Soups are one of my favorite dishes to cook up. They warm up the house, and kids always love a good soup. The great thing about Asian soups are they can be as complicated or as simple as you want to make them. If you want to make your own broth by boiling bones forever you can, but if you are in a jam on a weeknight you can do a combination of pre-made broth or powder. Respect both ways. As I am often cooking on a weeknight, I usually find myself going the combination route of pre-made powder or broth and different sauces (i.e soy sauce, sesame, miso). These are 3 quick Asian soup recipes that I cook all the time in our house.
1. Kitsune Udon
Udon is by far the easiest and quickest Asian soup that I cook at home. If you factor in that kids will always eat udon, then it is hard to beat. A quick dashi broth (using dashi-da) with soy sauce, mirin, and sugar, and you have yourself a great tasting soup. If you combine that with pre-washed baby spinach, frozen fish cake, inari age (fried tofu, which is often frozen), and frozen udon noodles, then you have yourself the makings of one restaurant quality dinner. All your ingredients are either frozen or pre-washed so that take the prep right out, and it also means you have these ingredients always on hand.
Get the Recipe: Kitsune Udon recipe
2. Instant Pot Chicken Congee
Congee is the perfect soup for a rainy day. Nothing beats a rice soup with some chicken broth, fried shallots, and green onions on top. I’m partial to the fried shallots being part Indonesian. The only problem I had with congee is the boiling the rice part. If you don’t want to watch rice boil, or don’t have the time, then using the Instant Pot is definitely the way to go. This makes your process super simple. Chicken broth, rice, chicken drumsticks, water, salt, and you are pretty much all done. Throw it all in the instant pot for 30 minutes, and call it a day. Your chicken congee comes out perfectly soupy and rice based at the same time.
Get the Recipe: Instapot Chicken Congee
3. Tonjiru (Pork and Vegetable soup)
Ah, maybe I did save the best for last. Tonjiru is the great-tasting soup I actually did not have as a kid. A miso and dashi based broth with fried pork belly, tofu, inari-age, softened daikon, and green onions. I can’t explain how amazing this soup is, other than to say everyone I make this for asks for the recipe. I don’t know why it isn’t as well known in the states as in Japan, but for some reason Japanese restaurants don’t serve this on their menu. I mean, if I saw this on the menu, I would snap order this soup. If there is one soup you have to try making, it is Tonjiru. It is about 35 minutes start to finish, and super easy to cook.
Get the Tonjiru recipe here.
So there you have it, 3 quick asian soup recipes, that are perfect for any occasion. All of them can be done in 30’ish minutes, and with ingredients that are easy to find at your local grocery store.
If you liked any of these recipes and are looking for more Quick Asian Recipes, then check out more in the Japanese Recipes and Chinese Recipes sections as well. If you just want to check out the cool Asian snacks, then check them out here.
Leave a Reply