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This is miso soup made with ingredients any self-respecting foodie is likely to have on hand:  toasted nori sushi wrappers, fish sauce, and white miso.  

Miso is not usually gluten-free, because it’s made with fermented barley and soybeans.  However, white miso, which is just made with soybeans, is safe.  

The kind of miso you’re looking for, looks like this. 

You can get it at any health food store, and it will last in the back of the refrigerator for years.  (It’s alive, and it’s pretty happy in a cold, dark environment.)

Ingredients:

6 cups water + 2 more

1 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce (I used this instead of dashi, which is the dried bonito flakes that are usually in miso, because most people are more likely to have fish sauce on hand, and it’s cheap.)

3 heaping tablespoons live white miso

3 sheets of nori (If you’re being authentic, you would use kombu, which is dried kelp, but, again, it’s expensive, and it’s not likely to be in your pantry unless you do a lot of Japanese cooking.)

1 ounce of dried mushrooms (Shitake are really inexpensive in the Asian section of grocery stores.)

1/2 cup daikon

1/4 cup green onion

Kitchen apparati:

two quart saucepan

cutting board

chopping knife

ladle

stove

microwave

two cup microwave-safe bowl for reconstituting mushrooms

hot pads

small cup for thinning out miso

spoon

Directions:

Put six cups of water in a two quart sauce pan. Turn the heat up to medium-high. Put two cups of water in a microwave-safe bowl. Set it to run on high for three minutes. When the water in the microwave is boiling, carefully take it out of the microwave with hot pads, and drop the mushrooms into it to soften.  While the water in the pan is boiling, rinse and chop the green onions and the daikon.  When the water in the pan boils, drain the mushrooms, and add the mushrooms, and the daikon. Boil for ten-fifteen minutes, until the daikon starts to become translucent.Then, turn off the heat.  In a small cup, add about three tablespoons water to the miso (live miso is pretty solid), and stir until the miso is relatively dissolved. Finally, tear up three strips of nori, and add the nori, green onions, fish sauce, and miso to the broth.

Makes six servings.  About .90 cents per serving.

Thanks to jenmenke for the idea that you can use nori, instead of kombu in the broth.