Between Miso Soup and Ramen
A disappointing bowl of ramen sent me back to my own kitchen and made me think about the life I had chosen
Japanese Dispatch
Between Miso Soup and Ramen
A disappointing bowl of ramen sent me back to my own kitchen and made me think about the life I had chosen
All images in this article are by the author. Reuse prohibited without permission.
I EAT OUT FAR LESS OFTEN THAN I USED TO. My income has dropped, eating out has become more expensive, and there aren’t that many restaurants nearby anyway.
Even on the rare occasions when I do eat out, I’ve become much more selective about where I go. Sometimes I check online reviews, but the people writing them don’t necessarily share my tastes, so I don’t rely on them too heavily.
One day, I happened to walk into a ramen shop and ordered miso ramen. The bowl placed in front of me looked entirely unremarkable.
Whenever I eat ramen, I taste the broth first. Its flavor can change as the chashu (Japanese braised pork) and bamboo shoots gradually mingle with it, so I like to try the broth before the toppings begin to affect it.
I scooped up some broth and took a sip. It tasted nothing like what I had imagined.
I had expected a rich miso broth, fragrant with garlic and other aromatic vegetables, with a depth quite different from soy sauce ramen. Instead, it tasted more like miso soup with noodles.
Miso soup is an everyday food for me. I could eat it every day without growing tired of it. Perhaps it was simply the gap between expectation and reality, but I had never imagined that miso soup and ramen could work so poorly together. So I stopped ordering miso ramen at ramen shops.
Until then, making ramen at home had meant little more than cooking instant noodles. But after making soy sauce ramen from scratch once, ramen suddenly felt much more approachable.
More than anything, I now have plenty of time. I don’t need to recreate the elaborate kind of bowl served at a ramen restaurant. Once I thought about it that way, I had no reason not to try making miso ramen myself.
I decided to begin by making sure the broth tasted nothing like ordinary miso soup.
Making Miso Broth, Not Miso Soup
Miso soup is usually made by preparing dashi, Japanese soup stock, with ingredients such as dried bonito flakes or kombu seaweed. Tofu or vegetables are simmered in the stock, and the miso is dissolved into it at the end.
It’s a gentle soup that allows the flavors of the ingredients and miso to come through. Miso ramen, on the other hand, is different. Its broth has to be strong enough to stand up to the noodles.
A mild soup would disappear beneath them. What I wanted was the bold flavor I had imagined when I ordered that bowl of miso ramen.
Ramen generally consists of four parts: noodles, broth, seasoning, and toppings. I had previously made soy sauce ramen using broth prepared with ground chicken and a seasoning sauce made with the cooking liquid from chashu pork.
[embed]Enter the Hero of Japanese Ramen: Chāshū Tied, Seared, Loved —medium.tastyble.com
This time, I would use the same chicken broth and combine it with a miso seasoning sauce. I decided not to add chashu. Instead, I prepared toppings that felt more at home in a bowl of miso ramen.
Yield
2 servings
Ingredients for the Miso Ramen Broth
- 100 grams ground pork
- 1 clove garlic (finely chopped)
- 1 small piece ginger (finely chopped)
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 1–2 teaspoons doubanjiang (Chinese fermented chili bean paste)
- 4 tablespoons miso
Even without doubanjiang, the broth benefits from a little heat. A small amount of chili pepper can be used instead.
There are many kinds of miso, and combining several varieties gives the broth greater depth.
This time, I combined 2 tablespoons barley miso, 1 tablespoon soybean miso, and 1 tablespoon rice miso.
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon sake
- 800 milliliters ground chicken broth
When using powdered chicken stock, dissolve 2 teaspoons in 800 milliliters of hot water.
- 120 grams bean sprouts
Cabbage, onion, and other vegetables can also be added.
Noodles
- 2 servings Ramen Noodles
Curly noodles hold the broth especially well. Store-bought noodles are perfectly fine, but when making your own, refer to this article.
Toppings, as Desired
- Corn
- Green onion
- Butter
Method
- Heat the sesame oil in a pot over low heat. Add the garlic, ginger, and doubanjiang, and sauté gently. Cooking them in the oil brings out their aroma and distributes the spiciness of the doubanjiang throughout the broth.
These ingredients burn easily, so keep a close eye on the heat.
- Once fragrant, increase the heat to medium. Add the ground pork and cook until well browned.
Browning the meat adds savory depth and a roasted aroma to the broth.
- Pour in the broth. Once it comes to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 5–10 minutes.
As the broth simmers, the pork, garlic, and ginger gradually release their flavor.
- While the broth simmers, combine the miso, soy sauce, sugar, and sake, and mix well.
- Turn off the heat. Add a small amount of broth to the miso mixture and stir until smooth, then return the mixture to the pot.
The moment I stirred in the miso, the broth finally began to smell like miso ramen.
- Add the bean sprouts and warm the soup over low heat until it is just about to boil. Miso loses some of its aroma when boiled, so watch the heat carefully.
- Place the cooked noodles in bowls and pour in the broth. Arrange the bean sprouts and ground pork on top.
- Finish with any toppings you like.
It looked every bit as appetizing as a bowl from a ramen shop.
I began, of course, with the broth. It was rich with miso and fragrant with garlic and ginger, with a gentle sweetness underneath. It tasted nothing like the miso soup I drink every day.
The broth clung firmly to the curly noodles. With every slurp, the richness and aroma of the miso filled my mouth.
Miso ramen is especially associated with Hokkaido in northern Japan. Butter and sweet corn are both classic toppings for Hokkaido-style miso ramen, and they seemed perfectly at home in the bowl.
When I ate the corn with the broth, each kernel burst with sweetness against the rich miso flavor. The butter melted slowly, changing the broth a little at a time. Its aroma blended with the miso, making each sip smoother and richer than the last.
Pork, garlic, ginger, and butter all pair well with miso. Putting all of them into one bowl might sound like a little too much, yet somehow they came together. I could still taste each ingredient, but none of them felt out of place.
Unlike the miso soup served on everyday tables, this broth was intensely rich. Once I tasted it with the noodles, however, I understood why it needed to be this bold.
Had I been a little younger, I probably would have added rice to the remaining broth.
Between Miso Soup and Ramen
I used to wake up, go to work, come home in the evening, and sleep. The next day, the same routine would begin again. There was always too much to do and too little time, and by the end of the day, I rarely had the energy to put much care into daily life.
Convenient seasonings and frozen food regularly appeared on our table, and eating out on my days off was one of the things I looked forward to. Eventually, I began to wonder whether I wanted to keep living that way.
I left my job and moved to the countryside. Nearly six years have passed since then. I no longer have a stable income, but I’ve gained time that I can use freely. I can’t afford to eat out as often as I once did, but by making dishes such as this miso ramen myself, I’ve found a different way to enjoy food.
Even now, I sometimes wonder what would have happened had I continued working as I did before. One thing is certain: I would never have made miso ramen with this much care.
© 2026 kitano komachi. All rights reserved.
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