Jazz up miso soup with green tea and zucchini noodles

The subtle taste of green tea gives this flavorful zucchini noodle soup something special.

It’s no secret that tea is taking over. With mixed reviews on the health benefits of coffee, everyone’s turning to tea to get their fix. Tea is becoming trendier every day.

Tea boasts many benefits — it relaxes, it speeds up metabolism, it curbs appetite cravings, and it opens up the senses. Most important, tea is going to be a big foodie trend in 2014. Tea is going to be seen baked into treats, buried in smoothies, folded into ice cream, used when poaching proteins, mixed into seasonings and, of course, infused into broths.

Green tea is a fun way to infuse nutrients into your foods by steeping tea bags or by powder form, known as matcha. Since most people don’t have matcha lying around, steeping green tea and then using the “green tea broth” is the easiest way to take advantage of this trend.

Green tea is packed with antioxidants, which play a role in the prevention of aging and disease. This powerful tea has been touted as having many medicinal properties. Also, while green tea contains caffeine, it doesn’t give you that jittery effect coffee does. It has even proven to improve aspects of brain function, mood, reaction time and memory.

Why infuse it into foods? Green tea has been shown to increase fat-burning and to boost the metabolic rate. Therefore, by infusing green tea into your foods, you give your meal a big, healthy boost.

This bowl of noodles is perfect for any season. It’s comforting, light, satisfying and extremely flavorful. The green tea flavor adds a refreshing earthiness, while the zucchini noodles give the soup heartiness without the heavy calories or carbs of normal noodles.

The miso, soy sauce and sesame oil give this soup an Asian-inspired flair. The tofu offers a vegetarian-friendly protein along with a warm, soft texture to each bite. And the zucchini noodles can be easily made with a spiralizer, mandolin or julienne peeler.

What do you think? Will you be trying out this green tea trend?

Miso green tea and ginger tofu soup with zucchini noodles recipe

Ingredients:

• 1-1/2 cups water
• 2 green tea bags
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon minced ginger
• 1-1/2 cups vegetable broth
• 1/2 cup small-diced tofu
• 1 tablespoon miso paste
• 1/3 cup chopped scallions
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 1-1/2 medium zucchinis (made into noodles with a spiralizer, blade C)
• Pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. In a medium saucepan, boil the water. Once boiling, remove from heat and add in the green tea bags. Let them steep for 3 to 4 minutes, and then remove them. Set the broth aside.
2. Place a medium saucepan over medium heat, and add in your sesame oil and then your ginger. Let it cook for 30 seconds, then pour in your vegetable stock, tofu and green tea broth, and bring it all to a boil.
3. Once the soup is boiling, ladle out about 1/3 of a cup of the soup into a bowl. In that bowl, add the miso paste, and whisk until it is dissolved. Add this miso broth back into the saucepan, and lower the heat.
4. Add the soy sauce, scallions, zucchini noodles and pepper to the soup, and let it cook for 2 to 3 minutes or until the zucchini noodles soften.
5. Once done, pour the soup into a bowl and enjoy.

More soup recipes

Miso soup recipe
Wild mushroom soup
Easy miso soup with tofu