Today’s miso soup is made with bacon, cabbage, and onion. Bacon is commonly used in western style soup such as chowder and minestrone, but it actually goes very well with Japanese miso soup, too! Dashi is almost not needed as the bacon has strong flavor, but we are adding instant dashi powder to the broth for added umami.
Today’s miso soup is made with Daikon radish, cherry tomatoes, and arugula. Daikon’s crunchy texture, cherry tomato’s sweet and sour flavor, and arugula’s bitterness all come together in a deliciously savory miso soup.
Miso Soup (味噌汁) is, as many of you may already know, a soup flavored with Miso Paste and usually includes Tofu and vegetables. It is a very essential dish of Japanese cuisine, and comes with any traditional Japanese meal. Many of you might have had Miso Soup once before even if you didn’t order it at a Japanese restaurant, just because it came with your Chicken Teriyaki.
In Japan, the first meal of New Year’s Day always begins with a bowl of specially prepared soup called Ozoni. Ozoni (or Zoni) is a soup that contains mochi rice cake in a savory broth. The preparation of Ozoni varies significantly by region, and each household has its traditional recipe often passed down in a family for generations.
Miso Soup is one of the most important dishes in Japanese cuisine. It comes with every meal, every day, with meals using Steamed Rice as a main starch. Because we eat Miso Soup so often, we try to simplify the process of making it, and add more variations to it so that we don’t get tired of eating it. Everyday Miso Soup is Miso Soup for everyday living, combining Japanese tradition with cleaning up leftovers.
Tonjiru (or Butajiru, 豚汁) is a type of miso soup made with pork and hearty root vegetables such as Gobo (burdock root) and carrots. Although it shares the same miso base, Tonjiru tastes quite different from ordinary miso soup. The broth is deeply flavorful, enriched by the umami from pork and the earthy depth of Gobo, giving it a unique and robust character.
A lot of people have miso soup every day with meals in Japan. Because of that, there are many variations. Most of the time there are no particular recipes since they just use whatever ingredients are on hand.
I had some leftover aburaage (deep fried tofu) and onions in my fridge, so I made this. If you would like to know how to make miso soup in more detail, please watch our Miso Soup video.
You may think that you must have tofu and/or wakame seaweed to make miso soup, but you can make it with just about anything you have at home. If you have made miso soup before, the chances are that you still have plenty of dried bonito flakes to make dashi broth and some miso paste left in the fridge. All you need is some onion and potato to make another authentic Japanese dish!
Onion and potato are pretty common ingredients for everyday miso soup in Japan, simply because everyone has them at home and it’s quite tasty. You don’t need to make a trip to the Japanese market this time!
If you have never made miso soup before, please watch our video first. For quick recap of making simple and delicious dashi broth, watch this video.