Miso Mayo - Secrets of Sushi (2024)

Miso Mayo is a very savory (or umami) sushi sauce. It was created at the restaurant that I currently work at: Full Moon Sushi Bar & Bistro and it’s certainly a crowd favorite!

I am personally a huge fan of this sauce for it’s flavor and versatility. It blends well with various hot sauces, sweet sauces (like eel sauce), and it can go on a variety of different dishes. I like to use miso mayo on my sandwiches, salads, and when cooking chicken.

Making miso mayo is very simple and it only takes four ingredients! For this recipe, I chose to use awase miso (red + white miso) paste. The restaurant uses white miso (shiro), but I find awase miso to have more flavor than shiro without the overpowering aspects of aka.

Here’s a basic rundown of the differences between the three types of miso paste:

• White Miso (shiro)– mild flavor and slightly sweet, made by fermenting soy beans with rice.
• Red Miso (aka)– very strong flavor, made by fermenting soy beans with barley or other grains for a longer period of time.
• Awase (aka + shiro)– this paste is a combination of the two previous pastes after they have been individually fermented. This paste is both lightly sweet and full of flavor.

For this recipe, you will need:

• 1 1/2 cups of Heavy Mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup of Miso Paste (awase or aka)
• 2 Tbsp of Mirin
• 1 tsp of Hondashi

This recipe makes approximately 1 2/3 cups of miso mayo.

Making Miso Mayo

1. Add 1.5 cups of heavy mayo into a bowl.

2. Measure and add 1/4 cup of miso paste. Be sure to scrape out as much paste from the measuring spoon as possible.

3. Add 2 Tbsp of mirin.

4. Add 1 tsp of hondashi pellets.

5. Mix it all together until the hondashi pellets have dissolved. I used a spoon, but to be perfectly honest it would be easier to use a whisk or even a hand mixer if you have one available.

It’s as simple as that! Now you just need to pour your miso mayo into a bottle and experiment with how you like to use it. Since this recipe is so short, I figured I would include some interesting facts about miso. Enjoy!

Interesting Facts:

• Koji, the mold used to ferment the soy beans for miso,is the same mold used to ferment sake and soy sauce.

• Miso is considered extremely beneficial for the body. In addition to being high in protein, vitamins, and minerals, miso is also known to aid in hang over recovery, reduce blood pressure, reduce the effects of radiation sickness, assist with digestion, reduce the effects of aging and smoking, and can be used to help clense the body.

• Miso paste is generally marketed by it’s color (red – aka, white – shiro, or a combination – awase) or ingredients (rice – kome, wheat – mugi, or soy beans – mame).

• Hacho Miso (a miso with less salt, fewer carbs, and a longer shelf life) is the preferred miso of the Emperor of Japan – a trend that has lasted longer than 400 years.
• After the Chernobyl Disaster of 1986, Japan sent Hacho miso to the victims in Russia. Russia thought the miso soup helped so much with the radiation sickness that they ordered more.