Japanese Recipes

509 Japanese recipes. Page 6 of 22. Compare ingredients and cooking times. Kurumi Gobo with Edamame Paste, Atsuage no Nitano (Whole Simmered Fried Tofu).

Salads Medium

Kurumi Gobo with Edamame Paste

Boiled burdock root is coated thickly in a sweet green paste of mashed edamame, and the firm, fibrous bite meets something soft and sugary. The beans are boiled softer than usual and slipped out of their thin inner skins, or the paste ends up with rough bits of skin. The dish is a local specialty of Shigaraki in Koka, Shiga Prefecture, and it is served either freshly tossed or cooled to room temperature.

🥗 Lighter Meals

Prep 25min Cook 18min 4 servings

Asian Easy

Atsuage no Nitano (Whole Simmered Fried Tofu)

A whole slab of atsuage, thick deep-fried tofu, is simmered uncut in this Fukui side dish, and a cross cut on top lets the broth seep in while the center stays white and plain. Each bite has a seasoned outside and a mild middle. Pouring boiling water over the tofu first rinses off surface oil and keeps the broth clean.

Prep 10min Cook 20min 4 servings

Baking Medium

Japanese Sweet Potato Pound Cake

Skin-on sweet potato, cut into 1 cm cubes and glazed in butter, honey and sugar, goes half into the batter and half on top, and chunks of it show in every slice. Ground almonds and black sesame are mixed into the batter too. One 20 cm loaf pan makes a cake that cuts into eight pieces.

At least 58 min 8 servings

Rice Medium

Funa-Meshi (Okayama Minced Crucian Carp Rice Bowl)

Minced crucian carp and root vegetables simmer in a sweet-salty dashi with two kinds of soy sauce, and the hot soup is ladled generously over rice, then topped with sliced green onion and torn nori. The dish grew up around the reclaimed land of Kojima Bay in southern Okayama, where rice paddies, canals, rivers, and Kojima Lake held plenty of winter carp. Its other names, tontoko-jiru and tontoko-meshi, echo the rhythmic chopping of fish on a board.

Prep 25min Cook 30min 4 servings

Stir-fry Easy

Kishazu-iri (Okara and Vegetable Stir-Fry)

Fresh okara soaks up a dashi simmered with carrot, burdock and shiitake until it is moist yet crumbles apart under a spatula. Once the okara goes in, it needs constant turning from the bottom of the pot or it sticks. The dish is done before it dries out: no loose liquid, but still damp enough to clump and fall apart again.

🏠 Everyday

Prep 20min Cook 25min 10 servings

Desserts Easy

Miyagi Ganzuki

Brown sugar water turns this steamed cake dark all the way through, and toasted black sesame covers the top. With baking powder instead of a slow rise, farm households in Miyagi could steam one quickly as a snack for children or a break during field work. One explanation says the dark, fluffy cake reminded people of wild-goose meat, and the brown version is also called kuro-ganzuki.

🧒 Snacks for Kids

Prep 15min Cook 35min 8 servings

Grilled Easy

Sasebo Lemon Steak

Sukiyaki-thin slices of sirloin hit a very hot griddle for about 30 seconds, then a lemon soy sauce with grated onion and garlic is poured in around them. Being so thin, the meat soaks up the sauce and its own juices almost at once. In Sasebo, the leftover sauce and juices are stirred into rice once the meat is gone.

Prep 15min Cook 10min 4 servings

Soups Hard

Donko-Jiru (Miyagi Miso Fish and Liver Soup)

Donko, a Miyagi name for ezo isoaine and chigo cod, firms up and develops a rich liver from autumn into winter, and this soup uses the whole fish: flesh, head, bones and liver. The fish's wide mouth and tapering tail made it a lucky symbol, money flowing in and not slipping out, so around Kesennuma families hung donko at the household altar for Ebisu observances before turning it into soup. It is still served to warm winter guests.

🏠 Everyday

Prep 25min Cook 20min 4 servings

Kimchi Medium

Matsumae-zuke Dried Squid and Kombu Pickle

Fine strips of dried squid and kombu cure in soy sauce, sake and mirin until the kombu releases its sticky body, with salted herring roe mixed through. The dish is said to have begun in the Matsumae domain of southern Hokkaido. As roe grew expensive, squid and kombu took over a larger share, but it remains a winter and New Year staple.

Prep 60min Cook 5min 4 servings

Noodles Easy

Kake Udon (Plain Udon in Clear Dashi Broth)

It is just udon in a broth of bonito flakes and kombu, topped with a few slices of kamaboko fish cake and some scallion. Nearly all the work goes into seasoning that broth so it stays clear and light rather than salty.

Prep 10min Cook 12min 2 servings

Salads Easy

Mimiga Sashimi with Peanut Vinegar

Chewy-crunchy slices of pig's ear, crisp bean sprouts and cucumber get coated in a thick dressing of peanut butter, white miso and vinegar. Despite the word sashimi in the name, nothing is raw: the term refers to the vinegared dressing, and the ears are bought precooked and sliced.

🥗 Lighter Meals

Prep 20min Cook 5min 4 servings

Asian Hard

Ayu Uruka (Salt-Cured Sweetfish Paste)

Sweetfish (ayu) flesh is pounded with its small bones and salt into a soft, thick paste and cured in the refrigerator, and it turns out so salty that a small spoonful is enough alongside rice or with drinks. Because the fish is never cooked, cold storage and clean tools matter from the first cut to the last serving.

🍺 Bar Snacks

Prep 35min 0 20 servings

Rice Medium

Fusube Mochi (Rice Cakes with Spicy Loach and Burdock Sauce)

The name comes from fusuberu, the work of grilling freshly caught loach and drying it in the smoke of the hearth. That dried loach is ground to powder and simmered for about an hour with grated burdock, grated daikon and a red chili into a thick, spicy sauce, which is poured over hot, freshly pounded mochi. In Kurihara, Miyagi Prefecture, it has been eaten at New Year, weddings, memorial services and the turning points of the farming year.

Prep 20min Cook 70min 4 servings

Stir-fry Medium

Koobuirichii (Stir-Simmered Kelp and Pork)

Thin strips of kombu are the main ingredient, and the pork belly is only 60 g, though its cooking water becomes the stock. Konnyaku, kamaboko and fried tofu go in too, giving each mouthful a few different textures. The liquid is cooked down until only a glossy coating is left on everything, which puts it closer to a side dish than to anything brothy.

🏠 Everyday

Prep 30min Cook 55min 4 servings

Desserts Medium

Hecchoko Dango (Three-Grain Dumplings in Sweet Azuki Soup)

Three grain flours, takakibi sorghum, glutinous foxtail millet, and inakibi millet, are mixed into separate doughs, and every dumpling gets a fingertip pressed into its center for a navel-like hollow. They cook in sweet azuki soup until they float, which is where the other name, ukiuki dango, comes from. In northern Iwate they were offered to deities and served to guests after the harvest.

Prep 30min Cook 90min 6 servings

Grilled Medium

Sangayaki (Miso-Pounded Mackerel Grilled in Shells)

Boso Peninsula fishermen in Chiba used to carry namerou, mackerel chopped fine with miso, up into the hills in abalone shells and grill or steam it there, and sangayaki grew out of that habit. The fish and miso are chopped together until the paste is sticky enough to lift as one mass, then mixed with ginger, onion and green pepper. Each shell is topped with a shiso leaf and grilled until the mound puffs and turns opaque all the way through. It goes with rice or with drinks.

🍺 Bar Snacks

Prep 25min Cook 15min 5 servings

Soups Medium

Samma no Surimi Jiru (Pacific Saury Fish Ball Soup)

Pacific saury is pounded in a mortar until sticky, mixed with miso, egg and sake, and shaped into balls that go into plain water first. The miso and fish in the balls turn that water into broth, and daikon, carrot and tofu follow.

🏠 Everyday

Prep 30min Cook 35min 6 servings

Kimchi Hard

Namagusa-Koko (Daikon Pickled in Salted Sardine Liquid)

Sardines salted in spring sit through the summer, then are cooked down in late autumn into a thick liquid that pickles whole daikon. Spanning two seasons, this Kakudahama, Niigata tradition is closer to a yearly project than a quick pickle. The radish stays firm but takes on the strong salt and smell of fermented fish. It is sliced thin and eaten with rice a little at a time. The makers use shirokubi daikon, and bottled fish sauce does not stand in for the brine the spring cure produces. A ventilated space for handling and cooking fish, a large barrel and heavy weights matter as much as the ingredients.

Prep 302520min Cook 180min 1 batch

Noodles Medium

Kakke Buckwheat Triangles

Thin sheets of buckwheat dough, cut into triangles, simmer with daikon and tofu and are lifted out one at a time for dipping in garlic miso. Each piece has a soft, thin edge and a slightly springier center. The pungent garlic miso carries the flavor, since the buckwheat, tofu, and broth are all mild. The name is local dialect for a piece or edge, and one story ties the dish to scraps left over from soba making in southern Aomori.

Prep 35min Cook 20min 5 servings

Salads Easy

Mushroom Lemon Marinade

Shimeji, king oyster and fresh shiitake are microwaved and dressed while still hot with lemon juice, olive oil and a little soy sauce. Unlike soy-pickled mushrooms meant to keep, this is a side to eat the same day, not a preserve. The dressing is mixed while the mushrooms cook and is ready the moment they come out. Each mushroom is cut to keep its own shape and texture, and the baby greens never go into the hot bowl; they line the plate raw beneath the warm mushrooms. The microwave time is set for the base two servings, and a larger batch needs extra time until everything is steaming hot throughout.

⚡ 20-Minute Recipes 🥗 Lighter Meals

Prep 7min Cook 3min 2 servings

Asian Easy

Azara (Fish and Aged Cabbage Sake-Lees Stew)

Azara comes from Kesennuma in Miyagi Prefecture, where it was eaten in spring, once cabbage pickled since winter had turned deeply sour. That cabbage simmers with the flesh, head and bones of menuke, a fatty white-fleshed fish, in sake lees and miso, and the lees thicken the sour broth as they dissolve. No salt or soy sauce goes into the pot; the salt left in the pickle and the miso do all the seasoning.

Prep 20min Cook 50min 4 servings

Rice Medium

Japanese Thick Sushi Roll

A half sheet of nori is joined to a full one to make the wrapper wider, and inside goes a generous line of sashimi-grade tuna, tsuyu-seasoned rolled omelet, cucumber, pickled radish and simmered burdock. Tuna, radish and omelet are cut into bars of about the same thickness, with fine strips of cucumber filling the gaps, and that is what gives each slice a full, even center.

Prep 25min Cook 15min 2 servings

Stir-fry Easy

Imogara Stir-fry and Simmer

Dried taro stems (imogara) are soaked for 30 minutes, fried in oil with lotus root, carrot, fried tofu and konjac, then simmered uncovered in a sweet soy liquid. By the end almost nothing is left in the pot; the stems are soft to chew while the lotus root still has its crunch.

🏠 Everyday

Prep 40min Cook 25min 4 servings

Desserts Hard

Hoshi-mochi (Winter Freeze-Dried Rice Cakes)

Freezing and thawing over and over pulls the moisture out of these rice cakes, leaving them porous and nearly weightless, which is why they are also called kori-mochi. Strung on rice straw, long curtains of mochi under the eaves were once the look of February in Goshogawara, and each household had someone who read the weather to pick the day to hang them. It is a winter job: 4.5 kg of glutinous rice steamed, pounded, and dried for about two months. The finished pieces are chewed crisp, lightly toasted, brushed with butter and soy sauce, or fried.

Prep 180min Cook 120min 90 servings