Making dashi quickly | How to make dashi/Japanese broth | Kikkoman Corporation (2024)

FAQs

Making dashi quickly | How to make dashi/Japanese broth | Kikkoman Corporation? ›

Place a 5 cm (2 in.) piece of kombu

Combine 2 cups water and 2-inch piece kombu in a 1-quart saucepan and set over medium heat. Remove the kombu from the water just before it comes to a full boil. Add 1/2 cup loosely packed dried bonito flakes, if using, and let the water come to a rapid simmer. Continue simmering for about 1 minute.

Dashi most commonly utilizes a combination of kombu (kelp seaweed) and katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes), but other ingredients used to make dashi are shiitake mushrooms and niboshi (small dried fish). Dashi making has evolved over a long period of time.

* It is to dashi what bouillon cubes are to stock, and, in a pinch, it can be a meal-saver—simply add one teaspoon of the powder to a cup of warm water, and you have your dashi.

Unopened dashi powder or granules are likely to have a shelf-life of up to two years if stored correctly. However, you should always check the Best Before date on the packaging. Once you've opened the package, it's best to use it within a few months, or the quality and flavor may begin to diminish.

Dashi is considered healthy because you don't need to season dishes excessively with salt, fats, or sugar. It also contains a number of vitamins and minerals, particularly from kombu kelp or dried bonito flakes, making it a healthy ingredient used in Japanese food.

So you need some dashi for a recipe, and you don't want to make it yourself. Luckily, you can save a lot of time by purchasing some premade or instant dashi powder from your local grocery store.

Although dashi comes together relatively quickly compared to other long-simmered broths and stocks, there's an even faster shortcut to flavorful broth, and that's instant dashi. Instant dashi is to dashi what a bouillon cube is to chicken broth.

Let's Make Dashi!

And you likely thought, “um, that wasn't hard.” Nope, it's not that hard. In fact, it's about the easiest kind of broth you'll ever make. Like I mentioned above, it's only 3 ingredients and only require about 20 minutes of your time to make!

How to make 1 cup of dashi stock? ›

To prepare dashi for home use, you mix the granules with warm water and you're ready to go. When a recipe calls for "1 cup of dashi," it means 1 cup of warm water with the appropriate amount of granules mixed in, not 1 cup of granules! That'd be incredibly salty.

Bring to a boil; reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and let stand for a few minutes. Strain through a mesh strainer before using.

Although the standard dashi recipe involves soaking kelp for hours before simmering it briefly in heated water to extract its flavour, many eateries depend on Hondashi, a commercial-quality dashi powder containing monosodium glutamate, to add taste to their dishes.

Bring to a boil; reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and let stand for a few minutes. Strain through a mesh strainer before using.

For Vegetarian Dashi: Mushrooms, Not Bonito

You could simply leave out the bonito and make a true kombu broth, or you can replace the bonito with something equally savory and earthy — like dried shiitake mushrooms.