Miso Soup Love

There’s nothing quite like miso soup, particularly when you need something satisfying and light, but FAST. Well, satisfying, light, and fast that’s still warm and comforting that is. I never have been much of a salad girl.

But anyway – miso soup is not only fast, but it’s easy to make and to customize. All you need is dashi stock (Japanese fish broth), miso, some tofu (if you like it) and really, anything else you want to throw in.

For the dashi stock, I just use granulated dashi stock, since it’s hard to find katsuobushi in this area and I feel weird ordering it from amazon because they market it as a cat treat (cats apparently like it a lot – although I’ve seen mixed advice about it actually being good to feed to them). But it’s just as easy to make from scratch if you have access to the ingredients. Here’s a detailed guide to making dashi from scratch on Just Hungry.

Whatever method you use, once you’ve got some dashi heating, separate about a cup out into a bowl, and mix in your miso into that until it’s all smooth and liquidy – I use a heaping tsp of miso per serving of soup. Then dump it back into the pot, along with your tofu and other ingredients (Most people and restaurants add nori and scallions – but I didn’t have any of either around at the time) and let it simmer for a bit, stirring every once and a while to mix up the miso (it will settle to the bottom over time).

My miso soup isn’t the fanciest. But not a whole lot about me is the fanciest anyway – this was a utilitarian meal, so I served mine with a LOT of tofu and over rice to bulk it up since I didn’t have any other ingredients on hand. But you could easily add fish or vegetables to this to make a hearty meal in and of itself (although cooking time will probably be longer!).