Miso Soup

The essential Japanese soup — dashi broth with dissolved miso, tofu, and wakame.

Ingredients

• 3 cups dashi (→ see Foundations/Stocks)
• 3 tbsp white miso paste
• 4 oz silken tofu, cubed
• 1 tbsp dried wakame seaweed
• 2 scallions, thinly sliced

Method

1. Heat dashi to just below simmering (do NOT boil).

2. Add wakame and tofu. Simmer gently 2 min.

3. Remove from heat. Dissolve miso paste into a ladle of warm dashi, then stir back into the pot. Do not boil after adding miso (it kills the beneficial cultures and turns bitter).

4. Serve garnished with scallions.

What You're Practicing

• Never boil miso — it destroys the living cultures and makes it bitter.
• This is where your dashi foundation pays off — the quality of the dashi IS the quality of the soup.