If you’d like to make miso soup but can’t find traditional Japanese dashi ingredients outside of Japan, don’t worry — there’s an easy workaround. While it won’t have the distinct umami flavor of kombu (kelp) or katsuobushi (bonito flakes), you can still make a delicious bowl of miso soup using consommé, chicken bouillon, or vegetable bouillon that’s more readily available overseas.
In our previous recipe for Tofu Miso Soup, we used pre-made dashi and added ingredients to the hot broth. This time, we’re introducing a different approach: starting from cold water and simmering vegetables together. This recipe features potatoes, onions, and snow peas (sugar snap peas).
By simmering potatoes and onions in water with bouillon until tender, their natural sweetness and hearty flavors slowly infuse the broth. Adding the snow peas at the end preserves their bright green color, fresh aroma, and satisfying crunch.
Try experimenting with seasonal vegetables while keeping the ingredients’ natural flavors in mind — it’s a great way to enjoy miso soup that’s both tasty and good for your health and beauty!
Table of Contents
What is Miso Soup?
It’s mentioned on the Tofu miso soup page.
The Story Behind This Recipe
While preserving tradition is important, embracing change is also essential for progress.
When a traditional dish from one country evolves and spreads in another, it reflects a natural and meaningful development in the world of food.
Many of the dishes now considered staples of Japanese cuisine — like ramen, curry, tonkatsu, and gyoza — actually originated overseas. Over time, they were adapted to suit Japanese tastes, ingredients, and culture.
Each country has different ingredients, cooking tools, food pairings, and flavor preferences. So it’s only natural for a dish to transform as it travels.
We believe that Japanese miso soup, too, has the potential to evolve into something entirely new and delicious as it spreads around the world.
The recipe we’re introducing today uses consommé instead of traditional dashi, but you can easily experiment by changing the type of bouillon, miso, or ingredients.
You might just discover a brand-new soup that no one’s ever tasted before!
We’d be thrilled if Paqupel’s Japanese recipes could inspire new culinary creations around the world.
If you come up with a tasty dish, we’d love to see it — please share it on User’s dishes!
Ingredients (Serves 3-4)
- Potato – 1 medium (peeled, cut into half-moons, and soaked in water)
- Onion – ½ medium (thinly sliced)
- Snow peas – 10 to 20 pods (strings removed)
- Water – 600 g / 21.2 oz / 2.5 cups
- Consommé powder – 8 g / 0.28 oz (or use chicken bouillon, vegetable bouillon, or chicken soup stock according to package instructions)
- Miso – 3 tbsp / 1.6 oz / 45 g
- Green onion – as needed (thinly sliced)
Instructions
| 1 |
 |
Place the water, potatoes, onions, and consommé in a pot. Simmer gently over medium-low heat, allowing the ingredients to cook slowly. Tip Boiling everything rapidly from the start can cause the potatoes to cook unevenly — the outside softens too quickly while the inside remains firm, making them prone to falling apart and losing their fluffy texture. |
| 2 |
 |
Once the vegetables are tender, add the snow peas and stir in the miso until fully dissolved. |
| 3 |
 |
Just before the soup reaches a boil, turn off the heat. Serve in bowls and garnish with sliced green onions. |
Top Spots in Japan We Recommend — Taimeiken たいめいけん
When you travel to Japan, you’ll probably be excited to try authentic Japanese food — and of course, you should!
But how about stepping into a yōshoku-ya (Western-style restaurant) at least once during your trip?
Yōshoku, or Western-style dishes that have been uniquely adapted and developed in Japan, have become an important part of modern Japanese cuisine.
One highly recommended place to experience this is Taimeiken (たいめいけん), a long-established restaurant located in Nihonbashi, Tokyo. It was founded in 1931 and has been loved by locals for generations.
Here, you can enjoy a wide variety of yōshoku dishes such as:
- Japanese curry (originally from Indian curry, but transformed into a sweet, savory comfort food)
- Omurice (a fluffy omelet filled with rice)
- Pork cutlet (rosu katsu) (inspired by French côtelette)
- Hayashi rice (a rich beef stew over rice — one of Japan’s earliest East-meets-West creations)
- Napolitan spaghetti (a Japanese-style ketchup-based pasta dish)
Everything is absolutely delicious! The lively and bustling interior still retains the nostalgic charm of a classic yōshoku-ya — the kind of place people would dress up a little to visit when going out in the city.
That said, it’s still casual and welcoming, so you can feel comfortable dropping by anytime.
If you visit Taimeiken, you'll get a fascinating taste of how Western dishes have evolved into something uniquely Japanese.
Taimeiken たいめいけん
Official Website
Google map