Homemade Instant Miso Soup 即席味噌汁

For many Japanese, a bowl of delicious miso soup is a daily necessity for the soul. Today, I want to introduce Homemade Instant Miso Soup (即席味噌汁) that you can make ahead to pack for lunch or have in the fridge. You just need to add hot water! It’s the perfect meal-prep solution when you crave this soothing and comforting savory soup but you’re on the go and too busy to cook.

What is Homemade Instant Miso Soup?

My Homemade Instant Miso Soup recipe is a single-serving, refrigerated “soup kit” with all the ingredients you need to make miso soup, minus the hot water. Stored in a mason jar, you simply add hot water and stir. It’s ready to enjoy right from the jar!

This instant miso soup will keep for up to 6 days in the refrigerator. It’s perfect to meal prep for the busy week ahead.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

When you make traditional miso soup, you need to make dashi (Japanese soup stock) in a pot on the stove. This takes a minimum of 20 to 30 minutes. But what if you don’t have 20 minutes to make homemade dashi? That’s where my recipe comes to the rescue! This instant miso soup is:

• quick – no need to spend time making dashi
• portable and packable – you can drink miso soup outside of the home at the office or school
• convenient – when you crave miso soup right now, it’s ready to go!

Ingredients You’ll Need

• aburaage (deep-fried tofu pouch)
• green onions/scallions
• dried wakame seaweed
• miso – with or without dashi; you can use red miso paste, white miso paste, yellow miso paste, or another type (see the miso section below)
• dashi powder – skip if your miso has dashi in it

If your miso which contains dashi, skip the dashi powder. If your miso doesn’t contain dashi, then you will need to add dashi powder.

How To Make Instant Miso Soup

It takes a total time of just 10 minutes to prep these convenient, single-serving instant soup kits:

1. Prepare the aburaage. Boil water and pour the hot water over both sides of the deep-fried tofu pouch. Cool and pat dry with a paper towel or squeeze dry. Cut into thin strips.
2. Cut the green onions/scallions and pat dry.
3. Spoon a scoop of miso into each mason jar. Add dashi powder if your miso does not include dashi.
4. Add the other ingredients (the aburaage, green onion, and dried wakame seaweed) to the jars and seal with lids.
5. Refrigerate and consume within 6 days.

How To Enjoy Instant Miso Soup

Pour boiling water to the 200 ml mark on the jar and mix well to let the miso dissolve and make a broth. It’s the same amount of liquid as Japanese miso soup bowls. Enjoy!

The great thing about miso is that you can consume it straight out of the tub/package. It’s quite salty by itself, but you don’t need to cook it. Just heat in the soup and serve.

4 Things You’ll Need To Make Instant Miso Soup

Let’s go over 4 things you need for making Homemade Instant Miso Soup.

1. Containers and Lids

When I was looking for an efficient way to make individual miso soup packages, I figured that mason jars would work the best to serve as the portable single-serving container. It’s convenient and environmentally friendly.

I chose a 1-pint (2 cups/473 ml) mason jar for the soup container because you will have plenty of space on top to hold the jar safely when hot water fills up to half of the jar. It also provides extra room if you want to add more ingredients. To cap the jars, you can purchase these plastic caps for easy storage and cleanup.

2. Dashi (Japanese Soup Stock)

It’s not a true miso soup unless you use dashi, the umami powerhouse and flavor backbone of Japanese cuisine. To make dashi instantly, we have two choices:

1. Use dashi powder that you can buy at Japanese grocery stores or on Amazon. You can find kombu dashi powder as well, which is a vegetarian/vegan option (please don’t substitute vegetable or chicken stock). Note: I always use additive-free or msg-free dashi powder. If you are sensitive to MSG, please check the dashi powder ingredients before purchasing.
2. Use miso that already includes dashi; see the next section.

3. Miso

For homemade instant miso soup, it’s extremely handy to use miso that already contains dashi, such as “Maru-Yu” Dashi Iri Yuki Miso (Organic) from Hikari Miso. If you can’t find miso with dashi in it, simply use your favorite kind of miso and add dashi powder that I mentioned.

I’ve been partnering with Hikari Miso® monthly to share various miso recipes on Just One Cookbook. Personally, I’ve been using their miso for over a decade (I discovered the brand after I got married), and it’s been fun trying the varieties of their amazing miso. Depending on local availability, you can find all different types of miso from Hikari Miso. Read my miso pantry page to learn about the types of miso.

Miso-to-Water Ratio for Miso Soup

If you have used different brands and types of miso in the past, you know each miso tastes pretty different. As I explained in my Homemade Miso recipe/post, the amount of salt used for each miso varies. Hence, you have to adjust the amount of miso depending on the brand/type of miso and your own preference.

In Japan, the general rule of thumb for miso to water ratio is 1 Tbsp miso to 200 ml water. The typical size of the miso soup bowl contains about 200 ml liquid. When you buy a new tub of miso, taste a tiny bit and see how the new miso taste compared to the previous one.

4. The Right Ingredients

For today’s recipe, my focus was to store the instant miso soup in the refrigerator long enough to last the whole week. Keeping the ingredients dry is the most important factor, so I chose my ingredients with this in mind. Aburaage, green onion, and dried wakame are relatively dry or drier and won’t go bad in the refrigerator.

My goal is to make this instant soup accessible and long lasting! However, if you plan to consume your Homemade Instant Miso Soup within 1–2 days, you can add other ingredients to bump up the protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals, and overall nutrition:

• Tofu
• Blanched greens (spinach, snap peas, bok choy, edamame, etc.)
• Mushrooms
• Your favorite raw ingredients that go well with miso soup

Store-bought vs. Homemade Instant Miso Soup

Lastly, I also want to mention that you can purchase instant miso soup packets at Japanese and Asian grocery stores. I’ve tried different brands in the past (my lazy cooking days in college) but I can truly say I like the ones from Hikari Miso most (Amazon sells this less-salt one). Their miso is really good, maybe that’s why.

In any case, I still recommend making your own homemade instant miso soup. The main advantage of homemade is that it’s MSG- and additive-free, you can use your favorite miso paste, and it’s totally customizable!

Homemade Instant Miso Soup Anytime, Anywhere

You can your homemade instant miso soup to work or school. All you need is hot water. My kids grab them and make their own instant miso soup for breakfast (my babies have grown up). It’s perfect to serve with rice, salad, and main or side dishes.

As I work from home, I usually take one for a mid-morning snack (after drinking Japanese Iced Coffee Mr. JOC makes every morning) to avoid snacking. Miso soup is so comforting and I hope you enjoy Homemade Instant Miso Soup any time of the day!

Popular Miso Soup Recipes To Try

• Homemade Miso Soup
• Vegan Miso Soup
• Vegetable Miso Soup
• Bacon and Corn Miso Soup
• Cabbage and Onsen Tamago Miso Soup
• Cold Miso Soup (Hiyajiru)
• Miso Soup (4 kinds)

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