Maruman Organic Red Miso (26.4 Oz)
Miso is one of the best ways to make great soup not only without spending much, but with nearly endless options. It’s also very easy to get. You can even order it online!
The first step is to acquire some miso paste. If you are new to miso there are only a few things to know without going into a lot of detail:
–Miso paste is kind of like instant soup paste
When it comes down to it, miso paste is instant soup; you just it to hot water and you have miso soup. Of course, you can do a whole lot more than just plain miso soup, but I’ll get into that later.
–Only buy miso paste that contains soybeans, rice, and salt.
If you see a list longer than that, then it is probably full of things you don’t need. Some come with dashi mixed in, which can be nice, but usually there is also MSG and other things that, simply put, just don’t need to be there to have amazing miso.
–The darker the miso, the stronger the flavor.
There are many kinds of miso. For beginners, the thing to remember is that the darker the paste, the stronger the taste. (Hey, it even rhymes!) There is red miso, white miso, “country style” miso, etc., but for now, you don’t need to get into that. (If you want to learn more, Wikipedia has a very thurough entry on miso.)
–Miso lasts for a VERY long time
When you buy miso paste, it will sit in your fridge for months. That means that one container will go a long way and you don’t have to worry about it spoiling before you use it. This is a really great feature for someone like me who doesn’t want anything to go to waste…and has a tendency to forget about things in the fridge. On top of that, this means you can “splurge” on miso and know that your purchase will go a long way!
–Miso paste is cheap
Generally speaking, a good sized container of miso ranges from $3-$8. I tend to spend a few extra bucks and get the “really expensive stuff” as it tends to be the unprocessed, and more flavorful, of the miso. Keep in mind that even at $8, you will get a huge amount of soup out of it for a long time.
–Miso is very versatile
You can make very plain miso soup (perhaps just some tofu for a tasty snack) or get very complicated (I recently made crunchy rice, mushroom and uni miso soup with dashi). You can even use miso paste like a rub on meats, use it in salad dressings, etc. There are so many things you can do with miso that you should have a bin of it in your fridge.
–Cooking with miso is easy
All you need to do is scoop out the paste and add it to warm or hot water, then mix to taste. Really. That’s it! Just remember one thing: miso is salty. So don’t go adding salt unless you have tasted it first!
A super fancy trick to mixing in miso paste:
Scoop your miso paste into a mug or poor-able dish-ware. Take some of the hot water you are cooking with and add it in with the miso. Pre-mix the miso paste such that it becomes more of a fluid than a paste. Poor the miso into your cooking vessle. Ta da! No need to find the lump of paste in your pot to stir it around.
Here are some ideas for miso soup:
Take some left overs, throw it into a pot of water, bring it to boil, bring it down to a simmer and add your miso paste until it tastes the way you want it to. I have done this with pot roast left overs.
I took the bits of meat that were left over, some of them with too much connective tissue, along with all of the au jus and turnips that no one ate, made sure everything was bite sized, threw it in a pot of water, added some potatoes, and let it boil for a while. I made sure that all of the meat was tender and all of the potatoes were cooked through. I then added my miso paste (to taste). Some of the best beef stew I have had!
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