Cuisine · Japan

Japanese cooking

Rice, dashi, restraint. Every flavor earns its place. Ramen with honest broth, vegetables cooked like they matter, fish treated with reverence.

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Nikujaga (Japanese Meat and Potato Stew) with beef, potato and onion — Japan recipe

🇯🇵JapanMedium

Meat Dishes

Nikujaga (Japanese Meat and Potato Stew)

Nikujaga (肉じゃが, also written nikujyaga, literally "meat and potatoes") is a Japanese home-style stew of thinly sliced beef, potatoes, onion and carrot simmered in a broth of dashi, soy sauce, mirin, sake and sugar. In western Japan it is usually made with beef, in eastern Japan more often with pork. You sauté the onion and meat first, simmer everything under a drop lid for about 15 minutes, then let the pot stand off the heat so the potatoes soak up the broth.

40 min370 kcal4 serves

💪High protein

Oden (Japanese Simmered Hot Pot with Daikon and Fish Cakes) with daikon, eggs and chikuwa — Japan recipe

🇯🇵JapanAdvanced

Soups

Oden (Japanese Simmered Hot Pot with Daikon and Fish Cakes)

Oden is a Japanese one-pot of daikon, boiled eggs, konnyaku and fish cakes such as chikuwa, satsuma-age and ganmodoki, all simmered slowly in a clear dashi seasoned with light soy sauce, mirin and salt. Written おでん and read the same way in every region, its broth changes colour from region to region. The pale kombu-and-katsuobushi broth used here, seasoned with light soy sauce, is closer to the Kansai habit — light usukuchi soy is the everyday soy of Kyoto and Osaka — while classic Kanto oden is simmered with regular dark koikuchi soy and comes out a deeper brown. Today both versions turn up all over Japan. Convenience stores across Japan start selling it from simmering vats in mid-September, long before real winter arrives, because the smell alone is enough to make people want a bowl. Nothing here is quick-cooked. Daikon needs a pre-boil before it ever touches the broth, and the whole pot tastes better the day after it is made, once it has cooled down and been reheated so the flavor has time to soak all the way through.

150 min305 kcal4 serves

Omurice (Japanese Omelette Rice) with rice, eggs and chicken — Japan recipe

🇯🇵JapanMedium

Breakfast and Brunch

Omurice (Japanese Omelette Rice)

Japan's diner classic: ketchup-fried chicken rice packed into an oval and wrapped in a thin, barely-set omelette. The move that separates good omurice from sour, soggy rice is frying the ketchup in the hot pan before it ever touches the rice, and the egg is finished off the heat while it still looks underdone.

25 min620 kcal2 serves

⚡Quick💪High protein

Onigiri (Japanese Rice Balls) with japanese short grain rice, nori and salted salmon — Japan recipe

🇯🇵JapanMedium

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Onigiri (Japanese Rice Balls)

Onigiri, also called omusubi, are Japanese rice balls: warm short-grain rice, lightly salted, pressed by hand around a small filling and wrapped in nori. The rice gets no vinegar, which is what separates onigiri from sushi. The name comes from nigiru, to grasp, and that is the method too: no mould, just wet salted hands and three or four firm turns. This recipe makes three classic fillings from one pot of rice: salted salmon, umeboshi plum and tuna with mayonnaise. Onigiri are made to be carried and eaten at room temperature.

60 min390 kcal5 serves

Osaka-Style Okonomiyaki with green cabbage, dashi stock and nagaimo yam — Japan recipe

🇯🇵JapanMedium

Flour and Confectionery Products

Osaka-Style Okonomiyaki

Osaka-style okonomiyaki is a thick savory pancake held together by a modest amount of dashi batter and a great deal of cabbage. Pork belly browns against the pan while the center steams until tender, then sweet-savory sauce, mayonnaise, aonori, and bonito flakes go on at the table. It is forgiving about fillings, but the cabbage-to-batter ratio is not negotiable.

45 min520 kcal4 serves

Oyakodon (Japanese Chicken and Egg Rice Bowl) with chicken, eggs and dashi — Japan recipe

🇯🇵JapanMedium

Cereal and Pasta Dishes

Oyakodon (Japanese Chicken and Egg Rice Bowl)

Oyakodon is a Japanese rice bowl (donburi) of chicken and onion simmered in sweet-savoury dashi broth, finished with softly set egg and served over rice. The name means "parent and child": chicken and egg in one bowl, which is either charming or a little dark depending on your mood. It's the easiest donburi to get right at home, and the one I make when there's nothing in the fridge but chicken thighs, eggs and rice. The egg goes in at the very end and sets into soft, barely cooked curds, and the whole thing takes about fifteen minutes.

20 min550 kcal2 serves

⚡Quick💪High protein

Panko Shrimp with shrimp, panko and egg — Japan recipe

🇯🇵JapanEasy

Fish and Seafood Dishes

Panko Shrimp

Crispy Japanese-style shrimp coated in panko breadcrumbs that deliver an incredibly light, airy crust while keeping the shrimp juicy inside. The secret is the three-stage breading and precise oil temperature.

30 min340 kcal4 serves

⚡Quick💪High protein🌶️Spicy

Ramen with bamboo shoots, carrot and chicken — Japan recipe

🇯🇵JapanAdvanced

Soups

Ramen

Ramen is a traditional Japanese dish consisting of Chinese noodles served in a hot broth with various toppings. Each region of Japan has its own unique recipes.

310 min550 kcal4 serves

💪High protein

Smashed Gyoza with ground pork, gyoza wrappers and napa or green cabbage — Japan recipe

🇯🇵JapanAdvanced

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Smashed Gyoza

A viral riff on pan-fried gyoza that skips the folding entirely. A ball of seasoned pork filling drops into a hot oiled pan, a gyoza wrapper is pressed over the top, and the whole thing is smashed flat with the bottom of a glass. Result: maximum pan contact, a shatteringly crisp wrapper, and a golden-crusted pork patty — all in one piece. No pleating, no steaming step, no technique barrier. Eat open-faced with soy-vinegar dipping sauce, or fold like a taco.

30 min310 kcal4 serves

⚡Quick🌶️Spicy

Spinach in Sesame Sauce (Goma-ae) with fresh spinach, white sesame seeds and mirin — Japan recipe

🇯🇵JapanEasy

Vegetable and Mushroom Dishes

Spinach in Sesame Sauce (Goma-ae)

A classic Japanese side dish — blanched spinach tossed in a nutty sesame-soy dressing with a touch of mirin and sugar. Goma-ae (胡麻和え) means 'sesame-dressed' and is one of the most fundamental techniques in Japanese home cooking. Served chilled as a cold appetizer or side dish.

15 min90 kcal2 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick🌱Vegan

Strawberry Matchamisu with fresh strawberries, mascarpone and matcha powder — Japan recipe

🇯🇵JapanMedium

Sweet Dishes

Strawberry Matchamisu

A no-bake layered dessert that swaps the espresso in tiramisu for a bowl of whisked matcha and replaces the cocoa dusting with more matcha on top. Fresh strawberries go in the cream and between the layers. It sets overnight into something silky and cool with a faint bitterness from the green tea that keeps the sweetness in check. The name is a portmanteau, and the dessert earns it.

30 min315 kcal8 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick🌾Gluten-free

Sukiyaki (Japanese Beef Hot Pot) with beef, tofu and leek — Japan recipe

🇯🇵JapanMedium

Meat Dishes

Sukiyaki (Japanese Beef Hot Pot)

Sukiyaki (すき焼き, 寿喜烧 in Chinese) is a Japanese one-pot dish in which thin slices of marbled beef, tofu, negi, mushrooms and shungiku simmer in a sweet-salty sauce of soy sauce, mirin, sake and sugar called warishita, and every bite is dipped in beaten raw egg. At home you don't need a tabletop burner: a wide, deep skillet on the stove does the job, cooked in two rounds. This is the Kanto style, where the sauce is mixed in advance; the Kansai way of seasoning the beef directly in the pan is explained in the author's note. Prep and cooking together take about 35 minutes.

35 min555 kcal4 serves

💪High protein

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