Your Home for Homemade Japanese Food

How to cook "with visual instructions" "using familiar ingredients from your local grocery stores" healthy, traditional and delicious Japanese dishes!!


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Chicken Karaage

Chicken Karaage is Japanese style fried chicken. Karaage is made in a very thin batter so it is very juicy, tender and flavorful. The chicken is also marinated in a  tasty sauce that is made of soy sauce, garlic and ginger. I am sure once you have a bite, you will not be able to stop eating because it is so delicious!

There are many kinds of Karaage, such as chicken, chicken gristle, shrimp, calamari, octopus, fish, fish bone and so on.

I used chicken breast to make the dish healthier. You can use chicken thigh instead if you prefer. I will also show you how to make the chicken breast more juicy with baking soda and salt in this recipe.

This is a very simple recipe but has great taste, texture and flavor.

Please enjoy it!

{Ingredients (Serves 2)}
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1 lb. Chicken Breast or Thigh

1 teaspoon grated Garlic

1 teaspoon grated Ginger

2 tablespoons Soy Sauce

1 tablespoons Cooking Sake

¼ cup Flour

2 ½ cups Vegetable Oil

Here is my recipe in PDF: Karaage


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Simmered Taro and Chicken (Gluten-Free)

Simmered food is a traditional delicious Japanese dish. There are many kinds of vegetable or fish simmered dishes, such as root vegetables, eggplant, lettuce, flounder, anchovy and so on. My mother carefully taught me how to cook simmered dishes because traditionally these dishes are called “Homemade taste,” and in old Japanese traditions women who can cook simmered dishes were considered full-fledged wives, so my mother thought I might want to cook these dishes well for my husband. Of course, we live in a different era today and my husband and I often cook together so we have the great culinary tradition without the sexist overtones.

Basically, the ingredients are root vegetables so the dish includes a lot of fiber which is good for helping digestion. I also used chicken breast which it is low in fat and high in great protein.

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Taro is an important ingredient in homemade taste Japanese dishes. You can get it easily at most grocery stores in the US. Taro is high in potassium and water. Taro also is lower in calories than other kind of potato. When you chew taro, it can feel slightly gooey. This feeling comes from mucin, which is also in our saliva and stomach juice, and it helps the stomach function better.

Enjoy this traditional, nutritious and delicious dish!!

{Ingredients (Serves 2)}
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0.5 lb. Chicken Breast or Thigh

1 peeled Carrot

1 peeled Onion

4 Dried Shiitake Mushrooms

1 cup Water (leftover from soaking Shiitake)

3 Taros

5 tablespoons Soy Sauce REDUCED SODIUM [Gluten Free] (Organic)

5 tablespoons Cooking Sake

4 tablespoons Mirin Sweet Cooking Rice Wine

Here is my recipe in PDF: Simmered Taro and Chicken


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Rice Porridge (Vegan/Vegetarian/Gluten-Free)

Rice porridge is an important dish for Japanese. We have the dish when we are sick, when we have no appetite, or when we want to heal the stomach after overeating such as after new year celebrations.

Rice porridge is easy to cook (just put washed dried rice and water in a pan and cook!) and you can season it however you want. We usually eat it with salt or pickles. You can also put sugar and butter like oatmeal or cereal.

{Ingredients (Serves 2)}
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・1 cup Premium Rice, Medium Grain

・7 cups water

・1 teaspoon chopped Green Onion (as topping)

・1 Umeboshi (pickled plum) (as topping)

Here is my recipe in PDF: Rice Porridge


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Potato Galette (Vegetarian/Gluten-Free)

Potato is high in vitamin C. It has about the same amount of vitamin C as spinach or orange. In addition the vitamin C in potato is resistant to heat so we can absorb the vitamin C easily from potato dishes. A raw potato’s calorie count is about the same as pumpkin and lower than sweet potato.

This potato galette recipe is very quick, easy and delicious! My mother always cooked it for a snack. It is also good to bring to potluck parties because the ingredients are just potato and cheese. There is no egg and no flour.

{Ingredients (Serves 2)}

4 Potatoes

¼ teaspoon Salt

¼ teaspoon black pepper

4 tablespoons shredded Mexican Cheese (4 cheese mix)

4 tablespoons grated Parmesan Cheese

½ cup vegetable oil

Here is my recipe in PDF: Galette


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Chicken Hamburger Steak in Japanese Style

Hamburger steak is a very popular dish in Japan. There are a lot of restaurants that specialize in hamburger steak. We usually have hamburger steak with sides of  vegetables and white rice, not with hamburger buns.

The hamburger steak recipe was brought to Japan from Germany. Japanese adjusted the recipe better for Japanese taste. Today I will teach you how to make the “Japanese style” Hamburger Steak, which is the most popular style in Japan.

I will teach you how to make Chicken Hamburger Steak with shiitake mushroom and onion in Japanese style. You can use any kind of vegetables you want in this recipe, and you could use beef instead of chicken if you want.

My mother often cooked it with ground chicken and many kinds of chopped vegetables to make it healthier.

Chicken meat has great taste, is good for digestion, and fortifies your nutrition if you are recovering from being sick. It is higher in amino acids and vitamin A than pork or beef, but has half the fat of pork or beef.

I put grated ginger in the steak because ginger has great flavor and also helps rid the meat of its chicken smell. Good smell is very important in many forms of Japanese cooking so that you can experience great taste, texture, and smell. Also, we serve Hamburger Steak with grated daikon (Japanese white radish) and soy sauce-rice vinegar sauce, which make the dish taste better and helps digestion.

It is very delicious! Enjoy!!

{Ingredients (Serves 2)}
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・1 lb. Ground Chicken

・1 Onion

・2 Dried Shiitake Mushrooms

・1 Egg

・½ cup Panko Bread Crumbs Japanese Style

・½ teaspoon Salt (total)

・½ teaspoon Black pepper

・1 teaspoon Grated Ginger

・1 teaspoon Chopped Garlic

・1 inch round, sliced Daikon (Japanese white radish)

・¼ cup Soy Sauce

・2 tablespoons Rice Vinegar

Here is my recipe in PDF: Chicken Hamburger Steak in Japanese style


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Fried Eggplant with Chicken and Miso (Gluten-Free)

Today, I introduce you to fried eggplant. This dish is my mother’s original recipe. She used Miso paste and ginger so it is very nutritious and delicious.

Eggplant is low calorie and has polyphenol, which works as an antioxident.

Miso is a fermented food. Recently, there have been some studies suggesting that fermented foods can improve our immunity. Japanese, who live longer than people from any other country, eat a lot of fermented foods, such as Umeboshi (pickled plum), soy sauce, Miso paste, Katsuobushi (dried bonito) and Natto.

Ginger is also very nutritious and healthy. Ginger helps  our blood flow, helps speed up our metabolism, and blocks the oxidation process inside our body.

This dish has the great flavor of ginger and juicy chicken and it doesn’t have a strong taste of Miso paste, so I am sure everybody can enjoy it!

{Ingredients (for 2 people)}
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・½ Eggplant

・0.5 lb Ground Chicken

・1 teaspoon grated ginger

・1/4 cup vegetable oil

・4 teaspoons ORGANIC Miso Paste

・2 teaspoons Sugar

・2 teaspoons Mirin Sweet Cooking Rice Wine

・4 teaspoons Cooking Sake

Here is my recipe in PDF: Fried Eggplant with Miso


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Korokke/Croquette

Today, I introduce you to Korokke (croquette).

The Japanese recipe is somewhat like the French croquette. We named it Korokke because it is the closest pronunciation using Japanese sounds to croquette. Because of this word borrowing many Japanese thought Korokke was a western food, but nowadays we realize it has become a Japanese food because the Japanese Korokke, while a bit similar to the French croquette, is actually not same.

Korokke is a very popular food for lunch, dinner or a snack. The ingredients are potato, ground meat and onion. Seasoning is only salt and pepper. We can also make vegetable Korokke without meat. My mother sometimes secretly put vegetables which I didn’t like, such as green pepper, celery and so on in the Korokke because it was always delicious! As just described, you can put anything you want for your family’s health or just for taste in a Korokke.

{Ingredients (for 2 people)}
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・4 Potatoes

・1 Onion

・½ lb Ground Chicken

・¾ teaspoon Salt (total)

・½ teaspoon Black Pepper (total)

・1 cup Flour

・2 Eggs

・1 cup Panko Bread Crumbs Japanese Style

・3 ½ cups Vegetable Oil

Here is my recipe in PDF: Croquette


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Eggplant Tempura (Vegetarian)

I am sure many people think Japanese food = Tempura and Sushi.

Today I will teach you how to make Tempura with eggplant.

Once you see this recipe, you can make any kind of Tempura, such as shrimp, squid, fish and many kinds of vegetables, whatever you want.

I chose eggplant this time because it is my favorite Tempura. I like the juicy texture, light sweet taste and  low calories!! Eggplant also has polyphenol which works as an antioxident. So it is a good food to eat to help you stay healthy.

Japanese don’t eat Tempura so often because it is deep-fried, and not very healthy if we eat it every day.

{Ingredients (for 2 people)}

・½ American Eggplant

・1 cup Flour

・1 Egg

・1 cup Cold Water

・10 Ice Cubes

・3 ½ cups Vegetable Oil

Here is my recipe in PDF: Tempura


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Seasoned Rice with Vegetables (Vegan/Vegetarian/Gluten-Free)

Today I introduce you to Takikomi Gohan which is seasoned rice with vegetables. It has a similar taste to fried rice, but it is steamed so a lot healthier. You can add vegetables (preferably root vegetables), shellfish, and/or chicken, and seasoning to the rice and cook just like cooking white rice.

The basic arrangement for many Japanese meals is called “Ichi-juu, San-sai”, and consists of one bowl of cooked rice, one kind of soup, and three vegetable or fish side dishes. Takikomi Gohan includes rice and some vegetables or fish so it is a fuss-free dish to help arrange Ichi-jiru, San-sai. And, or course, it just plain delicious! Also steamed rice absorbs the Umami of the ingredients so it is very nutritious and delicious!!

We sometimes have Takikomi Gohan as a Bento (boxed lunch) because it is tasty even when it is cold.

This time I use Shiitake mushroom, Daikon, Carrot and Snow pea with Kelp Dashi stock. So it has lots of vitamins, minerals, carotene and fucoidan. Dried Shiitake mushroom has vitamin D so we might want to eat winter time which has short sunshine hours.

{Ingredients (for 2 people)}
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・2 cups Premium Rice, Medium Grain

・3 pieces Dried Shiitake Mushrooms

・1 cup Water (leftover from soaking Shiitake)

・1 ½ cups Tap Water (Depends on amount of rice being soaked)

・2 inches round, sliced Daikon (Japanese white radish)

・1 Carrot

・10 pieces Snow peas

・4 inches × 4 inches sheet of Dashi Dried Kelp

・4 tablespoons Cooking Sake

・4 tablespoons Soy Sauce REDUCED SODIUM [Gluten Free] (Organic)

・4 tablespoons Mirin Sweet Cooking Rice Wine

Here is my recipe in PDF: Seasoned Rice


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Snow Pea and Egg (Vegetarian/Gluten-Free)

Today’s dish is called “Snow peas and Egg,” which is actually my mother’s original recipe. It uses sweet egg and snow peas that are a little bit salty. This dish is very easy to cook and popular with children because of the sweet and soft scrambled egg.

Snow peas have a lot of vitamins and carotene so it is good food for beauty. Egg is, needless to say, high quality protein and high in vitamins and minerals. So my mother knew it is good for children because it is easy, nutritious and delicious!!

{Ingredients (For 2 people)}

About 20 pieces of snow pea (according to your taste)

3 Eggs

2 tablespoons Sugar

¼ teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Here is my recipe in PDF: Snow pea and Egg