seaweed to cook, and heat over medium heat just before it starts to boil.
3. Now add the dried bonito flakes, lower the heat a little and with the help of a slotted spoon, remove the foam that appears on the surface of the broth. A few minutes later turn off the heat and let it rest until you notice that the bonito begins to sink. This is the ideal time to strain the water.
4. Reserve the broth to use in our miso soup.

Preparation of the miso soup:

1. Let’s start by rehydrating the wakame seaweed. To do this, we must soak it in a bowl with water, leaving it like that for 20 minutes.
2. While the algae is rehydrated we can start preparing the rest of the soy ingredients. To do this, being careful not to break it, cut the tofu into small squares.
3. Cut the chives into several pieces.
4. Put the dashi broth in a saucepan and start to heat over medium heat. Just when it reaches the boiling point, turn off the heat and remove the saucepan.
5. Take a little dashi broth in a separate bowl and add the miso paste little by little, stirring well so that it dissolves and the paste is well mixed. Then mix with the rest of the dashi broth.
6. Now add the tofu pieces and the seaweed.
7. Mix it up a bit and voila! Serve the miso soup in individual bowls before it cools down, but before serving it, top with a few chives of chives.
8. Now yes, you can enjoy it.

As we can see, the preparation of miso soup is very simple, but first we must have our dashi broth ready. However, in case of not having dashi, we can make the soup normally by substituting the amount of dashi broth that we have used in the recipe for water.