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

Tag Archives: appetite


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Seaweed Salad (Oil-Free/Vegan/Vegetarian/Gluten-Free)

I will introduce you to “Seaweed and Cucumber Salad” tossed with vinegar and sugar. It is very healthy and delicious! In Japan, we often eat this dish as a side dish because vinegar improves our appetite. And also dishes which include vinegar keep longer. This dish can keep about 5 days in the refrigerator. This is why Sushi rice is seasoned with vinegar. (Basically in Japan about 800 years ago, Sushi was not an expensive food like nowadays. It was a preservative food for common people. The conception was people put pickled fish on cooked rice and fermented it for a day.)

My book Bento for Beginners: 60 Recipes for Easy Bento Box Lunches

is now available on Amazon!!

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You can use some other ingredients for this salad recipe, such as seafood, carrot, Daikon, mushrooms, bean sprouts and so on. But seaweed and cucumber are the most popular ingredients in Japan. Cucumber is high in potassium so it is good for modern humans who tend to eat a high-salt diet. If you want to be healthier, it is good to eat more seaweed because seaweed is high in soluble fiber. Exercising and eating healthy is important to a good diet and the most important thing for improving your digestion and the function of your intestines. So if you want to try to be healthier, at first please think about your digestion. You should eat both insoluble fiber (vegetables, potatoes, mushrooms, beans…) and soluble fiber like seaweed to make your bowels work well. Please add this healthy side dish to your meals!

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{Ingredients (servings 2)}

2 Tbsp. Dried Seaweed

A small Cucumber

1 Tbsp. plus 1 cup Water

2 Tbsp. Rice Vinegar

1 tsp. Yamasa Organic Soy Sauce
(Recommended Gluten-Free Soy Sauce)Soy Sauce REDUCED SODIUM [Gluten Free] (Organic)

1 tsp. Sugar

1 tsp. Cooking Sake

A pinch of Salt

White Roasted Sesame Seeds

Here is my recipe in PDF: Seaweed Salad (Oil-Free)

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Incredibly Flavorful “Ginger Chicken”(Gluten-Free)

This is an incredibly flavorful homemade chicken dish marinated mainly with ginger and soy sauce.

As you know, ginger is extremely healthy.

It has Cineol (known generally as Eucalyptol), which is  a scent ingredient. Cineol increases our appetite and makes our body recover from fatigue. Because of this, I eat ginger a lot in the summer time.

When you cook ginger, Gingerol, which is flavor ingredient, changes chemically to Shogaol. This warms up our body and increases our metabolism. So I also eat ginger in winter time. I use ginger in my meals any time to be healthier!!

In this recipe I use chicken, but you can use pork instead of chicken if you prefer. If you use pork just make sure it is sliced thinly.

Also, you can use white wine as a substitute for cooking Sake. When you use cooking Sake, however, you get more wonderful Japanese flavor.

Enjoy your new healthy dish!!

{Ingredients (servings 2)}

2 Chicken Breast (boneless and skinless)

1 Onion

1 Tbsp. Grated Ginger

4 Tbsp. Soy Sauce
(Recommended Gluten-Free Soy Sauce)Soy Sauce REDUCED SODIUM [Gluten Free] (Organic)

2 Tbsp. Mirin Sweet Cooking Sake

4 Tbsp. Cooking Sake

1 Tbsp. Vegetable Oil

Here is my recipe in PDF (5 MB): Ginger Chicken