Sapporo Vegan Miso Mazemen

The best miso ramen I’ve ever had was at Sapporo Junren. Rich, deeply savory, and built on a pork bone broth that gets its body from hours of extracted collagen. This recipe is a vegan homage to that bowl — and mazemen turns out to be the ideal format for it. Traditional miso ramen broth relies on collagen for its thick, lip-coating texture, which is difficult to replicate plant-based. By removing the soup entirely, that problem disappears. All the Sapporo miso flavor stays, concentrated and direct.

Mazemen (also called mazesoba or aburasoba) strips ramen down to its most concentrated form. As Mike Satinover notes in The Book of Ramen, virtually any ramen style can become mazemen by placing the tare and aroma oil in the bottom of the bowl, adding noodles, applying garnishes, and asking the eater to mix. Every strand of noodle gets coated in sauce rather than floating in broth. The tare quantity is reduced since there’s no broth to dilute it, and a small amount of soy milk loosens the sauce enough to coat the noodles.

Sources

• The Book of Ramen; Michael T. Satinover and Scott J. Satinover

Mazemen Bowl

Makes 1 bowl

• 50 grams vegan miso tare
• 20 milliliters ginger and onion oil
• 30 milliliters unsweetened soy milk
• 180 grams thick ramen noodles, cooked
• 10 grams vegan butter
• Toppings of your choice (corn, scallions, nori, menma, chili oil)

1. Add the miso tare and ginger and onion oil to the bottom of a preheated serving bowl.
2. Add the warm soy milk and stir briefly to loosen the tare into a thick sauce. It should not be liquid — just loose enough to coat noodles when mixed. The soy milk adds body and subtle creaminess that water or stock wouldn’t provide.
3. Cook the noodles in rapidly boiling water. Thick noodles may need an extra 30-60 seconds compared to standard ramen noodles. Taste for doneness.
4. Drain the noodles thoroughly. Shake the basket hard — excess water dilutes your sauce, and there’s no broth to absorb it.
5. Place the noodles on top of the tare and oil. Do not mix yet.
6. Arrange toppings: corn, sliced scallions, a sheet of nori, menma, and a pat of vegan butter.
7. Finish with chili oil if desired.
8. Mix everything together at the table before eating, lifting the noodles from the bottom to distribute the tare evenly.

On Tare Quantity: A typical miso ramen bowl uses around 80 grams of tare diluted in 350 milliliters of broth. Without soup, that same 80 grams coating 180 grams of noodles would be overwhelming. 50 grams with a splash of soy milk hits the right salt and flavor intensity. Adjust up or down by 5-10 grams to taste — mazemen is personal.

On the Bowl Method: Sauce in the bottom, noodles on top, garnishes applied, the customer mixes. The first bites from the top are relatively plain, and you discover the sauce as you dig in — the act of mixing is part of the experience. This also means the noodles aren’t sitting in sauce the entire time, which preserves their texture longer.

Vegan Miso Tare

Adapted from Mike Satinover’s Miso Tare, refined over more than 10 years.

• 140 grams raw onion, pureed in a food processor (approximately half an onion)
• 7 grams garlic, grated (approximately 2 cloves)
• 6 grams ginger, grated (approximately a 2-centimeter piece)
• 300 grams white miso (shiro/shinshu style)
• 180 grams tezukuri or mugi miso
• 80 grams hatcho style miso
• 20 grams mirin
• 30 grams soy sauce
• 5 grams sesame oil
• 14 grams tahini or nerigoma
• 1 gram black pepper (approximately 20 grinds from a mill)
• 2 grams doubanjiang (chili bean paste)
• pinch of white pepper
• pinch of togarashi or cayenne

1. Take 70 grams of the raw onion puree and add to a small pan.
2. Cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until golden brown, around 20-30 minutes. This caramelization step converts sharp raw onion into a deeply sweet, complex base that rounds out the miso.
3. Remove from heat, place the cooked onion in a mixing bowl.
4. When the onion has cooled, add all remaining ingredients — the raw onion puree, garlic, ginger, misos, mirin, soy sauce, sesame oil, tahini, doubanjiang, and peppers. Use a whisk to combine.
5. Place in the fridge in a covered container and allow the tare to mature for at least 24 hours. This rest removes harshness from the raw vegetables and lets the flavors integrate. The tare will keep for up to 12 months.

Use 50 grams of tare per mazemen bowl (or 80 grams per 300 mL soup if making the ramen version).

Three-Miso Blend: The ratio is deliberate — white miso (shinshu) for sweetness and body, mugi/tezukuri for rustic grain-forward character, and hatcho for deep, dark fermented intensity. If you can’t find all three, a 60/40 blend of white and red miso is a reasonable approximation, but the full three-miso blend is noticeably more complex.

Half Cooked, Half Raw Onion: The tare uses the same batch of onion puree in two ways. Half is caramelized slowly to develop sweetness and depth. The other half goes in raw, providing sharpness and pungency. The 24-hour rest softens the raw edge without eliminating it entirely — the contrast between the two is part of what makes this tare work.

Ginger and Onion Oil

Adapted from the book’s Ginger and Onion Lard, which Satinover specifically recommends for miso variants. Veganized by replacing rendered pork lard with neutral vegetable oil.

• 125 milliliters neutral vegetable oil (such as grapeseed or canola)
• 1/2 medium white onion, cut into large pieces
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 3-centimeter piece fresh ginger, peeled, sliced into thin coins

1. In a small saucepan, add the oil, onion, garlic, and ginger.
2. Heat over medium to medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the ingredients take on a light golden hue and smell fragrant, around 15 minutes.
3. Remove from heat, reserve in the pot, and allow it to cool.
4. Strain and transfer to a container. If not using immediately, keep in the fridge for up to 6 months.

Use 20 milliliters of oil per mazemen bowl.

On Fat in Mazemen: In soup ramen, aroma oil floats on the broth surface as an insulating layer. In mazemen, it serves a different purpose — it’s a lubricant. The oil coats the noodles and prevents the thick miso tare from clumping. Without enough fat, the tare grips unevenly and the noodles stick together. The vegan butter on top adds a second fat layer as it melts during mixing.

Toppings

Mazemen is flexible. Some ideas that work well with this miso tare: sweet corn (charred in a dry skillet is especially good), scallions, nori torn into smaller pieces for easier mixing, menma, vegan butter melting on top, a drizzle of chili oil, or a few drops of rice vinegar to brighten the bowl. Without soup to provide background flavor, each topping carries more weight, so choose things that contrast with the rich, salty tare.