Easy Miso Soup
A super simple, hearty miso soup that can be made from pantry ingredients. In our experience, it also makes a great cold remedy!
Servings: 4
Calories: 131kcal
Ingredients
- 8 cups water
- 4 tablespoons white miso paste
- 1 tablespoon chicken bouillon paste (we use Better Than Bouillon—if you use something else, be mindful of salt levels and adjust accordingly)
- 1/2 teaspoon dashi powder (we use Ajinomoto Hon Dashi granules)
- 12-16 ounces silken tofu (the exact amount doesn’t matter—basically 1 package of silken tofu; typically, shelf stable boxes are 12 ounces, and refrigerated boxes are 16 ounces)
- 1 scallion
- 3 eggs
- 3 tablespoons dried wakame seaweed
Instructions
- Add the water to a medium pot, cover, and set over high heat. Meanwhile, gather your ingredients. Add the miso paste, chicken bouillon paste, and Hondashi powder to the pot. Bring to a boil.
- While the broth cooks, cut your tofu into cubes. (½-inch/1cm cubes are a good place to start, but cut them however you like!)
- Give the broth a stir to make sure the miso is evenly distributed. Add the tofu, and simmer for another 5 minutes or so.
- While that’s happening, chop the scallions. (If you’re like us, and you have some already chopped and frozen, you can skip this step.) Lightly beat the eggs in a small bowl. Add the wakame seaweed.
- With the soup at a low simmer, pour in the egg in a circular pattern. Don’t stir the soup, and don’t let it come up to a high simmer/boil. Add the scallions, give everything a stir, and serve!
Notes
If you want to preserve the full spectrum of nutrients in the miso paste, it’s best not to let miso paste boil. This is something I learned from our friend Nami at Just One Cookbook!
Here’s what she says: “Never boil miso soup once miso is added because it loses nutrients, flavors, and aromas. If you turn off the heat right before boiling, this temperature (203ºF/95ºC) is considered the most fragrant stage for miso soup. And by the time you are ready to enjoy the soup, it is an ideal temperature (167ºF/75ºC) for drinking.”
But we love a piping hot soup, so we admittedly sometimes sacrifice a little bit of strictness on heating in the name of having a extra comforting bowl of hot soup that won’t get cold too quickly after you serve it. You can do whatever you prefer!
Nutrition
Calories: 131kcal | Carbohydrates: 8g | Protein: 11g | Fat: 6g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Trans Fat: 0.01g | Cholesterol: 123mg | Sodium: 759mg | Potassium: 245mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 2g | Vitamin A: 236IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 77mg | Iron: 2mg