• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
Umami Days

Umami Days

Meaty with a dash of veggies

  • Pick a meal
    • One Bowl Meals
    • Breakfast
    • Lunch / Dinner
      • Appetizers
      • Salads
      • Soups
      • Main Courses
      • Side Dishes
      • Sweets
    • Snacks
    • Drinks
      • Summer drinks
      • Cold weather drinks
      • Cocktail hour
  • Pick your protein
    • Chicken, duck & turkey
    • Meat
    • Seafood
    • Eggs
    • Mushrooms
    • Tofu
    • Vegetables
  • Pick your carb
    • Rice & grains
    • Noodles
    • Bread
  • Newsletter
  • Sidebar
    • Kitchen
    • Dining
    • Edible Garden
    • Food Tales
  • Newsletter sign-up!
  • Recipe index
    • By Meal
      • One Bowl Meals
      • Breakfast
      • Lunch / Dinner
        • Appetizers
        • Salads
        • Soups
        • Main Courses
        • Side Dishes
        • Sweets
      • Snacks
      • Drinks
        • Refreshing summer drinks
        • Cold weather drinks
        • Cocktail hour
    • By Main Protein
      • Chicken, duck & turkey
      • Meat
      • Seafood
      • Eggs
      • Mushrooms
      • Tofu
      • Vegetables
    • By Carb
      • Rice & grains
      • Noodles
      • Bread
  • Sidebar
    • Kitchen
    • Dining
    • Edible Garden
    • Food Tales
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Copyright
  • Contact
Seafood Lunch / Dinner Soups

Easy hot pot style soup

Published: 04.05.2022 » Last updated: 04.09.2022

When it rains, make soup. A hot pot meal is lovely but the prep and setup can be too much work. No worries. Cook hot pot style soup on the stove. Easy, tasty, comforting.

Easy hot pot style soup recipe

Weird summer it’s turning out to be. After days and days of terrible heat and humidity that could keep the most diligent cook away from the kitchen, it rained. And it’s still raining.

So, soup it is. It would have been nice to enjoy a hot pot meal but the cool air screams bed weather. I just wanted something warming and go back to my writing. Good thing we had a pack of mixed seafood balls. We also had a bag of spinach. Together, they could be cooked on the stove.

Mixed seafood balls in gingered dashi

Bags of mixed seafood balls for hot pot cooking are available in the frozen section of most Asian groceries. The shape and size of the contents vary. Some are shaped like shrimps, some are red-flaked spheres, some even look like tofu cubes. But they are all made from fish paste. They are fully cooked before they are frozen. All you need to do is thaw them and simmer them for a few minutes in broth.

What broth is best? It has to be something that will complement the seafood balls. I chose dashi which I simmered with a few slices of fresh ginger. After the broth had absorbed the gingery flavor, I just dropped in the mixed seafood balls.

Adding spinach to mixed seafood balls in gingered dashi

After the balls had simmered in the broth for a few minutes, I added spinach. A few more minutes of simmering — just long enough to wilt the leaves — and the hot pot style soup was ready to be served.

Easy hot pot style soup

Connie Veneracion
If serving the soup on the side, allot 60 grams of seafood balls for each person. If the soup is meant as a full meal, double the seafood balls and vegetables.
Sprinkling aonori (dried seaweed called green laver in English) on the soup is optional. But the garnish sure adds a lot of umami to this simple soup.
Mixed seafood balls and spinach soup in sakura bowl
Print Pin Recipe
Prep Time 5 mins
Cook Time 10 mins
Total Time 15 mins
Course Main Course, Soup
Cuisine Asian
Servings 4 people

Ingredients
  

  • 1 two-inch knob ginger - peeled and sliced
  • 2 8-gram packets hondashi
  • 500 grams mixed seafood balls - thawed
  • 300 grams spinach
  • salt - to taste
  • aonori - to garnish (optional)

Instructions
 

  • Pour six cups of water into a pot.
  • Add the ginger slices and heat.
  • When the water begins to simmer, stir in the hondashi.
  • When the broth reaches boiling point, drop in the mixed seafood balls.
  • Bring to the boil and allow to simmer for a few minutes.
  • Drop in the spinach, pressing down the leaves into the liquid.
  • Stir and simmer just until the spinach wilts.
  • Taste the broth and add salt, if needed.
  • Serve the hot pot style soup immediately. Optionally, sprinkle with aonori.
Print Pin Recipe
Keyword Soup

More Seafood

Cheesy Spaghetti with Fresh Mussels

Cheesy spaghetti with fresh mussels

Fried whole fish with chili pineapple sauce

Fried whole fish with chili pineapple sauce

Cheese-topped broiled salmon served with tomato sauce

Easy cheesy broiled salmon

Sweet spicy shrimps with edamame

Sweet spicy shrimps and edamame rice bowl

Fish katsu with lemon wedges and shredded cabbage on white plate

Fish katsu

Shrimp, mushroom and spinach soup

Shrimp, mushroom and spinach soup

Newsletter department

  • #18 Cooking for Lent
    03.23.2023
    A few readers have emailed asking me to post recipes for Lent, and I tell them there is NO need for NEW recipes. Instead, they should try digging into the seafood, mushrooms and tofu recipe archives.

Sidebar

Connie Veneracion, Chiang Mai, 2020

Hi, I’m Connie!

Welcome to Umami Days, a blog that advocates innovative home cooking for pleasurable everyday dining. No trendy diets, no food fads and definitely no ludicrous recipe names like crustless quiche, noodleless pho or chocolate lasagna.

  • About
  • Recipes
  • Privacy
  • Copyright
  • Contact
Chicken, tomatoes and thyme in olive oil, with pot of thyme in background

Chicken, tomatoes and thyme in olive oil

Kung Pao tofu

10-minute Kung Pao tofu

Kung pao chicken

Kung pao chicken

Macaroni salad with ham and cheese, carrot, celery, crushed pineapple, pickle relish and mayo

Macaroni salad with ham and cheese

Udon and pork with chili peanut sauce garnished with scallions and sesame seeds

Udon and pork with chili peanut sauce

Potatoes and green beans salad

Umami Days is powered by Apple, Canon, coffee & one bowl meals · Copyright © 2023 Connie Veneracion · All Rights Reserved