Miso Ginger Kale Soup
I am often asked, “How do you stay raw in the winter”. The simple answer is I don’t. I don’t worry about being 100% raw at any time of the year. In the summer I will go for weeks without eating any cooked food but not because I have set expectations that I have to be 100% raw. It’s because I enjoy the bounty of what nature has provided. In the winter, I usually stay high raw until dinner time. Even in the winter, too much cooked food weighs me down. But once I am ready to relax for the evening, I have no problem making a wonderful plant based (vegan) whole food (just what it says, no processed junk) meal. This Ginger Kale Miso soup is one of my favorite transitional winter dinners. Let me tell you why.
Kale is a nutritional power house. I love it and I eat a lot of it. But did you know that if you cook kale, the vitamin K increases by a huge amount? At the same time, you decrease the amount of vitamin C and probably destroy some phytonutrients and enzymes in the process. Its a bit the same with most cooked veggies. Some nutrients become more bio-available while others dramatically decrease. What’s the answer? For me, I love throwing cooked and raw in a dish together! That way I get the best of both worlds. It’s an easy solution.
This soup is loaded with goodies. Miso is a fermented soy paste that is packed with nutrients such as antioxidants, minerals, phytonutrients, fiber and protein. I suggest that you use a very high quality, organic (non-gmo) miso paste. If you don’t want to eat soy, you can find miso made from other things such as brown rice. A great article on miso can be found here: Miso.
I cook some of the kale and carrots and save out the rest to throw in after the soup has been removed from the heat. That way you get the cooked kale along with the fresh kale! Make sure you wait to add the miso until after the cooling period as you don’t want to destroy the wonderful health benefits.
I hope you love this soup as much as I do. It is a staple in my house in the winter and with the additional ginger, is a great way to chase off the cold and satisfy that need for a warm meal on a cold night.
Miso Ginger Kale Soup
Serves 4
Soup
- 6 cups water
- 1 medium bunch kale, de-stemmed and torn into bite size pieces, divided
- 1 cup sliced carrots, divided
- 1 teaspoon fresh grated ginger
- 1/2 cup yellow miso
- 1 medium leek, sliced fine (white part only)
- fresh ground pepper
- Place water, half the kale, half the carrots, and the ginger in a pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Remove from heat, let cool for 10 minutes.
- Stir in the miso, remaining kale, carrots and the leeks. Make sure you stir well enough so the miso is completely dissolved.
Maki wrote on February 21, 2015
Aloha!
I’m a Japanese, and I often make variety of miso soup, just tossing in some veggie I have at hand.
Kale and ginger!! That’s new to me, and I bet it’ll turn out great!!
Thank you for your idea!
Vicki Porteous wrote on July 5, 2014
this is not a raw recipe a truly raw recipe does not cook or boil anything. whip up your carrots in a blender add your soup ingreidents put on high speed. the blender will warm the soup
Susan wrote on July 5, 2014
Hi, Vicki, You are 100% correct. This is not a raw recipe. I would so greatly appreciate it if you would read the post. It is not supposed to be a raw recipe. 🙂 Cheers!