Dashi is a broth at the heart of Japanese cooking. Most soup-based recipes, like miso soup or udon start with dashi as its base.
There are three (and a half-ish) different types of dashi:
- Bonito dashi– the most common type of dashi, bonito is a type of fish. Most dashis you’ll find in your grocery store use bonito fish as its base
- Kombu dashi – kombu is a type of sea kelp. While it can be a bit harder to find in an average grocery store, this is a great dashi option for vegans/vegetarians
- Iriko dashi- Iriko are dried baby sardines or anchovies that were boiled once in salt water then left to dry. Iriko produces a fishier and bolder flavor of dashi than bonito.
- Shiitake – shiitake dashi is actually a byproduct of rehydrating dried shiitake mushrooms. The remaining liquid is packed with nutrients and incredible flavor, and can be combined with other types of dashi to add more depth of flavor, but but it’s generally not used on its own given how strong the flavor of shiitake can be. (Hence the half-ish)
Recipes on this blog will primarily use bonito-based dashi. You likely won’t find iriko-based dashi in your average grocery store and if I’m being honest, I have very rarely used Iriko dashi in my cooking. My recipes also won’t use shiitake dashi on its own. A more detailed post on dashi will go over how to make bonito dashi, and kombu-based dashi.
