Miso soup has the best flavor and the aroma right when it’s made. If you like a little heat, sprinkle of shichimi pepper adds a nice aromatic kick. Miso soup is always served along side a bowl of rice with a couple of simple side dishes like nukazuke pickles! In order to truly enjoy and appreciate the flavor of the vegan shimeji mushroom miso soup, it’s best to serve with mild flavored dishes. It’s still savory but koji makes it slightly sweet! When it’s labeled as “koji miso”, it typically contains higher ration of rice koji which makes the miso sweeter. My go-to miso is koji miso (soybean-base miso with a substantial amount of rice koji) of any kind. If you love miso soup but you’ve never tried all different types of miso to find “yours”, I really recommend doing so! But just because it’s labeled as “miso” doesn’t mean that it’s just another miso. Of course, it’s all about your preference and what you pair the miso with. The truth is that the flavor profile of the type of miso you use can really affect the final taste of the miso soup you make. Base ingredient (soybeans, barley etc.).Presence or ratio of koji (malted rice).When you compare variety of miso, you can really taste the difference. I’ve tried multiple different miso that I can get here in the US which they all taste different from one another. Being Japanese, I use “real” miso for making miso soup. I use the same technique for making vegan Japanese sweet potato miso soup. You won’t believe how much flavors you can get out of simple ingredients! Miso Use high-quality and authentic Japanese miso. However, the onion also gives a good savory note to the soup as well. The shimeji releases its own umami into the soup as it’s slowly getting cooked and the natural sweetness of the onion adds another delicious layer to the soup.
Yes, that’s the hack to extract the vegan “seafood” like flavor from shimeji as a base for this vegan shimeji mushroom miso soup! In this case, when you start cooking shimeji and onion in cold water it gives a excellent dashi. So what’s the hack? Start cooking shimeji in cold water and slowly bring it up to a gentle boil. If you do the hack for this vegan shimeji mushroom miso soup, you do NOT need any other dashi to rely on to give a strong background flavor.
SHIMEJI MUSHROOM HOW TO
I’ll talk about how to bring out the best flavor possible from shimeji which is a hack for this vegan shimeji mushroom miso soup recipe with no dashi! To be honest, it’s too similar in flavor that it can be a bit scary at the moment you taste it. In other words, it’s a perfect mushroom to use to mimic clam-like taste vegan “seafood” broth. For that reason, it provides a truly delicious umami-rich taste in making soups. Shimeji is very rich in particular flavor of umami taste which is very similar to shellfish. However, when it comes to the essence of eating mushroom, the umami flavor to be exact, shimeji has a very high profile in its umami element! The overall taste of buna-shimeji is somewhat light and mild in other words, there’s no strong or distinctive taste to counterpart with other ingredients to cook with. I use white buna-shimeji for this vegan shimeji mushroom miso soup. The brown one is more common than the white. In the buna-shimeji category, there are two different kinds brown and white. There is a variety of shimeji mushrooms in the category and the ones that we’re typically referring to are:īuna-shimeji is the most common type of shimeji mushrooms that we refer as “shimeji” mushrooms. Shimeji is a Japanese word for “beech” mushroom in English. You can find more information on my Shimeji Mushroom post in the Vegan Japanese Pantry Guide.
A little hack is all it takes to make this soup extra flavorful than otherwise! It’s impressive how much umami from the shimeji steeps into the miso soup without using any vegan dashi or broth. In fact, shimeji miso soup is one of a popular miso soups in Japan especially in the Fall. Vegan Shimeji Mushroom Miso Soup is a perfect way to appreciate the umami-rich taste of shimeji mushrooms in savory Japanese miso soup.