I sometimes find myself wanting to eat something easy to digest that has all the elements of a good diet, and I made my own recipe for a vegetarian miso soup.  I use fresh vegetables and shiitake mushrooms, tofu, a good broth, and of course miso to give my soup the right umami flavor.

I rarely measure anything, and I recommend you just develop your own taste for these:

Broccoli (I’ll sometimes use kale too; hint: if you don’t have a good source of fresh vegetables, Trader Joe’s has bags of broccoli florets, and kale that are ready to use; spinach takes a few seconds so you might as well add it as you transfer to the bowl)

Bok Choy (I think I buy another kind these days that has smaller leaves but I forgot the name)

Green Onion

Shiitake Mushrooms

Tofu (I use Wildwood’s Extra Firm in water; I suspect they make it for Trader Joe’s too)

Optionally a garlic clove (I think it affects my sleep, so I hold it back in the evening)

Rice vinegar

Vegetable Broth (I use Seitenbacher)

Noodles (I use half a package of GreeNooodle made with moroheiya– the plain ones)

Miso (I use Hikari mild sodium miso)

Soy sauce (I use San-J Organic Tamari)

Furikake (I use Umeboshi from Muso, it’s a seasoning made of sesame seeds and yummy things)

Make substitutions and additions as you wish!  I suppose tofu could be replaced by another protein of your liking (I have thrown an egg into it, I imagine I could throw pieces of fish like thin fillet of sole).

1. Bring water to a boil
2. Wash vegetables, cut if needed, sort in order of cooking time: broccoli takes about the same time as the noodles (3 min) while the bok choy is fast (1 min) and the mushrooms even half of that.
3. Throw in half a package of the noodles (one of the two pancakes) and start the timer at 3 minutes
4. Put in the broccoli pieces, making sure it doesn’t stop the boiling (put the lid on to accelerate)
5. Put in the bok choy and the mushrooms halfway through the minutes

While this is happening, dice the tofu and press the water out (not too hard), put it in your bowl with a spoonful of broth powder, one of miso, a chopped green onion, some pepper and other spices as you wish, press the garlic clove into it, a little rice vinegar, a little soy sauce…  Mix some of the boiling water to start dissolving the broth and the miso…  After the 3-minute boil, transfer the noodles and the vegetables and some more water using a serving spoon and a spaghetti serving spoon/fork.  Once most of the contents has been transferred and you feel you have enough water, pour the rest of it through a sieve to get the rest of it and throw it in the bowl.

Voila!  Enjoy by mixing with your chopsticks so all the ingredients get a chance to encounter the broth.  Adjust cooking time by tasting, sometimes I undercook, sometimes I overcook, but generally the 3 minutes work.  Also adjust if you’re using another kind of noodles (or no noodles at all).  It’s fun to experiment with, but for me the above are what I’ve determined to be essential to good flavor.  If you’re concerned about sodium, look for low sodium alternatives and adjust the serving size of the miso, the soy sauce, and the furikake.  You can also find low-sodium soy sauce.