Miso recipes

Miso as ingredient

Miso is an interesting food ingredient: miso is easy to use, it enhances the flavour of the food and it has interesting nutritional values. Miso is unchallenged in its versatility and can be used in soups, sauces, dressings and toppings.

Miso can be used in place of salt or shoyu in most recipes. Miso is gaining popularity as a healthful ingredient. Miso offers a nutritious balance of natural proteins, carbohydrates, essential oils, minerals, vitamins and isoflavones.
In vegetarian diets, miso is very important because it gives savory richness to meals. Miso can also be used in low-fat cooking: it contains only 5% fat and no cholesterol.

Miso soup

Of course, miso is best for its soup: miso soup. In Japan miso soup is made by combining hot dashi with miso. In Japan miso soup is not just eaten at dinnertime but most people have miso soup as the first meal of the day. It is impossible for miso soup to be boring. With using different ingredients, you can make a different miso soup every day.

Miso varieties

Although we recommend a certain type of miso in each recipes you can substitute is with other varieties: one teaspoon of a dark miso is roughly equivalent in salt content to 2 teaspoons of a light variety. Here are some miso varieties :

• Red miso (aka miso, sendai miso, inaka miso) is a rich miso with a strong and salty flavor. Red miso is made from barley. It is mainly used in soups, stews and braised dishes.
  
  
• Hatcho miso has a very pungent and salty taste. It texture is thick and grainy. Hatcho miso is made from soybeans only. It is used in small amounts to add richness to soups and broths.
  
  
• Shinshu miso has a yellow colour. This miso has a mellow and salty flavour.