Background

Most people don’t seem to realise that proper Japanese Miso soup is not vegan (not even vegetarian!) and is not gluten-free. It’s made with dashi (which is a bonito-based stock). Bonito is made from shavings of  dried smoked tuna, most of which is not fished in a sustainable way. Miso paste is fermented soybeans, usually mixed with barley (which contains gluten). If any of these issues are important to you, as they are to me, make sure to use brown-rice based miso (for a gluten-free soup) and leave out the dashi for a vegetarian/vegan version. So try out my vegan miso soup recipe - I added some wakame to it (which is dried seaweed), but you can leave this out or use kale, spinach, green beans, mange tout etc instead.