Very Simple Miso Soup

Home made miso soup is the easiest soup you can make and I consider it as the fast food, yet it's very healthy thanks to the power of MISO! I make it and eat it every morning! It's a good pick-me-up food especially during the winter. It instantly warms up your body from inside.

You can make it as fast as instant oatmeal or even faster as long as you have the ingredients...

Step 1: Ingredients

This is for 1 serving. Go ahead and double, triple, quadruple it! It just takes longer to boil water. That's all. 

• 1 cup of water (or home made dashi)
• 1 teaspoon of dried wakame (sea weed - the one I bought was like $2.50 and I only buy it every other month  - remember I eat miso soup everyday?)
• 1 or 2 teaspoons of finely chopped green onions (I chop onions and keep it in a glass jar - it'll last about a few days in the fridge)
• 1 tablespoon of miso (any kind of miso will do - I like organic unpasteurized miso from Nijiya Market - I usually transfer the miso from the plastic container) 
• a pinch (1/8 teaspoon) of bonito or kombu (it's kelp - if you are vegan, go for kombu) or iriko dashi powder (omit this if you have home made dashi) 

Miso is a miracle condiment (at least to me) that makes a lot of thing more delicious thanks to the loaded organic amino acids and live culture and more! I believe you can buy miso from any supermarkets in the states now. Right?  Also, there are misos which are already mixed with dashi. But these misos usually contains MSG... just so you know. I like unpasteurized organic miso. It's like $4 per pound. 

However, it may be hard to find the ingredients for "dashi" at your local supermarkets. So you probably end up going to a Japanese or Asian market anyway...  Any Asian stores and natural food stores carry dashi ingredients such as bonito flakes and kombu (kelp). But you have to go to a Japanese or Asian store to find powdered dashi from one or two or 10 different brands. 

But be aware if you want miso soup for the health benefits, most of these powdered dashi include MSG and preservatives.  Find the one without those chemicals. There are many of them available if you go to Japanese markets. I used bonito dashi from Riken for this recipe because it was in the care package from my mom in Japan :) No MSG. No chemical preservatives. No GMO. This one is available here, too, and has a label in English ;)

Also, you can find dried seaweed at any Asian markets. 

Step 2: Cooking

1. Put water in a small pot (I used one from IKEA) and bring it to a boil.
2. Turn off the heat (VERY IMPORTANT!) and add all the ingredients and stir with chopsticks or a fork until miso gets completely disintegrated. I usually let it sit for a few minutes so that miso gets soft and automatically disintegrated.
3. Turn the heat back on and warm up the miso over medium heat. Serve in the small bowl. DO NOT LET IT BOIL!

TIPs:

• DO NOT BOIL MISO EVER! Miso is a living food! It has a live culture that gives you the health benefits people are talking about! If you boil it, you kill the miso and the health benefits with it. So you have to turn off the heat just before it starts boiling or don't heat it up after you stir the miso soup.
• If you want to add diced tofu, add them with other ingredients after you turn the heat off.
• If you want to add veggies, cut them into smaller pieces and add them with water and bring it to a boil. Make sure they are softened before you turn off the heat and add miso.
• We don't use a spoon to drink miso. We drink from a bowl and eat the veggies and tofu with chopsticks :)  I don't taste  the stainless steel flavor from the spoon when I eat other soups or stew. But with miso soup, I do! So when I eat a big bowl of miso soup, I use a wooded spoon.  

Comments

[jessyratfink]

Oh yum! I love miso. :D

[terumihugsocean]

Right on, jessyratfink! I love miso, too :D

[Dunyas]

Just want to point out that if you are using kombu, your soup has MSG as that is where it basically comes from. MSG isn't bad, it's basically just like any other salt and fine in moderation. Most negativity concerning MSG come from propaganda against Asian owned restaurants. It has been proven in numerous times that any negative effects that people complain about after eating MSG are caused by the placebo effect. This is why people will still claim a headache after eating Chinese food from a restaurant that doesn't use MSG but can eat burger after burger at McDonald's, which are heavily seasoned with MSG.

[terumihugsocean]

@Dunyas, thank you for pointing it out!! :)

I was wondering how I should choose the word for the chemicals I wanted or many people may want to avoid. I just used the word MSG because that's like the generic word for bad food additives. And you are correct. Monosodium glutamate is something that makes us go "mmmmm yum" = "umami" that is and is naturally occurred in kelp, dried bonito, miso, soy sauce, tomatoes, mushrooms, etc. So I probably should avoid using that M word, shouldn't I?

What I wanted to say was be aware of the food additives in the powdered dashi because some of them contains a lot (Japan allows the manufacturers to round up the chemicals and label them as "amino acids, etc." and we don't know what exactly are in it) and may be harmful to some people or this planet. I wanted to mention that because I have noticed that a lot of people who look for Japanese food recipe are seeking healthy food alternatives. A lot of Japanese foods at the stores and restaurants can be as bad as McDonald's! It depends on the ingredients they choose. And many Asian stores carry those ingredients with many artificial food additives that some people don't want to consume.

Also the dashi I have used contains dextrose. My understanding is that most of dextrose is derived from genetically modified corn AND GMcorns are considered safe to consume. But I personally doubt it and want to avoid it. There seemed to be many people who want to avoid GMO, too. But this particular dextrose is derived from tapioca. So to me, it's a tad better alternative... I know, I know. It may be as bad or as good as GMcorn dextrose! ;p If I had more money to spare, I would totally make dashi from scratch everyday :)

Anyway, thanks for the comment, Dunyas! I wonder if I can edit this now that the soup & stew contests's deadline is over... I don't want people to think I'm cheating. Hope people read this comment! And hope you will vote for my soup so that I can win the First Prize (yep, not the grand prize. The first prize ;)) Happy Holidays!