Miso vegetable noodle soup

A light but substantial soup that is full of crunchy stir-fried vegetables and soft noodles surrounded by a hot, savoury miso broth. The dish contains both soya sauce and miso, both high in sodium so salt is generally unnecessary and I have not included it in the recipe. In fact additional flavouring is minimal as the soup takes advantage of the varied flavours of different vegetables.

Serves: 3

Ingredients

About 1 cup cooked rice noodles

½ a broccoli broken into small florets

1 small carrot, cut into thin long strips

4 spring onions, sliced diagonally

Mushrooms, halved and sliced thinly (I used chestnut mushrooms; if using very small mushrooms there is no need to halve them)

2 handfuls baby spinach leaves

1 teaspoon oil

1½ teaspoon finely chopped ginger

1-2 teaspoons soya sauce (I used tamari which has quite a strong flavour; use a larger amount if using a milder sauce)

For the miso broth:

1 cup/250 ml boiling water

1 ½ tablespoons miso (I used a dark miso so use more if you wish if your miso is light) mixed with ¼ cup/60 ml warm (but not very hot) water

Method

Heat the oil in a wok over a high and stir-fry broccoli, carrot, ginger and mushrooms for about 3 minutes. The mushroom will have begun to soften but other vegetables should be tender-crisp. Add the spring onions, spinach leaves and soya sauce and cook for another 1-2 minutes. 

The soup should be served as soon as possible after stir-frying the vegetables, otherwise they will lose their crispness. Heat the noodles if necessary. To prepare the broth, mix about ¼ -½  cup/ 60-125 ml cool water with the boiling water so that it is still hot but of a drinkable temperature, which will prevent the beneficial probiotics in miso from being destroyed as would happen at a high temperature. Place an equal amount of the vegetables in bowls for each serving and top with a portion of noodles. Pour about ½ cup of hot broth over the noodles and vegetables, stir if necessary and serve immediately.