Japanese Kasujiru Soup with Hearty Ingredients Perfect for Warming Body During Cold Winter

By Yasuto Akaike / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

14:30 JST, January 25, 2026

Kasujiru, a soup made with sake lees, is best enjoyed in winter because it warms the body from the inside. Akihiko Murata, who runs a Japanese cuisine restaurant, shares a recipe for the dish that utilizes root vegetables and chicken thigh.

Sake lees is an ingredient often used at Murata’s restaurant in winter. Not only does he use the ingredient in soups but he also sometimes adds a little of it to sauces for grilled dishes. “The pleasant aroma added by the sake lees deepens the overall flavor of the dish,” he said.

Local variations of kasujiru use ingredients such as salted salmon or salted yellowtail. By using chicken thigh, the savory flavor of the well-grilled skin provides an accent to the dish. When cutting the meat, make sure to exclude the part on the lower leg, or beat it with the back of a knife to tenderize it.

Tearing konnyaku by hand increases its surface area, making it easier for the flavor of the dish to soak in. There is something to be said for the simplicity of hand-torn konnyaku. This technique could also be used when making other simmered dishes.

A microwave can be used to partially cook the root vegetables in order to shorten the overall cooking time. However, Murata said, “I think simmering the ingredients instead helps bring out their umami flavor and makes the dish more delicious.”

Judging whether the satoimo taro are cooked is best done by inserting a bamboo skewer or chopstick. “I personally like the Chinese cabbage to be cooked very soft,” Murata said. In this kind of dish, ensuring that each ingredient has not been overcooked is unimportant.

Be sure to add the sake lees and white miso only after turning off the heat in order to better preserve the aroma.

When enjoying the freshly cooked dish, start by sipping the soup. The thickness added by the sake lees brings out more of the umami of the other ingredients. The aroma lingers, and the dish warms the body.

The variety of textures presented by the different ingredients makes the dish even more enjoyable. The crunchiness of the ginger adds a nice finishing touch. The cold winter weather will be nothing to worry about, as the dish brings out energy from within.

Kasujiru with chicken and root vegetables

Ingredients (serves 4):

• 200 grams chicken thigh, cut into bite-size pieces
• 4 shiitake mushrooms, halved, with ends trimmed
• 250 grams daikon, peeled, 1-centimeter discs, quartered
• 80 grams burdock root, 5-millimeter diagonal slices
• 80 grams carrot, peeled, 5-millimeter discs, halved
• 200 grams satoimo taro, cut into bite-size pieces
• 100 grams konnyaku, torn by hand
• 100 grams Chinese cabbage, roughly chopped
• 1 piece deep-fried tofu
• 1 long green onion
• 25 grams ginger, cut into thin strips
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 liter dashi soup stock
• 1 tbsp sake
• 100 grams sake lees paste
• 70 grams white miso
• 1 tsp light soy sauce



Directions:

1. Prep the green onion by cutting the white part into 5-millimeter-thick slices diagonally and the green part into thin strips

2. Pour the sesame oil into a pot and add the chicken thigh skin-side down. Cook the meat until browned.

3. Add all the vegetables except the green onion and ginger. Pour in the soup stock and the sake.

4. When the contents come to a boil, skim, and then add the deep-fried tofu and the white part of the green onion. Simmer for about 15 minutes.

5. Take off the heat. Ladle a small amount of the soup into a small bowl, dissolve the white miso and sake lees in it and pour back into the pot.

6. Add the light soy sauce, ginger and the green part of green onion and mix all together before serving.

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  Cut the white part of the green onion into diagonal slices.

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  Cook the chicken skin side down.

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  Make a slurry by ladling a small amount of the soup into a bowl, adding white miso and sake lees. Then pour the slurry into the rest of the soup and mix well.

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