Doenjang Substitute: The One That Works and the One That Doesn't
You're halfway through a doenjang-jjigae recipe, the zucchini's already chopped, and the jar you thought was in the pantry isn't there. The internet's answer is almost always "just use miso" — but that answer is only half right, and the other half is the part that changes how your stew tastes. What doenjang is, and why miso isn't it Both start as soybeans. That's about where the overlap ends. Japanese miso gets a koji starter, usually rice or barley, fermented in with the soybeans — Hikari Miso , the Japanese producer, lays out that same process on its own site: the mixture gets "fermented... with rice or barley koji and salt." That koji culture is what gives miso its rounder, sweeter edge. Doenjang skips that step. Nobody adds a starter culture to the soybean bricks (meju) as they dry and age in a mesh bag for months, sometimes over a year. Whatever wild bacteria and mold happen to colonize them do the fermenting instead. Less controlled,...