Traditionally, doenjang (literally “thick sauce”) is made by boiling and stone-grinding dried soybeans and forming the resulting paste into blocks (meju) which are wrapped with dried rice plants, and dried in the sun. The meju are then transferred to pottery jars and allowed to ferment. Although similar to miso, a different bacteria, bacillus subtilis, which is abundant in the dried rice plants, is involved in the fermentation process. Nutrient-and vitamin-rich doengjang is eaten raw as an accompaniment to vegetables, thinned as a dip, and added to broths, as in doenjang jigae, a stew of tofu, vegetables, and optionally, meat or seafood.