When you order ramen and the chef ladles broth into your bowl, they typically add something else first — a small amount of dark or light liquid placed in the bowl before the broth is poured. This is tare (タレ), the concentrated seasoning concentrate that is the actual flavor identity of any ramen bowl.
Tare is why two bowls from the same base broth taste completely different. The broth — the long-simmered stock — provides body, depth, and a base of glutamates. The tare provides salt, seasoning character, and the specific flavor signature of each shop or style.
The Three Types of Tare
Shoyu Tare (醤油タレ) — Soy Sauce Tare
The most common and most historically foundational tare. Made from soy sauce as the base, cooked down with mirin, sake, kombu, dried mushrooms, and aromatics. The result is a concentrated dark liquid with soy's fermented complexity, a sweet undercurrent from mirin, and layers of umami from the added dashi components.
Shoyu tare ranges from simple (good soy sauce + mirin) to enormously complex (some Tokyo shops use proprietary blends that combine multiple soy sauce types, years-old broth incorporated into the tare, and dozens of additional seasonings).
Use: Shoyu tare is most commonly added to chicken broth (toridashi) or seafood broth to make Tokyo-style shoyu ramen. It also appears in some miso ramen formulas as a base layer.
Color: The shoyu tare makes the final broth brown to dark brown. A lighter shoyu tare produces a lighter-colored soup; a more reduced or darker soy sauce produces deeper color.
At home: Equal parts soy sauce and mirin, with a splash of sake, simmered with kombu for 10 minutes. This is the simplest effective shoyu tare. Complexity grows with added katsuobushi, dried shiitake, and aromatics.
Shio Tare (塩タレ) — Salt Tare
The most technically demanding type and the most revealing of broth quality. Shio means salt, and shio tare is a clear or lightly colored concentrated salt solution enhanced with dashi components, dried seafood, and aromatics — but no soy sauce.
Because shio tare adds no color, the broth remains clear or nearly clear, making any cloudiness or flaw in the base broth visible. A Hokkaido-style shio ramen uses a crystal-clear broth where you can see the bottom of the bowl — this requires both excellent broth technique and precisely made tare.
Use: Primarily with lighter broths — chicken, seafood, or combination stocks. Hakodate-style shio ramen is the benchmark.
What's in it: Salt dissolved in water, with dashi components cooked in (kombu, dried scallop, dried shrimp, katsuobushi — each adding mineral and umami depth). Sometimes includes chicken fat or sesame oil for richness.
At home: Dissolve 15-20g good salt in 100ml water with 10g kombu (steeped, not simmered). This basic version is usable — additional dashi components (dried scallop, dried shrimp) build the umami complexity of professional tare.
Miso Tare (味噌タレ) — Miso Tare
The most complex type by definition, because miso itself is a complex fermented ingredient. Miso tare is made from miso paste — often a blend of multiple miso types — cooked with ground pork (hikiniku), garlic, ginger, and typically additional sake and mirin.
Sapporo-style miso ramen uses a miso tare added to a pork bone or combined pork-chicken broth. The tare is blended into the broth (not just added as a thin layer) — the miso and fat content are emulsified into the finished soup by vigorous stirring or the churning action of the ladling process.
Use: Paired with richer broths — pork bone (tonkotsu), combined pork and chicken. The miso's fermented depth works with the fat content of richer stocks.
What's in it: Base miso (often a blend of white + red miso), ground pork sautéed with garlic and ginger, sake, mirin, and sesame paste or sesame oil. Some Sapporo shops use Korean doenjang in their blend for different fermented depth.
At home: 3 parts white miso + 1 part red miso, cooked briefly with minced garlic and ginger in sesame oil, then deglazed with sake and mirin. Let cool. This is an effective and simple miso tare.
The Broth + Tare System
The conceptual framework of Japanese ramen is:
Broth (スープ) + Tare (タレ) = Finished soup
The broth — the long-simmered stock — is essentially neutral, or at least unsalted. It provides:
- Collagen/gelatin (from bones) → body
- Glutamates (from ingredients) → umami
- Fat (from marrow and connective tissue) → richness
The tare provides:
- Salt (the primary seasoning vehicle)
- Flavor signature (soy/miso/salt character)
- Additional umami concentration
- Complexity layered into the base
The ratio: Tare is typically 1-3 tablespoons per bowl of broth (approximately 300-400ml). This seems small, but tare is concentrated — a well-made shoyu tare might contain 30+ ingredients and has been reduced to a dense liquid.
Making Tare at Home
Simple Shoyu Tare (Home Version)
Ingredients:
- 100ml soy sauce (koikuchi/dark)
- 100ml mirin
- 50ml sake
- 10g kombu
- 5g katsuobushi (bonito flakes)
Method: Combine soy sauce, mirin, and sake in a small saucepan with kombu. Bring to a simmer over low heat. Simmer 10 minutes. Remove from heat, add katsuobushi. Steep 5 minutes. Strain. Cool and store refrigerated — keeps 2-3 weeks.
Use: 2-3 tablespoons per bowl of chicken broth.
Simple Shio Tare (Home Version)
Ingredients:
- 80ml water
- 20g fine salt (sea salt preferred)
- 10g kombu
- 1 tablespoon sake
- 1 tablespoon mirin
- 1 teaspoon dried scallop powder (optional, adds umami)
Method: Combine all ingredients. Heat gently until salt fully dissolves. Remove kombu after 30 minutes of steeping. Strain. Refrigerate.
Use: 1.5-2 tablespoons per bowl of light chicken or seafood broth.
Why Tare Is a Trade Secret
The tare recipe is the most guarded piece of intellectual property at serious ramen shops. The broth formula is accessible through research and technique — the proteins, the water, the temperature, the time. But the tare contains the shop's personality: the ratio of soy sauce types, the specific dashi components, the aged broth incorporated into the tare, the particular aromatics.
When a ramen shop closes, the tare formula often disappears with it. When a shop's flavor changes, the tare is usually what changed. And when a chef opens a new shop after years working under someone else, the tare they develop independently — even using similar techniques — will taste different.
The tare is where ramen becomes individual.
Related reading: History of Ramen | Japanese Ramen Regional Styles Guide | What Is Dashi?
The full recipes live in the book.
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