White Miso Paste – (Shiro Miso 白味噌) : White miso paste is the sweetest and mildest of all three miso pastes (made with 40% soybean and 60% rice or barley grains). Because the fermentation period is shorter than other types of miso paste, the flavor isn’t very developed and can be a little one note at times. If you’ve had mediocre miso soup at a Japanese restaurant, they were most likely using white miso paste. Miso soup is one of the basic components of a Japanese meal. When you have a bowl of rice, miso soup will be served in most cases. Depending on the region, season, and personal preference, you can enjoy many miso soup varieties in Japan. In addition to the classic tofu and wakame combination I show you today, we also use different savory ingredients such as veggies, meat, and seafood to make the soup. That’s why we can never get bored with it. There are many different types of miso paste but the three most popular ones used for miso soup are:

Shiro (白) means white and as the name implies, shiro-miso is a light coloured miso. It contains less salt than other types of miso and you can even taste a sweetness. It is preferred by the people in the western part of Japan such as Kyoto and Osaka. The most famous shiro-miso is called Saikyo Miso (西京味噌) meaning Kyoto style miso. Most Japanese meals are served with a small bowl of steamed rice and a traditional Japanese soup called Miso Soup (味噌汁). At its most basic, miso soup is simply made of three components: You might find frozen fresh wakame. They are not cut into small pieces and are usually coated with salt to keep them fresh. So you’ll have take what you need and soak them in water to remove the saltiness before using it. To enjoy the fantastic health benefits of miso soup, you will want to make your own miso soup. Instant miso soup will not be as good since it contains higher sodium and may include other preservatives. However, some good brands are out there, so just be sure to read the label.Japanese people drink miso soup daily, as we believe this delicious and healing soup is a gateway to excellent health. Just like green tea, you can say miso soup is the elixir of the Japanese diet. Here are just some of the health benefits of miso soup: 1. Helps maintain a healthy digestive system You can use any type of miso paste to make miso soups. Some say that particular ingredients are suitable/not suitable for certain types of miso, eg. plain ingredients such as tofu should go with aka-miso, while ingredients with a rich flavour such as fish should go with shiro-miso. This might be true but if you use awase-miso, any combination of ingredients would be fine, in my view. We’ll go over how it all works together in detail below. How to Make Classic Miso Soup with Tofu and Wakame Red miso, or aka miso (赤味噌) has a deeper flavor compared with white miso, because it is fermented for a longer period of time. The longer fermentation process also results in the color being much darker compared to white miso. Red miso is also commonly enjoyed in prefectures such as Aichi, Mie, Gifu, Toyama, Ishikawa, Miyagi, and Hokkaido. Miso is rich in minerals, copper, manganese, protein, Vitamin K, and zinc. Therefore, drinking a bowl of miso soup daily is like taking a natural supplement for your health. 3. Good for bones

The serving bowls for miso soup are quite different from those for rice or for Western style soups. Japanese miso soup bowls are called owan (お椀) and are not ceramic. They are traditionally made of wood finished with Japanese lacquer called uruhi (漆). But for day-to-day use, there are plastic versions of owan which are made to look like wooden products. Please visit Miso Soup Ingredient Combinations to see the photos of different owan. Never boil miso soup once miso is added because it loses nutrients, flavors, and aromas. If you turn off the heat right before boiling, this temperature (203ºF/95ºC) is considered the most fragrant stage for miso soup. And by the time you are ready to enjoy the soup, it is an ideal temperature (167ºF/75ºC) for drinking.Japanese cooking requires dashi in many recipes. You can make a big batch of dashi and store it in the refrigerator for up to 3-5 days or in the freezer for two weeks. Use dashi for different recipes throughout the week. With dashi on hand, you can make the basic miso soup in under 5minutes!

The natural chemical compounds in miso, such as Vitamin K2, linoleic acid, and saponin, are known to reduce the risk of heart disease and lower cholesterol. Aka (赤) means red and as you can guess, aka-miso has a deep reddish brown colour. It contains much more salt than shiro-miso. Unlike shiro-miso, which has shorter fermentation period, aka-miso takes more than a year to ferment, resulting in the dark colour. Aka-miso has a rich flavour and people in northern part of Japan tend to consumes aka-miso. Besides tofu and wakame seaweed, you can add seasonal and year-round ingredients to your miso soup. Here are some simple ones:Silken or Soft Tofu (Kinugoshi Tofu 絹ごし豆腐) – Undrained and unpressed; the highest water content; a custardy texture. With its beneficial probiotics, drinking miso soup helps to improve your overall digestion and absorption of nutrients. 2. Good source of nutrients Awase-miso sits in the middle from both a colour and saltiness perspective. Most miso paste you can buy at supermarkets outside Japan are awase-miso and I think that this is the most commonly used miso in Japan as well. Miso Soup Ingredients Depending on the type of miso and the brand within the same type of miso, saltiness varies. So you might have to adjust the amount of miso to add to the dashi. I used awase-miso in this recipe.