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 grew up with Vietnamese food so I didn’t try a lot of typical soups such as split pea. I always thought it looked like baby food and did not look hearty or chunky enough for my liking. A few years back, while living with my little sister, she made it and I tried it for the very first time at 26 years old! It was delicious and flavorful and totally changed my mind about split pea soup. Also I learned not to let appearances fool you when it comes to food. It was packed with flavor and now I make it all the time for my husband. I add potatoes, carrots and celery with a big ham hock. It’s so easy to make after a work day and so comforting for rainy days (which is most days, since we live in WA state).
Growing up, I knew my mother wasn’t a fancy cook. But she knew how to make simple comfort food. Cheesy casseroles, meatloaf and mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, all the dishes that make a little person’s tummy happy. But when I grew up, the one dish I worked the hardest to replicate was my mom’s chicken soup. The flavor of the broth, the vegetable quantities, the chicken parts, the tiny star-shaped pasta…it all had to be just right. Now I’m the mother, and even though my chicken soup recipe is a staple comfort food dish in my house, it will never taste just like my mom’s. And I think I like it better that way.
I have a very distinct memory of making ‘Stone Soup’ with my classmates as a little girl. It’s based off of a book called ‘Stone Soup.’ We read the book all together and then were each in charge of dressing up and bringing in an assigned ingredient. It taught us all about community building and sharing.
I was only a few months into my move to Chicago and signs polar vortex two were springing up/wintering up. So of course:
POLAR VORTEXES = Soup Time
I was missing a super delicious roasted-red pepper soup from the job I just left and I really wanted to see if I could recreate it. I was committed. I looked up a few recipes and believed the stove top method was the most authentic …but I didn’t have enough foil and I was NOT going back outside #brrrr. Well…things went out real fast, lol. Still, I chose this as my favorite soup memory because it was one of the first times that I really took to the kitchen to try to make something I had never tried before. It might seem like a small feat — a roasted red pepper soup, but I grew up on quesadillas & scrambled eggs!
I love soup! I actually told someone the other day that I wish there was a soup delivery service in town! My favorite soup memory was when my mom and I were camping at the beach in Florida and stopped in a little restaurant for dinner; we had seafood bisque so delicious we wanted to lick the bowls!
Yum sounds delicious, love that this is vegan!!
In the cold winter, a warm roasted tomato soup that makes you nose runny and your tummy happy!
My favorite soup memory is from when I was about four years old and my mom served us broccoli cheese soup for dinner for the first time.
I decided it must be gross and refused to eat it. My parents said I just had to try one spoonful and couldn’t leave the table until I did so. Everyone else finished, left, and I was still sitting in a dim dining room by myself, staring at a cold bowl of soup. I eventually ate my spoonful and fell in love with cheesy broccoli goodness–my very own Green Eggs and Ham experience, you could say.
Growing up in Vermont we ate lots of soup in the winter. My mom’s cockaleekie (chicken and leek) soup was my all-time favorite, but as a vegetarian in high black bean soup was my staple. Now, as an omnivore I love both and particularly love experimenting with both.
I have so many soup memories, but one that particularly sticks out in my head is from last year. My mom came to stay with me for the weekend to help me organize and decorate my condo. We made a huge target run and spent the night cleaning, organizing, and drinking wine, while Christmas movie played in the background and apple parsnip soup was cooking in my crockpot. It was one of the first times ever using my crockpot and the soup turned out deliciously! I know this may not sound like the funnest time ever, but my mom LOVES to organize so we actually had a blast.