Miso Is The Underrated Ingredient Your Chocolate Desserts Need

Chocolate is one of the most prized dessert ingredients on earth, and perhaps its popularity in sweets stems from the definitively unsweet flavor of chocolate's progenitor, cacao. The bitter cacao taste pairs perfectly with the sugar in both processed cocoa powder and the countless chocolate desserts we enjoy today. Sugar, of course, is far from the only ingredient that will complement chocolate's unique tasting notes. According to baker and cookbook author Jessie Sheehan, miso is the underrated ingredient your chocolate desserts need.

We interviewed the self-proclaimed queen of easy-peasy bites, who makes a convincing argument for this unlikely pairing. A paste of fermented soybeans, miso is a famous Japanese ingredient that epitomizes the fifth taste of umami. Miso packs a powerful trifecta of funky, salty, and almost tangy, and Sheehan thinks that it's even more suited to chocolate desserts than a sprinkle of sea salt.

Sheehan says, "If you've ever sprinkled a little flaky sea salt on top of a chocolate chip cookie, and enjoyed that salty-sweet situation that occurs when you do so, then miso might be your new best chocolate-baking buddy." Its more popular use in broths and savory salad dressings demonstrates how easily miso melts and infuses liquids. To that effect, Sheehan says, "It is wonderful in ganache, as well as in brownie batter and in chocolate mousse and even in chocolate cake batter."

Miso is a robust ingredient that'll balance the bitterness of dark chocolate and the sweet dairy richness of milk chocolate equally well. However, instead of simply stirring a serving of the paste into chocolate cake batter or chocolate pudding, Sheehan broke down the best practices for incorporating miso successfully into chocolate desserts. Many chocolate desserts have a butter or other fat foundation, and Sheehan opts for dissolving the miso into the fat used to build the batter, dough, mousse, or ganache. For more even flavor dispersal, Sheehan suggests, "Just cream it up with the butter."

Because miso has such a strong flavor, a little goes a long way in chocolate desserts. Sheehan says, "You just need to experiment with amounts, but I would start small, maybe a teaspoon or two, and then increase." There are other ingredients that you can add to chocolate miso desserts for even more depth and richness. For example, miso and chocolate both benefit from nutty flavors, so you could swirl tahini, peanut butter, or almond butter into a chocolate miso cookie. We already have a recipe for chocolate tahini cottage cheese ice cream that you can add a teaspoon of miso to. Fold chopped walnuts or pecans into chocolate miso brownie batter for a flavor and texture boost. And swap cream with full fat coconut milk and salt for miso in this dark chocolate ganache recipe to amp up the nutty, umami, and bitter notes.