I’m a huge soup fan. Chunky, smooth, creamy, or noodle-y, come wintertime, I want all the soups, all the time. Thankfully, not all soups take hours to make. This corn soup, thickened with a bit of tofu and seasoned with sweet and mellow white miso, is a fast favorite once the temperature starts to dip.
my superpowerful, tiny vitamix s30. i love this guy!
I love this soup mostly because of the pairing between sweet corn and miso, but also because of the textural contrast added by the crunchy tofu, and, of course, the tofu itself! Oh, how I love tofu in soup.
It’s one of my favorite tricks, using tofu to thicken soup. Silken tofu adds body and creaminess without cream. It’s funny because I’m not remotely vegetarian or vegan, but after the fact, I figured out this soup was a bunch of those catchphrase foods trends that are so hot right now: vegan, gluten-free, and nut-free.
Mike: That was pretty tasty.
Me: Right!? And so easy! Only corn, onions, tofu and miso!
Mike: Wait – what? I ate vegan food and liked it?!
Me: Huh, it is vegan. Funny!
I may not be on the up and up with healthy food trends, but I do love something that seems to be quite popular in the kitchen: blenders. I use mine mainly for soups, dressings, and smoothies. My tiny (compared to the behemoths that are the regular Vitamixes) S30 personal-sized Vitamix is perfect for making soup for two. It’s super powerful and even heats soups up while you blend. It’s truly one of my favorite kitchen appliances and in the spirit of the holiday season I’m giving one away!
Miso Corn Soup Recipe
serves 2-3Soup
- oil
- 1/2 onion, chopped
- 2 cups corn (I used frozen corn)
- 1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
- 1/4 package silken tofu, about 1/4 – 1/3 cup
- 1 1/2 tablespoon white miso paste, or to taste
- freshly ground pepper, to taste
Crispy Tofu Croutons
- tofu, as needed
- oil, preferably safflower, sunflower, or grapeseed
- salt, if desired
Garnish
- sliced green onions
- crispy tofu croutons (recipe below)
- flaky sea salt
- red pepper flakes
In a skillet, heat up a small bit of oil over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté, stirring, until soft and translucent. Add the corn and warm through briefly. Remove the onion and corn from the heat and place in a blender with the chicken broth, tofu, and miso paste. Blend until smooth and hot if using a Vitamix. Taste and adjust the thickness of your soup based on preference. If you like a thicker soup, add more tofu, if you like a thin soup, use some broth to thin it out. If needed, return the soup from the blender to the skillet and heat up until steaming.
Make the tofu croutons: Cut the remaining tofu up into 2 cm cubes. Set on paper towels, flipping so all sides drain. In a skillet, heat up a generous amount of oil over medium high heat. Fry the tofu, flipping as needed, until golden brown and crisp, 5-7 minutes. Remove from the oil with a slotted spoon, drain on paper towels and season with salt, if needed.
Taste and adjust seasoning with miso and freshly ground pepper. Serve hot with sliced green onions, crispy tofu, sea salt and red pepper flakes. Enjoy!
WIN ME!!!
Giveaway: I paired up with Vitamix to give away one Vitamix S30! I absolutely love mine and know you will love yours too!
Enter: To enter, leave a comment below with your favorite soup memory. I want to hear ALL the details! I’ll randomly choose a winner and contact them by email. Open to Canadian and US Residents only. (Sorry international friends!) Contest ends December 20th at 12AM PST. Good luck!
Update: Congrats Jenna @ Just J.Faye, you’ve won yourself a brand new Vitamix! Happy Christmas! Keep an eye out for an email from me!
I come from a very small town in India. During my childhood days, food was just a regular fare at home and was never interesting in any way. Soup was a fancy item for us. I have always felt excited to read new recipes and try them. The very first soup I made following a magazine recipe was of tomato soup prepared in microwave. I still remember my mom absolutely loved the flavor!
My favorite soup is bitter melon soup. I used to hate it but my mom decided to add more bitter melon than usual into the water one day. The carrots balanced out the bitterness and the increased amount of ingredients produced a stronger and more delicious flavor.
Just out of college, a few friends and I were living in an inner city area of LA and invited some neighbors over in an attempt to get to know them. We served a light chicken (very light in the chicken department–we had like one grilled chicken breast in the whole thing) salad and a super tasty homemade butternut squash soup (which we’d slaved over the peeling of the squash and everything for quite a while). Our neighbor came with her very good-natured 15-year-old son, who bravely ate the weird, practically vegetarian food, but at some point his mom totally outed him by making a comment about how he must be feeling shy and not eating much, since he was usually such a voracious eater. This was the moment where my friends and I silently glanced at each other and kicked ourselves for serving college girl foodie food to a very normal, super hungry 15-year-old boy, ha. He would probably have been happier if we’d opened a can of spaghetti-o’s and microwaved it for him!
I made a tomato soup using the last of the tomatoes from my garden. There was maybe four ingredients and it was the most simple and pure tasting thing I’d ever made. It really changed the way I think about cooking and made seasonality a dominant factor in my culinary thought process.
Eating chicken and rice soup with a lot of vegetable in the cold winter months!
Easy – split peal when I first started dating husband, my MIL made it over and over for dinner. Then, when we had our first baby, MIL used to bring over buckets of it and leave it in the freezer. Never get tired of it!
Oops! Split pea, of course!
When I was first married (40 years go) my husband and I lived with a military couple for awhile.The lady of the house was German….and boy could she cook! She made a steak soup that was just the best! It actually was made using lean ground beef instead of steak,so it was a cheap soup to make back then.The secret ingredient was Magi Seasoning.We moved on , and I forgot about the “steak soup”. I found an old crock pot cookbook at a yard sale a few years ago,and it had the beloved “steak soup” recipe in it. Needless to say, I have been making the soup every winter!
My most memorable soup experience was when I made up a soup while recovering from oral surgery. I could eat anything aside from pureed soups, and after a month of eating the SAME DAMN THING EVERYDAY FOR EVERY MEAL, you are forced to get creative eventually (i.e. once the pain had finally stopped and you weren’t high on painkillers anymore). . . I roasted fresh summer tomatoes with basil and balsamic, and made the tastiest roasted tomato soup EVER.
To be fair though, anything new would have been the tastiest thing ever. . .
My first ‘American-style’ soup was Campbell’s Alphabet Soup, and it tasted like heaven. I couldn’t believe that I was given such an awesome food and it was so different from the herbal thin broth soups my mom made!
I’ve been on such a soup kick and this one is definitely going to happen soon! Makes winter time almost enjoyable :)