Japanese Clear Clam Soup (Ushiojiru) あさりの潮汁

As Japan is surrounded by the ocean, we have abundant fresh seafood to enjoy in our soups. Today’s recipe, Japanese Clear Clam Soup (Ushiojiru) (あさりの潮汁), is one of the classic soups enjoyed throughout Japan.

It is an easy soup to make that does not contain miso and is fantastic for anyone who wishes to try all styles of Japanese soups!

What is Japanese Clear Clam Soup?

Japanese clear clam soup, also known as Ushiojiru (潮汁), is a clear soup made with seafood such as white fish or clams and seasoned with only salt and sake.

“Clear broth” or sumashi-jiru (すまし汁) doesn’t mean it’s plain water. For Japanese clear broth, we use various dashi broths made from kombu or a combination of kombu and katsuobushi.

When using clams in the soup, we want to make sure that the flavors coming from the clams are prominent. Therefore, we use dashi broth with the most subtle flavor—Kombu Dashi.

While the most commonly used Awase Dashi is great for making everyday miso soup, its flavor is a bit too strong and might overshadow the delicate flavors of the clams, so I wouldn’t recommend using it.

Ingredients for Ushiojiru

• Manila Clams
• Water
• Kombu – The little piece of kombu has so much umami in there that you should extract the flavors slowly (pre-soaking and slowly heating up).
• Sake
• Salt to taste
• Mistuba (Japanese parsley), for garnish

How to Make Japanese Clear Clam Soup

1. De-grit the Manila clams (mostly inactive time for 1 hour).
2. In a saucepan, place water, kombu, and clams, and start cooking on medium heat. If you have time, you can steep the kombu in water first (this is a cold brew kombu dashi).
3. When the liquid is almost boiling, discard the kombu and skim off the foam and scum from the surface of the broth. When boiling, reduce the heat.
4. When all the clams open up, add a splash of sake. Taste and season the soup with salt, if needed.
5. The soup is now ready to serve. Garnish with mistuba (optional) in the individual soup bowls.

Recipe Tips

• Use fresh and good-quality ingredients. As the recipe is so simple, I can’t stress enough that the quality of ingredients and attention to detail for cooking this soup does matter. Use fresh clams as they are flavorful and succulent.

• De-grit the clams (even though they are ‘ready-to-use’) so your soup won’t have any sands or grits that might be off-putting. I have a detailed guide on how to de-grit clams (Japanese way). You’ll be surprised how much stuff comes out from the so-called “ready-to-use” clams you purchased from the store.

• Try tasting the soup before and after adding sake. Sake is made with fermented rice and it has umami and sweetness in there while masking the unwanted smell that sometimes accompanies seafood. After adding sake, don’t you feel the essence of the broth sharpen up? It’s a bit hard to describe, but the Japanese believe in the magic of sake and the big difference it makes with a dish.

Japanese Clear Clam Soup for Girls’ Day

As many of you already know, clear clam soup is a signature dish to serve on Girls’ Day (Hinamatsuri), which falls on March 3rd in Japan.

The soup is usually served with Chirashi Sushi, colorful sushi with ingredients scattered on top of seasoned sushi rice. Some sweets like Sakura Mochi and Hanami Dango are served as well. Please read more about this custom here.

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