Miso Vegetable Soup Recipes

Steps:

• Bring the chicken broth, mushrooms, carrots, ginger, and garlic almost to a boil over medium heat.
• Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.
• Add the tofu, spinach, and miso mixture; heat for 2 minutes, or until the spinach is wilted (DO NOT BOIL).
• Sprinkle with scallions, and serve.

Steps:

• Soak dried shiitake mushroom in a bowl of warm water, make sure mushrooms are covered. (about half an hour before use).
• Soak wakame in a bowl of warm water, at least a cup of water. Make sure there's lots of water because wakame will expand about 10 times.
• In a medium size pot. Bring 4 cups of water to a boil, drop in the dashi stock package (like tea bags) and simmer for about 3 minutes. There's also the dashi stock in the powder form, just empty package into boiling water. Or follow directions on package to make dashi stock.
• Or bring vegetable or fish stock to a boil.
• While water or stock is heating. Clean, peel and slice vegetables. To make carrots and daikons more visually appealling, I cut them into flowers and leaves. To make flowers: peel carrot/daikon, make odd number of triangular notches (lengthwise) down the length of the carrot. Discard the notches. Slice the carrot crosswise into flower shapes. To make leaves: peel daidon, slice into thin rounds, use the tip of a very sharp knife and shape into leaves.
• Add carrots and daikon into dashi pot and bring back to boil.
• Squeeze water out of mushrooms. Remove tough stem. Slice thinly.
• Add mushrooms to pot. Bring to boil.
• Drain wakame and chop randomly into smaller pieces if they are larger than 1" square. Add to soup. Bring to boil.
• Drain tofu. Slice into 1/2 inch cubes. Add to soup. Bring to a gentle boil. Be gentle from this point on as you don't want to break of the tofu pieces.
• Put about 1 tablespoon of miso paste into a small bowl, put a laddle of hot soup stock only, no chunks, from the pot into the bowl and stir to dissolve miso paste with stock. Pour back into pot. Repeat with remaining miso paste.
• Once you add miso to the soup, make sure the pot does not come to a hard boil but stays in a very gentle simmer or hot because you don't want the miso to curdle.
• Taste and add sea salt if desired. Laddle into bowls.
• Garnish with thinly sliced green onions.