Hot & Sour Soup

It's official, with 10 days until I have to move apartments, I've used up all the packets of shirataki noodles in my pantry cupboard. The last packet went into thickening this tasty, and not the least bit authentic, hot and sour soup. It's been many many years since I've had a hot and sour soup, and I've got to be honest, I don't remember quite what it tastes like. Before making this recipe, I browsed a number of recipes online and found a great deal of variation. Some had pretty common ingredients, others had things I had never heard of. Of course, all contained higher carb items I'd need to omit or replace. Apart from the fancy mushrooms and bamboo shoots, which are actually readily available in my supermarket, this version is made up of ingredients I had on hand. Most recipes I saw called for a broth of some sort, but knowing that most of the ingredients I would be using already contained a lot of sodium, I opted for a little miso, nutritonal yeast, and onion powder instead. It's a sodium-rich soup nonetheless. If you have a low-sodium tamari or soy sauce, you may be able to use veggie broth in place of the water without it being overly salty, but be aware that many storebought broths and bouillon cubes can be high in carbs. Feel free to use whatever mushrooms you prefer and adapt the recipe to your tastes. I have provided the macros for the broth without any of the "other ingredients" in case you'd like to make significant adaptations to the recipe. For those of you who've had an authenic hot and sour soup recently, am I even close? Either way, please enjoy my creation!
Yield: 4 servings of about 1¼ cups (300g) each
​Macros (per serving): 140 calories | 9g protein | 8.5g fat | 4g net carbs
​Macros (broth only - full recipe [about 700ml]): 335 calories | 6.5g protein | 28g fat | 5.5g net carbs
Prep/Cook: 30 minutes
Equipment required: a blender with a soup function (soup function optional ✎)
Storage: refrigerated for up to 3 days.
Other Ingredients:
  • 4 ounces (113g) mushrooms, sliced or chopped (about 1½ cups), I'm using half shiitake and half wood ear ✎
  • 1 medium (15g) green onion, sliced, white and green parts separated
  • ¼ cup (60ml) water (or more)
  • ½ x 8-ounce (227g) can sliced bamboo shoots ​(70g | about ⅓ cup), drained, or 2 pieces (66g) hearts of palm, sliced
  • 10.9 ounces (309g) firm silken tofu, cubed large (this is 1 package of the Mori-Nu brand)
Broth Ingredients:
  • 1½-2 cups (360-480ml) water
  • 1 x 7-ounce (200g) package shirataki noodles, drained and well-rinsed
  • 2½ Tbsp (38ml) unseasoned rice vinegar (or more, to taste)
  • 2 Tbsp (30ml) tamari, soy sauce, or aminos (use low-sodium if sensitive to salt)
  • 2 Tbsp (24g) allulose or equivalent in sweetener of choice
  • 1 Tbsp (15ml) refined coconut oil or oil of choice 
  • 1 Tbsp (15ml) toasted sesame oil
  • ½ Tbsp (9g) ginger garlic paste
  • ½ Tbsp (8g) vegan sambal oelek or sugar-free chili paste of choice
  • 1 tsp white or chickpea miso paste​
  • ½ Tbsp nutritional yeast flakes
  • ¼ tsp onion powder
  • ⅛ tsp ground white pepper or black pepper ✎
Directions:
  1. Put the mushrooms and white part of the green onion in a medium-sized saucepan with the ¼ cup (60ml) water. Cover with a well fitted lid and set to medium heat. Check and mix occasionally and add a splash of water if needed to keep pan from drying out.
  2. Meanwhile, put all broth ingredients in the blender and blend to smooth. Start with 1½ cups (360ml) water. You can add more later if the soup is too rich. If you have one, you can use the soup function on your blender to make it nice and hot. If not, simply blend the mixture to smooth.
  3. Add the broth and the bamboo shoots to the pan with the mushrooms.
  4. Bring to a simmer on medium heat, reduce to low, recover, and simmer for at least 15 minutes. Stir occasionally and check the flavor. If you find it too rich for your tastes, add some additional water.
  5. Gently add the tofu to the soup and cook until heated through, about 5 minutes. Or, if you'd enjoy the cool raw tofu juxtaposed with the hot spicy broth, divide it between 4 bowls.
  6. Divide the soup, or soup broth, between 4 bowls, sprinkle with the remaining chopped green onion, and enjoy hot. With the tofu, you should have about 1¼ cups (300g) per bowl. Without the tofu, you should have a little under 1 cup (about 225g) per bowl.
​Additional optional toppings: sesame seeds, crushed red pepper flakes, and nori or dulse flakes.
✎ Notes:​
  • I made the soup using the soup function on my blender, but I see no reason why you couldn't blend it to smooth and then heat it up afterwards.
  • There is no NCCDB or USDA entry for wood ear mushrooms, so calcuated the macros with brown mushrooms.
  • White pepper is spicier than black pepper and what I've seen in most hot and sour soup recipes. Use whatever you have available to you.​
  • Shirataki noodles are also called konjac noodles and may be found cheaply in an Asian supermarket.
  • Macros for this recipes are calculated with American national nutritional data (i.e. NCCDB & USDA entries in Cronometer) for all ingredients apart from the tofu (Mori-Nu), shiritaki noodles (Skinny Pasta), sambal oelek (Yakso), and nutritional yeast flakes (a mixture of Bob's Redmill and Foods Alive unfortified). For the ginger garlic paste, I am using 3.6g garlic and 3.6g ginger to calculate the macros because the nutrtrional label on my jar is questionable and the product contains 40% each of ginger and garlic (9g x .4 = 3.6g).
  • Macro numbers are rounded. Numbers equal to or greater than 10g are rounded to the nearest whole number (e.g. 10g, 11g, 12g, etc.) and numbers below 10g are rounded to the nearest 0.5g (0.5g, 1g, 1.5g ... 9g, 9.5g). Any numbers below 0.5g are given as is (e.g. 0.1g, 0.2g, etc.). Calories are rounded to the nearest multiple of 5.