Miso Balls 味噌玉 (Instant Miso Soup)

Learn how to make homemade Instant Miso Soup Balls with simple ingredients in under 10 minutes with your favourite ingredients. Simply pour hot water over a miso ball in a bowl, and you can enjoy miso soup instantly no matter how busy you are.

Whats one thing you can have every single day and not get sick of? For me, it's miso soup. Growing up, we used to have 2-3 bowls, daily. It's a nostalgic food that luckily is really easy to make. In general, it takes about 20 minutes to make miso soup the traditional way, but sometimes you just want something instant.

Since my mom had three kids to take care of, she would make 'Miso-dama' which translates to Miso-balls, at the start of every week. She would batch make about 30 per week and keep them in the freezer. I took this little meal prep idea throughout university and to this day. It saves a lot of time and while you can purchase store bought miso soup, it truthfully just doesn't taste as good. Plus, it's cheaper to make, you know what goes into them and they're highly customizable.

Ingredients for Instant Miso Soup Balls

Instant miso soup balls require just two key ingredients:

• Miso paste: White miso (shiro miso), red (aka miso) or mixed miso (awase miso).
• Dashi stock granules: Some store bought miso paste already contain dashi in it, in this case you do not have to add the dashi stock granules.

Additionally, you may want to add other ingredients for variety and a heartier miso soup. Here are some suggestions:

• green onion
• dried wakame (seaweed)
• fu (wheat gluten)
• kiriboshi daikon (dried daikon)
• aburaage (fried tofu sheet)
• koya tofu (freeze dried tofu)
• freeze fried vegetables (carrots, corn, peas, etc)

These ingredients will keep the best. You can add fresh, cooked ingredients but I find the texture and quality degrades over time so I recommend adding any fresh, cooked ingredients after making the soup.

How to make instant miso balls

Making homemade instant miso soup is so quick and easy. Simply combine the miso paste and dashi powder and then scoop them into balls. If you don't have a ice cream scoop, you can mold them in silicon ice cube trays. For the add-ins, you can mix them straight into the miso mixture or decorate them by rolling it in the ingredients. I especially like to do this when I use decorative fu (wheat gluten).

How to store and how long does it last?

They will keep in the refrigerator for up to one week, but are best stored in the freezer and will last up to three months. Miso does not freeze into a solid so you do not have to defrost them ahead of time.

How to make instant miso soup

These are perfect for busy mornings, taking to work or school, or after a long day when you don't want to do much cooking. Simply remove the miso ball out of the freezer and place into a bowl. I let it sit for about 5 minutes while I heat up some water in a kettle. In general, the ratio for miso to water is 1 tablespoon (18 g) to 200 ml hot water. However, miso pastes all vary in saltiness so adjust accordingly to your taste.

SAVE IT FOR LATER! ↓

If you recreate this Miso Balls recipe let me know how you liked it by leaving a comment and rating below or by tagging me on Instagram @Okonomikitchen, I love seeing all of your tasty recreations!
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