Miso Soup With Mushrooms, Tofu, and Wakame
By: Yukari Sakamoto
Published: Tuesday, January 5, 2010 - 3:09pm

Ingredients




3 cups dashi
1/2 cup nameko mushrooms
1/2 tofu cake (I prefer the silken tofu for miso soup), cut
1/4 cup seaweed or wakame (this amount is the rehydrated amount if you are starting with dried wakame), chopped
2 stalks green onions, sliced thinly
4 tablespoons miso
shichimi (seven spice) optional

Preparation

1 In a pot combine the dashi, mushrooms, tofu, and wakame. Heat until everything is cooked through. Add miso, it is easiest if you can incorporate the miso in a strainer into the soup. Cook until the miso is warmed up. Do not allow to boil once the miso is added. 2 Serve in bowls. Garnish with green onions and shichimi.

About


I love starting my mornings with a bowl of miso soup. The savory, salty, and warm soup changes depending on the type of miso and what ingredients we put in the soup pot. Some of my favorites are asari (clams), aonori (a type of sea vegetable), and slippery, slimy nameko mushrooms as seen here. There are many types of miso. The sweet white miso, that is often used to marinate fish in, is based on rice and is called komemiso. There is a dense, almost fudge like in color miso that is made from soybeans called mamemiso. There is a chunky, earthy miso made from barley called mugimiso. Miso will keep for a long time in the freezer. Put the miso into a tupperware. Don't worry, it won't freeze, you do not need to defrost it, just spoon out, it will be like ice cream. Once you have a collection of miso, it is fun to start blending the misos.