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15-minute (Frozen) Mushroom Miso Soup
In this assorted mushroom miso soup, all the mushrooms used are frozen ones. To be specific, they were bought fresh and frozen at their prime, on the same day that I got them from the supermarket. You can use fresh mushrooms for this soup, but the (belated) life-changing discovery for me is that using frozen mushrooms will not compromise the quality at all. That’s a huge convenience for me!
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I started experimenting with frozen mushrooms because I have been working from home almost full time this year. The last two months in particular, I often have to prepare lunch for one. It’s a big challenge to have variety in a bowl when cooking for 1 or 2. After reading that mushrooms generally freeze well, I decided to experiment with various mushrooms. The four types of mushrooms (maitake, shimeji, shiitake & king oyster) in this recipe have been tried-and-tested & my family absolutely can’t tell the difference both in taste & texture between using fresh mushrooms and frozen ones.
STEP-BY-STEP PHOTOS
In this recipe you can use fresh mushrooms as shown above, OR …
… freeze the cut mushrooms (spread out) in a food ziplock bag. I call this the ‘anytime mushroom miso soup pack”. OR …
… make bags of assorted mushroom and freeze them. Take out the required amount of each type of mushroom you need to make a certain dish. This is the method I use most frequently.
MAKING THE MISO SOUP
Note: You can use fresh mushrooms instead of frozen ones.
This is my plate of frozen mushrooms for this recipe. You can use the mushrooms right out of the ziplock bag. I’m putting them on a plate to show you what the frozen mushrooms look like.
Heat up a mix of sesame oil & cooking oil in a pot to fry the mushrooms.
Add the frozen mushrooms without thawing them. You will see some ‘smoke’ because of the cold mushrooms touching the hot oil.
Fry the mushrooms until they are soft and moist.
Add thinly sliced daikon & zucchini, tofu puffs and thin slices of konyakku (optional). The konyakku (konjac) is a low-calorie food which adds fullness for those eating low-carb. I add some to my soup as I have leftovers to clear.
Add water and dashi powder. When the soup comes to a boil, cover with a lid and simmer the contents for 3 minutes.
Ladle some hot soup in a bowl and whisk to dissolve the miso paste in it. Alternatively, you can dissolve the miso paste directly in the pot on very low heat using a miso strainer.
Pour the miso solution back to the pot and the miso soup is done!
The cooked mushrooms are delicious. I can’t tell the difference between using fresh or frozen mushrooms.
The zucchini and daikon, being thinly sliced, are cooked within the short duration.
This was my solo (relatively) low-carb lunch. I ate the mushrooms miso soup with a salad, somen noodles and a hot tea.
That’s a light yet very flavourful soup!
Nvr thought of freezing mushrooms because I would think the quality of fresh mushrooms would be compromised. Thanks for sharing this very useful info. I would try it. Good esp when mushrooms are on sale (then I can buy more and freeze! If not when the fresh mushrooms sit in the fridge for too long, they tend to 出水 :(