This light Japanese Onion Mushroom soup recipe is based on the soups found at hibachi restaurants.
You will take about 30 minutes in total to prep and cook this Japanese clear soup from scratch at home in just one pot.
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🧅 Ingredients
Here is an overview of what you will need to make your own Japanese clear onion soup.
The exact US and metric measurements are located in the printable recipe card below the how-to instructions.
- White Onions — aka sweet onion
- Green Onions aka Spring Onion — bulbs and green stalks
- Shiitake Mushrooms — You can use dried shiitake mushroom, fresh mushrooms or even canned mushrooms. I recommend dried mushrooms because they add more umami than fresh or canned mushrooms.
- Ginger — fresh
- Garlic Cloves — fresh
- Beef Broth
- Water
- Soy Sauce — Kikkoman style is preferred, but also mushroom soy sauce is great.
- Black Pepper Ground
- Salt — to taste (optional)
🥣 How to prep dried mushrooms for this soup?
If you intend to use dried shiitake mushrooms in this soup (as I did) instead of fresh ones, then you can do the following:
- Rinse your mushroom and place into a bowl with about 1 ¼ cup or 300 milliliter Water.
- Let the mushrooms soak for at least 30 minutes.
- Take out the mushrooms from the liquid and just rinse them once again with clean water. Squeeze the mushroom to take out excess water.
- Reserve the mushroom water because you can use that + 300 ml instead of the 600 ml of water in the recipe. The mushroom water adds a umami flavor to the soup.
🔪 How to make this soup?
Prep your fresh ingredients.
Slice your white onion, green onions and mushrooms. Chop your ginger and garlic.
Step 2
Sauté white onion slices, green onion bulbs (reserve the green onion stalks for the garnish), ginger, garlic, and mushrooms in some oil.
Step 3
Pour in beef broth, water, and season with soy sauce, black pepper and salt.
Step 4
Simmer for 10–15 minutes over a medium heat setting.
Step 5
Garnish just before serving with the green cut onion stalks and serve hot.
📖 Recipe
Japanese Onion Soup Recipe with Mushroom
Ingredients
- 1 Large White Onion
- 2 Green Onion aka spring onion
- 4 Medium Shiitake Mushrooms *see Notes
- ½ Inch Ginger Fresh fresh
- 2 Pieces Garlic Cloves fresh
- 1-2 Tablespoon Oil *see Notes
- 1 ¼ Cup Beef Broth or Beef bouillon cube with water mixed
- 2 ½ Cup Water see notes if you used dried soaked mushrooms
- 1 Tablespoon Soy Sauce
- ¼ Teaspoon Black Pepper Ground
- To Taste Salt
Instructions
- Peel your onion and slice small. Wash your spring onion and cut into small slices as well. Reserve the green spring onion stalks to garnish the soup.1 Large White Onion, 2 Green Onion
- Slice your mushrooms small and keep aside.4 Medium Shiitake Mushrooms
- Chop your peeled ginger and garlic and keep aside as well.½ Inch Ginger Fresh, 2 Pieces Garlic Cloves
- In a soup pan, heat the oil on a medium-high heat setting and sauté the onion slices with the white spring onion bulb until soft.1-2 Tablespoon Oil
- Decrease the heat a bit and stir in ginger and garlic. Cook soft for a minute or two but don't burn the garlic.
- Stir in sliced mushrooms and sauté until slightly soft.
- Pour in the beef broth and water (eventually water + mushroom water — see notes).1 ¼ Cup Beef Broth, 2 ½ Cup Water
- Season with soy sauce, black pepper and, if needed, salt.1 Tablespoon Soy Sauce, ¼ Teaspoon Black Pepper Ground, To Taste Salt
- Mix well and let your soup simmer for 10–15 minutes covered.
- Serve with chopped fresh green spring onion stalks hot in a soup bowl.
Notes
- In this recipe, you can use fresh or dried mushrooms. To use fresh mushrooms, just cut the mushrooms and add to the soup with the mentioned broth and water amounts in the recipe. To use dried mushrooms, add 300 milliliters (10.14 fl oz/ 1 ¼ cup) water to the mushrooms in a bowl and let soak for 30 minutes. Then take out the mushrooms and press out some water, just pass quickly through the fresh water to get rid of impurities and cut the mushroom small. Keep the 300 ml mushroom water to the side because you will use that + 300 ml water instead of the 600 ml in the recipe. The mushroom water is full of flavors and will give your soup a great depth!
- Choose your oil. You can use regular vegetable oil or some Asian oil such as peanut oil or sesame oil.
Nutrition
💡 Variation Ideas
You can add any of the following ingredients, or switch out ingredients, to the soup to simmer along.
- Other veggies such as celery, leek, carrot, and parsnip. You can clean out your fridge that way.
- Scallion.
- White button mushrooms instead of shiitake.
- Chicken Broth instead of beef broth, if that is what you have in your pantry.
🍴 Serving
Enjoy this Japanese onion soup as a light meal for lunch with a salad at the side, such as a daikon radish salad and some bread.
You can also serve this soup as they do in hibachi restaurants as a starter. The soup goes really well with the main course, such as a beef steak, or serve it up as a sushi starter.
You can add a topping too, such as rayu chili oil to add some heat or a soft-boiled half egg.
🍱 Storing
Store leftovers in an airtight container with a lid. I like to use a rectangular oven and a freezer-safe glass container for that.
That way, you can pop the soup into the oven or microwave to reheat, or you can add it to your meal prep rotation by storing the container in your freezer.
📕 What is this soup?
Japanese onion soup with mushrooms is a common soup served in hibachi restaurants across the North American continent as a starter meal, as the soup is a clear broth and light onion soup.
This clear Asian onion souo is also known as a miyabi soup in hibachi restaurants.
The purpose of the soup is to prepare the stomach for the rest of the meal to come, which is usually heavier in nature and contains meat such as beef steaks.
Some Hibachi establishments skip the mushrooms all together to make it more like a French onion soup (minus the cheese and flour).
Yet, the Japanese onion soup is not a traditional dashi miso-based soup but uses a beef broth instead.
The ingredients in this Japanese onion soup are all inspired by the various Japanese regional onion and mushroom soup varieties. It is definitely not a traditional Japanese onion or mushroom soup, but rather a western style Japanese inspired soup.
You will love this Japanese onion soup if you are not a fan of miso soups or if you like light Asian inspired meals which have a western touch to it.
This is a great excuse for dipping into my stash of mushroom stock.
Love the ease to making this soup. I also added bamboo shoots, spicy chili sauce and vegan steak strips
I also mixed some red miso paste with the broth before serving
Great idea, thanks for sharing your version with us.
Hi, this looks amazing! I've been looking for something like this for a while. I was wondering if it could be used as a quick base to heat and serve with Asian noodles as a homeade version of "ramen"?
Also, will it keep in the fridge if prepared ahead and stored for lunches or weeknight meals? Thank you for sharing!!
Hi Debby, yes you can use it as a quick base to serve with Asian noodles such as ramen. The soup keeps well in the fridge for some days so you can prepare it ahead. It should be good for at least 4 days in your fridge.
So good!
Yummy 🥰I made w vegetable broth instead of beef
Delicious! Perfect starter to our gyoza night
Generally a nice recipe but I found it was lacking some balance. I used a 50:50 ratio of beef broth to water (4 cups each as I was making enough for 6) and added about a third cup cooking sherry and 4 TBSP of rice vinegar. The extra sweetness and acidity from the vinegar and sherry helped balance out the intense umami. Also simmered it for 2 hours to intensify the flavours.
A mix of enoki and shitake mushrooms and chopped green onion really set the dish off. Excellent appetizer for my main of sous vide short rib with teriyaki sauce. The soup was a huge hit.
Hi Brian, thank you for your feedback and for sharing your approach to this recipe. 🙂
I'm so excited to make this ASAP! It looks so tasty and comforting! Thanks for the recipe!
This was amazing! I made it for lunches this week and I can't wait to eat it 🙂
I am definitely making this for my husband! He loves this soup.
Beautiful light soup.
What a coincidence, I made a very similar soup last night, a flavourful mushroom and miso broth. I forgot to grate some ginger into it, that would have made it awesome!
now you have this soup to try too. It' s without miso paste. 🙂