Quick Miso Soup
A warm, savoury bowl of miso soup with tofu and seaweed, ready in 10 minutes. The easiest way to start a Japanese-style meal. In Japan it turns up at breakfast as often as at dinner, always alongside rice, and every household makes it a little differently. The one rule everyone agrees on is that the miso goes in at the very end, with the heat off.
Prep time5 min
Cook time10 min
Total time15 min
Servings4 servings
DifficultyEasy
Ingredients
- 4 cups water
- 2 tsp dashi powder (or 1 stock cube)
- 3 tbsp miso paste
- 150g soft tofu, cubed
- 2 tbsp dried wakame seaweed
- 2 spring onions, sliced
Instructions
- 1Put the water in a saucepan over medium heat and bring it to a gentle simmer — small bubbles around the edge of the pan, not a rolling boil.
- 2Stir in the dashi powder and let it dissolve completely, about 30 seconds, before anything else goes in.
- 3Add the tofu cubes and the wakame and simmer for 2 minutes, just long enough to warm the tofu through and rehydrate the seaweed.
- 4Take the pan off the heat and let it settle for a moment, until the surface stops moving.
- 5Set a small sieve over the pan, put the miso in it, and press it through with the back of a spoon. Alternatively, whisk the miso smooth in a ladleful of the hot broth before adding it back.
- 6Stir the dissolved miso into the soup gently. From this point on it must not boil — heat above roughly 80°C drives off the aroma that makes miso worth using.
- 7Taste and adjust: if the soup tastes flat, stir in a little more miso; if it is too strong, loosen it with hot water.
- 8Ladle into bowls, top with the spring onions and drink it while it is hot.
Tips
- Never boil the miso, or it loses its flavour and aroma.
- White miso is milder; red miso is stronger — pick whichever you like.
- Dashi powder keeps the soup quick; you can also use a stock cube.
- Press the miso through a fine sieve instead of dropping the paste straight into the pan. It dissolves evenly and leaves no lumps sitting at the bottom of the bowl.
- Lower the tofu in with a spoon rather than tipping it from the bowl. Soft tofu breaks up at the slightest knock and a cloudy soup looks unappetising.
