The 10 Best Miso Paste for Miso Soup, Stir Fries or Meat Marinades

If you want to add a little more umami to your day, then try adding a little miso paste to your cooking. An important ingredient in Japanese cuisine, miso paste is used in soups, as meat and fish marinades and for pickling vegetables with. It also adds flavor to ramen, stir fries, vegetables, mayos, slaws and more.

Quick Comparison: Top 10 Best Miso Paste for Miso Soup, Stir Fries or Meat Marinades

Things to Consider Before Buying Miso Paste

Miso paste is made with cooked soybeans, a grain such as rice or barley which has been cultured with Koji (a mold), water and salt. A small quantity of miso from an earlier batch is usually included to help get the fermentation started.

This mixture is then left to ferment for anything from a few months to a few years. As it ferments it thickens and darkens. Miso which has been fermented longer has a more complex taste and aroma and is saltier.

Popular in miso soup, where it is mixed with dashi soup stock, you can use miso it in a wide range of recipes, although however you use it, always avoid boiling any dishes with miso in them. As miso is live (like yogurt), the boiling temperature will kill off those beneficial bacteria.

Miso is usually best added at the end of the cooking when the heat is low or turned off. As miso doesnt soften quickly, straining it into the dish, or mixing it in a separate dish with some stock before putting it in the pan will ensure that you do not end up with miso lumps.

The same thing applies if you are using it in salad dressings, try thinning it with sake or olive oil before adding to the dressing.

There are around 1,300 kinds of miso. Where it is made, the type of Koji culture used, ingredient proportions and how it ferments are some of the factors that distinguish different miso pastes. Miso paste is often categorized into colors, with white and red being the main colors of miso paste available in the US. As miso is so often used in miso soup, you may sometimes find miso paste that already has dashi stock added (dashi iri).

White Miso Paste (Miso Shiro)

The best miso paste for soup made at home is often a white paste. This is because white miso or shiro miso has a lighter and smooth flavor as it is made from soybeans with a higher proportion of rice. It is also fermented for a shorter time than other miso pastes.

Also known as mellow or sweet miso, white miso is popular in Japanese cuisine for fish marinades and dressings. You can also use it in light sauces and even desserts, and it can take the place of dairy in some recipes such as mashed potatoes. The color of white miso paste is usually beige to light yellow.

When choosing the best white miso paste, look for minimal ingredients. Alcohol is not a key ingredient in miso, so you can choose a paste without. Because white miso does not need to be fermented as long, some producers add preservatives (such as alcohol) to replace the time that it would otherwise have been fermented.

Similarly, a white paste that has been pasteurized will have been produced quickly rather than being left to ferment - fermentation would otherwise replace the need for pasteurization.

Also look for sensible packaging that is easy to open and can be resealed after opening. There are also a range of non-GMO and organic pastes available. Most Japanese miso pastes labeled as yuuki are organically grown rather than GM soybeans and miso labeled as mutenka is often non-GMO.

Red Miso Paste (Miso Aka)

Considered to be any dark miso paste, red miso paste (miso aka) is usually a shade of brown and chunkier than white miso. A red miso is stronger with a more complex umami flavor than white miso as it has been aged for longer often for between one and three years.

Miso aka also contains a higher proportion of soybean to rice than white miso. Red miso will give flavor to marinades and suits richer stews and braises. Do remember to add any extra salt when the dish is finished as red miso can be very salty.

Red miso is often used in miso soups served in Japanese restaurants because of its depth of flavor, but it does need to be used very carefully to prevent it from overpowering the other flavors.

Awase Miso Paste

Awase miso is a miso that contains a blend of two of more miso pastes, although technically an awase miso is just a blend of red and white miso pastes. If you are looking for a general-purpose miso for a range of dishes, or even trying to find the best miso paste for ramen, then an awase miso can offer some of the sweetness and smoothness of a white paste with the extra umami from the red.

You can use red or white miso interchangeably in your recipes, just take more care when substituting white miso for red; adding less and always tasting before you add more.

Storing Miso

Miso is shelf stable before opening so can just be stored in a kitchen cabinet or pantry. Once opened, the package should be resealed, or if it cannot be resealed, then place a piece of parchment or plastic wrap over where the packaging is open and then place it into an airtight container. This must then be refrigerated.

As it is fermented, miso paste can be stored for a long time safely, although it can darken in color over time. This can still be used but may be better used up in stir fries and similar rather than in soups. You can also freeze miso paste.

Conclusion

In this article we have offered a basic introduction into three of the main types of miso paste and just a few of the ways you can use it to add umami to your cooking. We have also provided a few helpful hints when using miso and confirmed that miso is shelf stable until opened, at which point it must always be refrigerated.