Photo: “Cowboy” Ben Alman / Flickr

If you’re a fan of Japanese cooking, you’ve probably come across miso soup before. Miso soup is made from miso paste, which in turn is made from fermented soya beans. Miso has a distinctive salty taste and comes in lighter, darker, sweeter and saltier varieties. The most commonly found miso is dark brown and it’s quite salty, making it perfect for Japan’s most popular soup.

For your health

Soya beans are packed with protein, so a bowl of miso soup is a great option for a vegetarian meal. Miso is also full of B vitamins (especially B12), is high in antioxidants, and contains plenty of the important minerals zinc, manganese and copper. A regular dose of miso can also help prevent breast, lung and prostate cancer, too.

A quick meal

The simplest way to make miso soup is to put miso paste in a pot filled with boiling water, stir, and cook for about ten minutes. It’s almost as easy as making a cup of instant soup, but far healthier. It doesn’t take much effort to get more adventurous with your soup, though. Try adding chopped tofu, spring onion, mushrooms and a little Japanese seaweed (wakame) for a hearty, delicious meal.

More uses for miso

Miso paste doesn’t only make good soup. You can also use it to flavour marinades, to add flavor to a casserole, or add it to a dipping sauce for spring rolls or raw vegetables. Just go easy with it, though, as it’s very salty and has a strong taste. With miso, a little bit goes a long way.

Choosing miso

We’re fans of reading the labels of everything we buy, and this is just as important when shopping for miso paste. You want to choose a paste that has no added MSG, and one that is, preferably, unpasteurised. You’re more likely to find the unpasteurised type at a health shop than a supermarket, and it’s worth making the special trip because unpasteurised miso is full of enzymes and microorganisms your body needs to work at its best.