Miso sorry that Yummy Money has been on hiatus for such a long time, but now it’s back with another tasty and cheap recipe real people like you can make. Today we’re going to take a crack at one of my favorite Japanese dishes–miso soup.

If you’ve ever been to a Japanese restaurant, you may recognize miso soup as that cloudy broth with little white cubes you sometimes get with your entree. While you won’t find cans of it in your Safeway’s soup aisle, miso soup is fairly simple to put together from four ingredients you can round up at any Asian food market.

Miso Soup

Ingredients

• 4 cups dashi stock. You can find jars of dashi stock granules, which is made from cooking dried seaweed and fish, in any Asian food store. Follow the directions on the package for preparing it so that you end up with 4 cups of broth.
• 2 tablespoons miso paste. Again, hit up the Asian store for this. Miso is simply soy bean paste, and it helps give the soup its yummy taste. Some people prefer to use more miso paste, so adjust the amount to your taste.
• 2 ounces tofu, cubed. I think they sell this everywhere now, but it’ll probably be a bit cheaper at the Asian market. Chop it into tiny cubes like you see in the soup at restaurants.
• 1/3 cup chopped green onion. If you don’t know what this is, you’re in trouble.

Preparation

1. Make your soup stock in a saucepan according to the package or jar. Bring it to a boil for the next part.
2. Toss in your tofu cubes. Wheee!
3. Carefully pour about a cup of the stock into another bowl. Add your miso paste to this bowl and allow it to dissolve.
4. Put the stock with the dissolved miso back in your pan and immediately turn off the heat.
5. Add the chopped green onions.
6. Serve. (Why do recipes always tell you to “serve?” Do they really think you might forget this part?)

Serves four for $2.00 or less!

One of the best parts of miso soup is that you can take the basic soup and add all sorts of extras to make it more of a meal. Mushrooms, noodles, shrimp, potatoes, and various veggies are just some of the foods you can throw in your miso soup.