It was closing in on 9 p.m. The first snow of the season swirled outside. Inside, smoke billowed from the wok on the stove as my husband stir-fried mushrooms and peppers. A blast of icy air hit me as I frantically set up a window fan, just in time to prevent the ear-splitting, pet-terrorizing ordeal that is the fire alarm. Sigh. Just another manic Monday.
This called for a little treat. Remembering the miso soup balls I had picked up at the Burlington Farmers Market that weekend, I boiled some water, and in a minute flat we had steaming soup to sip by the time the last tendrils of smoke cleared.
What are these secret weapons, you ask? They’re Yoko Tarrant’s clever convenience-food take on the popular Japanese soup. And they belong in your fridge.
Tarrant started making miso after she and her Vermonter husband moved from her home in Kyoto to Montpelier in 2009. Here, she found herself unsatisfied with American miso offerings; the two or three brands of fermented soybean paste she could buy lacked the rich flavor she was used to.
“Stores in Japan have, like, hundreds of different types of miso,” a staple of the country’s soups and sauces, Tarrant explained. Lacking that choice, she taught herself to make the paste with the help of the internet and advice from a sister in Japan. “It was really good. I was surprised,” she recalled with a laugh.
A mother of two, Tarrant left a job at a Montessori preschool during the pandemic and, in 2022, turned her homemade miso making into a business. Since the fermented paste must be aged, her first Umamiso products weren’t ready to sell until January 2024.
In the 15 years since she made those initial batches for herself, Tarrant has refined her recipes, even attending miso-making workshops in Japan. The standard variety of the umami-rich soup base is made from just four ingredients: soybeans, salt, water and koji as a fermenting agent. Tarrant makes her own koji by inoculating rice with fungus spores. The whole process is time-consuming: four days to make the koji, another day to mix the paste, then eight to nine months of fermentation to reach finished miso.
In addition to her soybean miso, Tarrant sells a sweeter, nontraditional miso paste made with chickpeas (both sell for $13 per 12-ounce package), for customers seeking a milder flavor or avoiding soy. Both can be used for homemade soup or to boost flavor in marinades, sandwich spreads and dips. Tarrant suggests using the chickpea miso to add complexity to sweet baked goods such as chocolate chip cookies.
For total newbies to the miso scene, the soup balls I’m obsessed with are a perfect introduction to the ingredient. Using soybean miso as a base, Tarrant adds shiitake, cabbage and onion powders to the Play-Doh-textured paste. She then makes two different flavors, adding wakame (seaweed) to one and bringing Vermont flair to another with a bit of seasonal produce, switching up her flavors and garnishes for each market day.
The soup balls come four to a box ($15), two of each flavor. In the box I purchased, the seaweed balls were adorned with elegant wheat-gluten flowers Tarrant brought back from a recent trip to Japan.
Legend has it that portable miso balls are a long-standing tradition in Japan. “I’ve heard that samurai soldiers used to bring them to wars. Because of the salt content, they last a long time,” Tarrant said. “I’m sure they were not pretty like these, though.”
For Vermonters not steeped in Japanese tradition, Tarrant includes an instruction sheet, though the prep couldn’t be easier: Place a soup ball in a bowl or mug and pour 6 to 8 ounces of boiling water over it. Wait one minute, stir, et voilà: comforting, delicious miso soup.
Tarrant makes a batch of miso every other week and, by last May, had doubled annual production over the prior year, to 1,800 pounds. Her expanded stock should be ready for sale by February. She currently sells miso in several Montpelier-area stores, but the soup balls are only available at farmers markets. Check Umamiso’s social media for market locations and dates.
If my recent experience taught me anything, it’s that a warm bowl of miso soup can go a long way toward a reset of the psyche. With winter’s cold and dark ahead, I’m considering giving these magic balls as gifts. I just might be No. 1 on the list.
Learn more at Umamiso Vermont on Instagram or Facebook.
Small Pleasures is an occasional column that features delicious and distinctive Vermont-made snacks or drinks that pack a punch. Send us your favorite little bites or sips with big payoff at food@sevendaysvt.com.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Miso in a Minute | Sampling a Montpelier-made shortcut to the savory soup”
This article appears in Nov 19-25 2025.
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