Japanese · Japan

Kasujiru Sake Lees Miso Soup Winter

Kasujiru (粕汁, sake lees soup) is a warming winter soup made with sake-kasu (酒粕, the pressed lees from sake production) combined with root vegetables and often pork or salmon to create one of Japan's most distinctively flavoured cold-weather preparations. Sake-kasu is the solid by-product of sake pressing — containing residual starch, proteins, amino acids, alcohol (8-14% by weight), and a complex flavour profile derived from the sake's fermentation history. Mixed with dashi or water and seasoned with a small amount of miso or salt, sake-kasu transforms into a rich, creamy, subtly alcoholic soup base with an earthy, yeasty depth that no other ingredient can replicate. The soup is thickened naturally by the starch content of the lees, giving it a viscous, coating quality ideal for warming from the inside out. Traditional kasujiru ingredients: daikon, carrot, gobo, konnyaku, salmon or pork belly, and miso in varying proportions by region. Kansai regions favour salmon (sake/shake) kasujiru; northern regions (Akita, Niigata) use local vegetables and pork. The alcohol content of sake-kasu means kasujiru is technically not appropriate for those who cannot drink alcohol — something to note when serving. Sake-kasu is available fresh from sake breweries in winter and early spring.

ServesFour portions

Sourced2of 8 in BC

Cook

The Market List

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150 g

sake-kasu (sake lees)

fresh, from ita-kasu board; sliced; dissolved in warm water before use

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

1 litre

dashi

niboshi or konbu preferred

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

200 g

daikon

peeled, cut into half-moons

Origin · JapanT Amano Trading · Vancouver →

100 g

carrot

peeled, cut into half-moons

Your own market

100 g

gobo (burdock root)

scrubbed, sliced on the diagonal, soaked briefly in cold water

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

100 g

konnyaku

torn into rough pieces by hand

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

200 g

salmon fillet or pork belly

salmon cut into 3 cm pieces; pork belly thinly sliced — regional choice

Your own market

2 tbsp

miso

add to taste; not to exceed a small amount — kasu provides salt and umami of its own

Purely Artisan Foods · San Diego →

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The Method

Bring the dashi to a gentle simmer in a medium pot. Add the daikon, carrot, gobo, and konnyaku. Cook over medium-low heat until the root vegetables are just tender but not collapsing — test with a skewer; it should pass through with light resistance.

In a small bowl, dissolve the sake-kasu in a ladleful of warm dashi from the pot, pressing and stirring until no lumps remain. This is where the dish lives or dies: sake-kasu added directly to the pot without prior dissolution creates an uneven, grainy texture that cannot be corrected; the base must be fully smooth before it enters the soup.

Add the protein — salmon pieces or sliced pork belly — to the simmering pot. Cook just until the flesh is opaque throughout or the pork shows no pink. Do not allow the pot to return to a rolling boil.

Stir the dissolved sake-kasu into the pot. Maintain a gentle simmer for 3–4 minutes — sufficient to partially reduce the residual alcohol and integrate the lees into the dashi. The soup will thicken visibly and take on a creamy, off-white opacity from the kasu's starch content. Do not boil hard; overheating coagulates the proteins in the lees and volatilises the alcohol excessively.

Dissolve the miso into the soup using a small strainer or ladle, tasting as you go. The kasu already contributes salt and umami; the miso need only add fermented depth, not dominate. Adjust with further miso or salt until the soup is balanced between the kasu's sweet-earthy character and clean salinity.

Remove from heat. Allow the soup to rest, covered, for 5 minutes. The root vegetables will absorb the kasu flavour during this rest. Serve in deep bowls while the soup is fragrant and steaming, with a distinct yeasty warmth rising from the surface.

III

Quality Hierarchy

Reserve — Fresh ita-kasu sourced directly from a named sake brewery during the January–March pressing season; niboshi dashi made from whole dried sardines; wild salmon or heritage-breed pork belly; hand-harvested konbu for the dashi base.

Estate — Fresh ita-kasu from a specialist supplier or Japanese grocer; home-made niboshi or konbu dashi; farmed salmon of reliable quality; domestic pork belly with good fat coverage.

Market — Packaged sake-kasu (refrigerated, within date); good-quality instant dashi (dashi powder without MSG dominance); supermarket salmon or pork belly; pre-cut konnyaku.

House — Packaged sake-kasu thinned with water in place of dashi; any available white-fleshed fish or pork; standard instant dashi granules; acceptable as a warm weekday preparation but the kasu's character will be less pronounced.

Sensory Tests

◇Sight. Root vegetables are opaque and a skewer passes with light resistance before the kasu is added.

◇Sight. The dissolved kasu mixture is fully smooth with no white lumps before it enters the pot.

◇Sight. The finished soup is creamy, off-white, and lightly viscous — it coats the back of a ladle with a thin, even film.

◇Smell. A gentle yeasty, earthy aroma rises from the pot during the final simmer; a sharp alcohol spike indicates the heat is too high.

◇Touch. The soup feels slightly coating and warming on the palate — this viscosity, derived from the kasu's residual starch, is the marker of a properly integrated base.

◇Where it lives or dies. Sake-kasu must be fully dissolved in warm dashi before it enters the pot; lumps added directly to cold or simmering liquid create a grainy, irrecoverable texture.

V · Cross-Cuisine Parallels

Chinese jiu niang soup: fermented glutinous rice wine lees used as a sweet-savoury, slightly alcoholic soup base — the same logic of valorising fermentation by-products for warming soups (The Thread, Tsuji Culinary Institute — Japanese Soups and Winter Warming Foods) German Bierhefe soup: historical brewer's yeast lees incorporated into soup for flavour and nutritional value — a parallel tradition of using the solid residue of alcoholic fermentation as a soup foundation (The Thread, Tsuji Culinary Institute — Japanese Soups and Winter Warming Foods)

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What to Pour

The pairing

Kiku-Masamune Kimoto Junmai

Kiku-Masamune Sake Brewing · Nada

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

Sake

From British Columbia

Fort Berens Riesling

Fort Berens Estate Winery · Lillooet

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

Wine

Without alcohol

GT's Synergy Organic Kombucha — Gingerade

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

Non-alcoholic

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The whole pairing

VII · Origin & Lineage

Kasujiru is native to Japan's sake-producing regions — Nada (Hyogo), Fushimi (Kyoto), Niigata, and Akita — where sake-kasu is a direct seasonal by-product of winter pressing (November–February). The Kansai tradition favours salmon kasujiru; northern regions such as Akita and Niigata use local root vegetables and pork. The soup's calendar is inseparable from the sake-brewing cycle: it is most properly a January–March preparation, when fresh kasu is at its most available and least sour. Source: Tsuji Culinary Institute — Japanese Soups and Winter Warming Foods.

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Sourced through Provenance

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