This miso sauce is a super versatile, umami-packed condiment. Use the sweet miso sauce in noodle dishes, as a marinade for meat and vegetables, to flavour soups and stews, or to make miso dipping sauce. Or double the sugar for the iconic Nobu-style den miso sauce to marinade fish and glaze eggplant.
Yield1½ cups
Servings24
Equipment
- small saucepan
Ingredients
- 1 cup miso paste*
- ¾ cup mirin*
- ½ cup sake
- ¼ cup sugar , plus another ¼ cup for den miso glaze*
Instructions
- Whisk the miso, mirin and sake together in a small saucepan.
- Add ¼ cup sugar to make all-purpose miso sauce. Add the extra ¼ cup sugar (another 4 tablespoons) for sweet den miso glaze.
- Bring it to a simmer over medium-high heat, stirring often. Then turn the heat down low and cook until the sugar dissolves and the sauce thickens – about 15 minutes. Stir the sauce from time to time to ensure even cooking. It will look like butterscotch when it's ready.
Notes
- I use white miso for a milder flavour. But you can also use yellow miso or red miso for a more intense, savoury flavour. Just add an extra tablespoon of sugar to balance the saltiness of red miso.
- I use hon mirin for this recipe (sweet Japanese rice wine). If your mirin has ingredients like sugar or corn syrup, it's not "real brewed mirin" and is likely much sweeter. Go ahead and use it, but know that your sauce will be a bit sweeter. See the ingredients and substitutes for more information.
- If you plan to make Nobu's miso-marinated black cod, you can make a sweeter glaze with the extra sugar (½ cup total). But I prefer to make a batch of all-purpose miso sauce and sweeten it with maple syrup as needed when I want a sweeter miso glaze.
- Refrigerated in a clean airtight jar, the miso sauce will keep up to 2 months.