Maitake Mushroom Miso Soup

Miso soup is one of Japan’s most loved dishes. With its mild nutty taste and deep umami, it makes a wonderful side to nigiri sushi, a bento meal, or a traditional Japanese breakfast. For this recipe, I am using maitake mushrooms for their delicate earthy taste, and aburaage for its spongy consistency and slight sweetness.

Miso Soup transcends usual mealtimes. Because it’s just as common to eat miso soup for breakfast in Japan as it is to have it with your bento box at lunchtime – or preceding an extravagant sushi or sashimi platter at dinner.

I’m using maitake mushroom and sliced aburaage (fried tofu pouches) to introduce a bit more flavor, texture and heft to this miso soup. However, at its core, it’s still the miso soup we all know and love.

Maitake mushrooms in particular impart both flavor and a light yet substantive chew.

Ingredients

• Maitake Mushrooms: These are the perfect mushrooms to use in miso soup – since they both impart a rustic woodsy flavor to the broth, and soak up the savory, umami goodness from the miso paste. When handling maitakes, be gentle! Maitake mushrooms are rather delicate.
• Dashi: Think of dashi as a saline, savory sea stock made with dried bonito flakes (katsuobushi) and kelp (kombu). It lays a bedrock of umami in many Japanese recipes. Now, I’m using store bought dashi powder for ease – and because it’s delicious. However, I’ve also got a recipe for homemade dashi if you prefer. You can even make vegan dashi with kelp and shiitake mushrooms.
• Aburaage: These are fried tofu pockets with a squashy, springy texture and a mildly sweet flavor. You’ll commonly see aburaage used in Japanese classics like inarizushi – and savory kitsune udon. For this maitake mushroom miso soup, I prefer the dry sheets commonly sold in Asian markets in the frozen section.
• Miso Paste: Earthy, umami and funky perfection. Read all about Japanese miso paste here. In a second, I’ll go into further detail about the best miso paste to use in miso soup – as well as an easy, foolproof Japanese technique for properly blending the miso paste into the dashi broth.

How to Make Maitake Mushroom Miso Soup

1. Gather all of your cooking tools and ingredients.
2. If your maitake mushrooms have the white bottom base intact, remove with a knife. Wet a paper towel lightly with water and gently wipe the surface of the mushrooms. Then segment them into smaller bite sized pieces by hand. Just pull the mushrooms where you’d like them to separate.
3. Add water and powdered dashi into a medium sized pot and bring to a boil.
4. Once boiling, lower the heat to medium and add the maitake mushrooms. Cook for 3 minutes.
5. Place the miso paste into a small strainer with a handle. Lower the strainer into the pot and stir with cooking chopsticks until the miso paste has dissolved. More on this in a sec.
6. Finally, turn the heat off, add the chopped aburaage, stir and serve hot.

Adding Miso Paste To The Soup (Video)

Miso paste is comprised of soybeans fermented with rice koji.

If you stir it directly into soup broth, larger particles of the rice koji and soybean can cause your miso soup to become a little gritty. Using a strainer to stir the miso paste into the soup means you’ll get all the delicious, umami flavor without any unwanted textures.

• Just lower a strainer into the soup pot so the miso paste is covered by the broth.
• However don’t entirely submerge the strainer.
• Stir it using cooking chopsticks or a spoon until it fully dissolves.
• Finally, remove the strainer and discard any bits that didn’t dissolve.

My mother taught me this simple technique and I’ve used it ever since.

Other miso soups you might like:

• My mother’s miso soup, which is a simple miso soup made with onions (it’s so good!).
• Potato and onion miso soup
• Traditional tofu and wakame miso soup

Frequently Asked Questions

Did you try this recipe? Are there changes you made that you would like to share? Share your tips and recommendations in the comments section below!

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