This easy Miso Meat Sauce (Niku Miso) is a tasty, savory-sweet side dish of ground meat seasoned with fermented soybean paste, mirin, and aromatics. Try it on steamed rice and noodles or in a lettuce wrap. As a bonus, it‘s meal-prep friendly! {vegan/vegetarian adaptable}
Since I love steamed rice, I always look for tasty small side dishes that can round up the meal. We call these small dishes “Gohan no Okazu” (ご飯のおかず), meaning a side dish to accompany rice. They bring substance and so much more satisfaction to a plain bowl of rice. A delicious example is this humble yet versatile Miso Meat Sauce (Niku Miso 肉味噌).
What is Miso Meat Sauce and How to Make It?
Miso Meat Sauce is braised ground meat seasoned with miso and we serve it more like a side dish or condiment to flavor the meal. In Japanese, we call this dish Niku Miso (肉味噌); Niku means ‘meat’ in Japanese and miso is Japanese fermented soybean paste.
It’s as simple as cooking the meat with seasonings. For a nice aroma and flavor, you have the option of adding ginger, garlic, and green onions. The type of miso you use, whether it’s red miso or awase miso, will lend a slightly different flavor profile to the sauce. For example, Miso Meat Sauce with white miso has a sweeter and milder taste while the one with red miso has a saltier and strong taste.
You may wonder why we need to sweeten this dish. Well, sugar and/or mirin play a key role in Japanese cooking as they balance out the saltiness from seasoning like miso.
The Miso Meat Sauce is usually on the sweeter side (savory-sweet, not dessert sweet) than a salty side, but feel free to adjust. It is meant to accompany bland or neutral-tasting food such as steamed rice or lettuce. Therefore, it’s recommended to use a stronger seasoning, which also helps to preserve the dish for longer storage.
Miso Meat Sauce Variations
This recipe is rather straightforward and everyone makes it slightly differently to their liking. How do I make this simple dish so versatile? It’s easy!
1. Use different types of miso
You are probably aware; that there are many different types of miso. Each company also makes miso differently. By switching up the miso, you would get different-tasting meat sauce each time. I’ve been using different miso from Hikari Miso® for over a decade and I’ll explain a bit more below.
2. Use different types of meat
Ground pork and ground beef are typically used in the dish, but you can also use ground chicken, ground turkey, or cubed firm tofu.
3. Add aromatics
To add more depth of flavors, you can incorporate common aromatics in Japanese cooking such as ginger, garlic, green onions, yuzu kosho, and etc. Use whatever you like.
4. Include add-ins to bulk up the volume
If your children don’t like eating vegetables or mushrooms, you have a good opportunity to sneak them in! The meat sauce makes a great dish to bind vegetables in a subtle way. Finely mince carrots, eggplants, zucchini, or shiitake mushrooms similar to ground meat size, and cook them all together. My recommendation is to add a small portion and increase the amount once the kids are grown to eating vegetables with the sauce. 😉
How to Enjoy Miso Meat Sauce
Miso Meat Sauce is considered as a side dish, rather than the main dish because it is not eaten alone, but with rice, noodles, or substitution like a lettuce wrap.
- Rice – steamed rice, fried rice, filling for rice ball (onigiri) or onigirazu
- Noodles – cook with stir-fried noodles or pasta, topping for udon/soba/somen noodle soup
- Bread – a sandwich and burger spread along with sliced cucumbers and lettuce
- Others – lettuce wrap (see above), an add-on to a vegetable stir fry, and more!
Bonus tip: Serve the Miso Meat Sauce with a fried egg, soft-boiled egg, Onsen Tamago, or Ramen Egg (Ajitsuke Tamago). Everything tastes better with a creamy egg! For extra color and crunch, serve with julienned cucumbers and carrots.
Miso Recommendation
To make this Miso Meat Sauce, I used Enjuku Koji Miso from Hikari Miso®. Koji miso includes a higher percentage of koji and as a result, this miso has the natural sweetness of the koji and the umami with a rich fragrance.
Where can I buy Hikari Miso® miso?
- Japanese grocery stores (Nijiya, Mitsuwa, Marukai, local mom-pop shops, etc)
- Asian grocery stores (including Chinese/Korean grocery stores)
- Some miso products on Amazon
Ideal Side Dish for Meal Prep!
What I like most about the Miso Meat Sauce is that we can make it ahead so it’s ideal for weekly meal prep. Because the meat is strongly seasoned for storage purposes, it can be kept in the refrigerator for up to a week! I often make it on the weekend for kids’ school lunches or my quick lunch.
When you’re ready to eat, all you need to do is reheat the amount you need in the microwave or the frying pan. This all-purpose Miso Meat Sauce has saved us on countless busy weekdays!
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All-Purpose Miso Meat Sauce (Niku Miso)
Ingredients
- 1 knob ginger (1 inch, 2.5 cm)
- ½ Tokyo negi (naga negi; long green onion) (you can use 2 green onions/scallions)
- 1 Tbsp toasted sesame oil
- ¾ lb ground pork (or use ground beef, ground chicken, or ground turkey; for vegan/vegetarian, use cubed firm tofu)
- 4 Tbsp miso
- 2 Tbsp sugar
For the Seasonings
- 3 Tbsp mirin
- 3 Tbsp sake
- 1 Tbsp soy sauce
- 2 Tbsp water
- 2 tsp potato starch or cornstarch
Instructions
- Gather all the ingredients.
- Grate 1 knob ginger. Chop ½ Tokyo negi (naga negi; long green onion) into small rounds.
- In a bowl, combine the seasonings: 3 Tbsp mirin, 3 Tbsp sake, and 1 Tbsp soy sauce.
- Add 2 Tbsp water and 2 tsp potato starch or cornstarch. Mix it all together until everything is well combined.
To Cook the Niku Miso
- Heat a saucepan or frying pan over medium heat. When it’s hot, add 1 Tbsp toasted sesame oil and the chopped negi. Coat the negi with the oil until fragrant.
- Add ¾ lb ground pork and break up the meat with a spatula.
- Add the grated ginger and cook the meat until no longer pink.
- Add 4 Tbsp miso and 2 Tbsp sugar. Combine well.
- Add the seasonings and cook on medium-low heat.
- When the cooking liquid is reduced to your liking, turn off the heat. You can leave more or less sauce depending on how you want to use the Niku Miso. Transfer to a bowl or container. Serve hot along with steamed rice, noodles, or lettuce cups (see the post for ideas).
To Store
- You can keep it in the refrigerator for up to one week. Reheat only the portion you will serve. You can also freeze it up to 3–4 weeks.
Dear Nami,
as I don’t eat much meat I searched for swappies. perhaps you’re interested too, because for vegetarians/vegans there is more now than just tofu blocks, there is the real grounded meat feel to buy. For example granulated soja, it’s mini dried soja nuggets, which are really easy to prepare (and they store a long time and I guess the kashkoi (written right?) japanese already dried tofu in the past, because it’s so convenient to store) and they take on every taste like soja blocks do. Then there is granulat from sunflower seeds, I buyed it but not used it up to now.
In Germany they say it’s better to buy for the environment, because it grows here. But well, Soja grows in Germany too, so it’s important to look where it comes from. Some things one can only buy imported but if there is a chance to buy it the more local the better, they say.
Hi, Anna! Thank you for reading Nami’s post and contributing your knowledge!
This was delicious! I added mushrooms while I cooked the meat which worked well. Next time I’m gonna try making it with no added sugar (besides the mirin) and see how it turns out.
Hello Ivan! We are so happy to hear you enjoyed the sauce!
Thank you so much for reading Nami’s post and trying her recipe.
Happy Cooking! 😊
So good! I used 1 lb ground Turkey and I didn’t have mirin or sake so I used rice wine vinegar. It was great. Will put this on my rotation for meal prep! It tastes really good, even when refrigerated for a few days. I did make this as a main and did japanese rice and roasted cauliflower on the side.
Hi Ashlee! Thank you so much for trying Nami’s recipe and sharing your cooking experience with us!
We are glad to hear you enjoyed the meal.
Happy Cooking!
This recipe is so tasty and versatile! It was actually my first time making ground pork (normally the only ground meats I cook are turkey and chicken) and I didn’t realize that ground pork can sometimes have a bad smell when cooking. I was all out of sake, so I only had mirin to mask the smell and it wasn’t enough. Even so, it still tasted good and after refrigerating the leftovers the smell was gone, thankfully.
I used this recipe in several ways already. The first time I made it for a meatless Friday, so I used all the same seasonings and substituted the pork for egg and tofu scrambled together. It was delicious! When I made it again with pork, I used it to mix with mashed potatoes for baked korokke. It wasn’t bad, but a little sweet for the croquettes. Finally, tonight I mixed the miso niku in with the spicy shoyu ramen recipe. I made this ramen several times and I love it (I never made the chashu, though, and I’ve been subbing gochujang for dobanjiang because it’s harder to find), but when I added the miso niku it gave the broth so much depth of flavor and umami! It was like a whole different soup and super delicious. I look forward to experimenting with this in other recipes to see how they come out.
Hi Teresa! Thank you so much for trying Nami’s recipe and sharing your cooking experience and photo of your dish! It looks so delicious!
We are so happy to hear that you enjoy this sauce for many dishes. Happy Cooking!
This is a so usefull, delicious and easy recipe. Thank you so much, my family loves it!
Hi Faye! We are so happy to hear you and your family loves this Sauce.
Thank you for trying Nami’s recipe and for your kind feedback! Happy Cooking!
I did this and so good as ever Nami. Thank you!
as ever so good I mean
Hi Chit! Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe and for your kind feedback!
Nami and JOC team are so happy to hear you enjoyed the All-Purpose Miso Meat Sauce. Happy Cooking! 😊
Delicious! I subbed TVP for the pork and found that I was out of soy sauce, so used ponzu instead. It turned out great! So flavorful!
Hi Erin! We are glad to hear you enjoyed this recipe with Ponzu!
Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe and sharing your cooking experience with us.
I have made this recipe several times now. I hope you do not mind that I’ve been taking some liberties: First I fry about 200g chopped mushrooms. I set them aside whilst following the rest of your recipe. At the end I add chopped waterchestnuts and when serving I top with bean sprouts briefly steeped with boiling water. I have actually done a variation of this and folded some firm silk tofu into the dish.
As you can tell – I really am a fan of this recipe 🙂
Hi Afra! Awesome! Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe and sharing your version of this dish! It sounds very yummy!😋
Hi Nami! Can I use this for a bento box for my daughter’s school lunch? I don’t believe she will be able to heat it up.
Hi Alanna! Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe!
Yes, you can pack this for the lunch box. Here is more about food safety tips for making Bento.
https://www.justonecookbook.com/food-safety-tips-for-bento/
We hope this helps!
Am in Mexico at the moment but upon return to Canada I will get all the ingredients & make these recipes.
Love Japanese food, thank you for the Recioes.
Hi Ron! Thank you for reading Nami’s post!
We hope you can try many recipes from our site. Happy cooking!
Super delicious and very easy to make. This is a lifesaver from preparation time perspective. As you suggested, I have been making this in batch and put it in the fridge. You can easily eat this with a bit of rice and side dishes such as kimchi, pickled radish, seaweed, etc and top it off with the half boiled ramen egg. Superb! Thanks for sharing the recipe Nami san.
Hi Lee! Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe and for your kind feedback!🥰
We are so happy to hear you enjoyed this sauce!
This was excellent, so full of flavor. I added two small zucchini diced small and a few generous shakes of Nanami Togarashi and it was a wonderful variation!
Hi Robyn, Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe and sharing your variation! It sounds delicious!😊
We are glad to hear you enjoyed it!