Recipe

Miso Soup with Tofu and Wakame

4 bowls · prep 5 min · cook 15 min

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• breakfast
• lunch
• dinner
• japanese
• vegetarian

Authored by the maintainer; classical dashi-based home version.

Ingredients

the dashi

• 10 g kombu (dried kelp)
• 20 g katsuobushi (smoked, dried, shaved bonito)
• 1 L cold water

the soup

• 3 tbsp shiro miso (white miso paste) — Yuasa shoyu brewery
• 200 g silken tofu, cut into 1 cm cubes
• 2 tbsp dried wakame seaweed

the finish

• 2 scallions, finely sliced (green and white)

Method

1. Make the dashi. Wipe the kombu lightly with a damp cloth (don't wash off the white powder — that's flavour). Submerge in cold water in a saucepan. Soak 30 minutes if you have time. · 30 min
2. Set the saucepan over medium heat. Bring slowly to just below boiling — you should see bubbles forming on the kombu, not the surface. Pull the kombu out *before* the boil. If it boils with the kombu in it, the broth turns slimy. · 10 min
3. Bring the kombu-water to a gentle boil. Add the katsuobushi. Off heat immediately. Steep 4 minutes. · 4 min
4. Strain through a fine sieve lined with cloth. The result — a clear amber broth — is *ichiban dashi* (first dashi). Don't discard the bonito flakes; they make *niban dashi* (second dashi) for cooking rice.
5. Return the dashi to the saucepan. Heat to just below a simmer.
6. In a small bowl, whisk the miso paste with a ladle of warm dashi until smooth. Whisk back into the pot. Never boil miso — it turns flat and the colour goes grey.
7. Add tofu cubes and wakame. Heat through 60 seconds. Do not boil. · 1 min
8. Ladle into bowls. Scatter scallions. Serve immediately.

Notes

Miso soup is one of the most forgiving foundations in cooking and one
of the least forgiving when you violate its two rules: (1) don't boil
the kombu, (2) don't boil the miso. Both ruin the broth in seconds.

Daily Japanese breakfast soup. Variations are endless — clams, daikon,
abura-age, mushrooms, leafy greens — but the dashi-and-miso base is
fixed.