Tonjiru Pork Miso Soup in Hot Demand at Restaurants, Convenience Stores; Japanese Staple Sees Regional Varieties, Twists

Yomiuri Shimbun

13-07-2025

Tonjiru pork miso soup, a home cooking staple, is becoming popular at restaurants and convenience stores — and is now offered at all-you-can-eat establishments, with even some specialty restaurants cropping up. It appears particularly popular among young people who value health and efficiency, as it allows them to enjoy a nutritious and filling meal all in a single bowl.At a Tokyo branch of Sweets Paradise, a buffet-style chain cafe offering a wide variety of dessert items from cakes to fruits, many customers gathered around the pork miso soup counter during lunchtime on a weekday.
Teppei Minegishi, 41, a self-employed man from Nakano Ward, Tokyo, comes almost every week for the pork miso soup. 'It's made with a lot of ingredients and seems nutritionally balanced. It's also great that I can get as many refills as I want,' he said.
Last October, the chain's operator began offering pork miso soup as part of a scheme where customers could eat vegetables whose size or shape meant it could not be sold in stores grown by contract farmers. The move has led to more male and elderly customers. The scheme was stopped at the end of last year, but in response to many calls for it to return, the soup began being offered as a regular menu item in March.
The restaurant's pork miso soup contains seasonal vegetables in addition to standard ingredients, such as carrots and burdock root. In spring, bamboo shoots and spring cabbage were added, and they were replaced with eggplant starting early June. 'Pork miso soup is widely beloved. We would like to come up with even more combinations in the future,' said Shunsuke Imamura, a PR official.Gochiton, which has a total of eight restaurants in Tokyo and the cities of Yokohama and Osaka, specializes in pork miso soup with a variety of ingredients, serving it as a main dish. The most popular item is 'Gorogoro Yasai no Gochiso Tonjiru Teishoku,' a set meal centered on a pork miso soup full of roughly cut vegetables like potatoes, lotus root and daikon radish. The restaurant also offers a variety of unique takes on the dish, including one featuring spare ribs and an innovative menu item inspired by Miyazaki Prefecture's local dish called 'Hiyajiru,' or chilled soup, available for a limited time.
According to Motonori Nakajima, president of the restaurants' operator Filledtable Co., those in their 20s and 30s are the main customer base. 'The dish is rich in vegetables and protein. Our restaurants are beloved by those who want both the satisfaction of a full stomach and a health-conscious lifestyle.'At major convenience store chain Seven-Eleven Japan, refrigerated pork miso soup gained popularity following a rapid surge in vegetable prices last winter. Its sales doubled from November to April, the company said. 'More and more people likely think it is cheaper and easier to buy the product than making it at home,' said a company official. With individual sales regions using different kinds of miso and other ingredients, customers can enjoy various local delicacies.
Naoki Tanaka, director of the Hot Pepper Gourmet Gaishoku Soken research center, says the Japanese dish, mainly using fermented ingredients like miso as well as vegetables, is gaining attention due to growing health awareness sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic. He also says a growing number of people opt to eat the soup at restaurants, as the various ingredients make it time-consuming and laborious to make at home.
'The diversity of ingredients and miso make the dish hard to get tired of,' Tanaka said. 'Many more varieties of pork miso soup may start appearing in the future.'