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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: beta-carotene


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Very Popular “Rice-Omelet”(Vegetarian/Gluten-Free)

This is an original Japanese omelet style dish. We call “Om-rice” in Japanese. About a hundred years ago, a Japanese restaurant made this recipe as a meal for the restaurant’s employees to have quickly and get enough nutrition to work from one plate. Nowadays, this is one of Japanese kids’ favorite dishes because it is so delicious!!

The ingredients are rice, vegetables and egg. We always season with salt, pepper and ketchup but if you don’t like using ketchup, season with just salt and pepper which also would be great!

I use onion, carrot and fresh shiitake mushrooms as my vegetable ingredients. You can use any kind of mushrooms if you can’t find shiitake mushrooms. In Japan, shiitake mushrooms are the most common mushroom. We use fresh shiitake mushrooms, and also dried ones. I use the two kinds of shiitake mushroom quite differently because the flavors are totally different; when I want to add much more shiitake flavor to my dish such as simmered dishes, I use the dried ones. When I cook Japanese dishes for which I want to add just fresh mushrooms, I use the fresh one.

You can add any kind of vegetables to the Om-rice that you like, as long as they are chopped to the same size as the other vegetables.

Enjoy your new omelet!!

{Ingredients (servings 4)}

1 Onion

1 Carrot

3 Shiitake Mushrooms

1 clove Garlic

1 tsp. Salt

¼ tsp. Black Pepper

3 cups (1.5 pint) Steamed Rice

¾ cup Gluten-Free Ketchup

8 eggs (total)

2 Tbsp. Vegetable Oil (total)

Here is my recipe in PDF (5 MB): Rice Omelet

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Healthy Cabbage Soup (Gluten-Free)

This recipe is not traditional Japanese food. We occasionally have it as a hospital meal, school meal and so on. This is good for digestion and low fat and low calorie. Therefore, we sometimes have it as a diet meal. Also some hospitals serve this kind of dish to patients who will soon have surgery, because it reduces visceral fat before the surgery.

Cabbage in spring has a very good taste so it is traditional we have many cabbage dishes in the spring.

In this recipe, the cooking is really easy and takes less than 30 minutes. Significantly, some nutrition from cabbages can break down under heat so please cook for as short as possible after adding cabbage as per the instructions. Also, Cabbage can be eaten raw but it is hard to eat a lot of it that way. So I highly recommend this soup that cooking for less than 20 minutes after adding the cabbage and including vegetables in all soups.

Enjoy the nutritious soup!

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{Ingredients (servings 2)}

¼ Green Cabbage

1 Onion

1 Carrot

2 cups Reduced Sodium Chicken Flavor Broth

½ tsp. Salt

A pinch of Black Pepper

1 Tbsp. Gluten-Free Margarine

Here is my recipe in PDF (5 MB): Healthy Cabbage Soup


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Healthy Cheesy Vegetables (Vegetarian/Gluten-Free)

I have introduced many Japanese recipes here, and you may think we don’t use cheese very much. Cheese making started in Japan around 1930, so cheese has a short history in Japan.

When I was a child, my mother cooked dish with cheese about once a month. I loved cheese so this recipe was one of my treats!

The ingredients are all vegetables. You can cook with leftover vegetables in the refrigerator.

The dish is high in protein, beta-carotene, iron and vitamins and the texture is so tender. Therefore, it is also a good lunch or dinner for children.

Enjoy this healthy cheesy vegetable dish!

{Ingredients (servings 2)}

1 Onion

1 Small Eggplant

3 cups Fresh Spinach

1 Tbsp. Vegetable Oil

2 Tbsp. Gluten-Free Margarine

1 Tbsp. Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 cup shredded Cheese (any kind is okay) (total)

¼ tsp. Salt

⅛ tsp. Black Pepper

Chopped parsley and black olives (for topping to taste)

Here is my recipe in PDF (5 MB): Cheesy Vegetables


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Vegetable Mix Tempura (Vegan/Vegetarian)

“Vegetable Mix Tempura”, which is called “Kakiage” in Japanese, is a traditional Japanese recipe. We enjoy this tempura on steamed rice, on Japanese Soba noodle, on Japanese Udon noodle, or just the tempura itself.

In Japan, people always try to make the tempura with a great crunchy texture. With this recipe, you can cook crunchy tempura easily. The seasoning is only salt, the vegetables are tender and the batter is crunchy so you can really enjoy more vegetables. Also, the recipe is very simple. I just use 1 skillet, 1 bowl, a cutting board and a knife. So If you have kids who don’t like vegetables very much, you might want to try to cook this recipe!

Enjoy!!

{Ingredients (servings 4)}

1 large Onion

4 oz. Shiitake Mushrooms

1 Carrot

½ American Eggplant

½ cup Flour

5 Tbsp. Cold Ice Water

Vegetable Oil for Frying

Here is my recipe in PDF (5 MB): Vegetable Mix Tempura


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Fried Wheat Noodles

Fried Wheat Noodles are actually traditional cuisine on the Okinawa islands, the southernmost prefecture of Japan. My mother and father visited Okinawa for their honeymoon 45 years ago and my mother learned about this dish at that time. (Until 1972 Okinawa was part of the united states so they needed to bring their passport. It surprised me!) Okinawa is a beautiful group of islands. Blue ocean, big sky, majestic forests, pure-hearted people, calm weather…I love Okinawa very much.

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This recipe is called “Chanpuru” in Okinawa, which means frying mixture of various ingredients. In every age we are busy so traditional Okinawa people made this “Chanpuru” recipe which is quick. We can cook it with any combination of ingredients in the refrigerator, such as egg, vegetables, tofu, fish, meat and so on.

As I said, you don’t need much time for grocery shopping and cooking. Please try it when you are too busy to cook something else for dinner!!

{Ingredients (servings 2)}

2 bunches (6.2 0z) Organic Somen Noodles

½ lb. Ground Chicken

½ large Onion

1 Carrot

¾ tsp. Salt (total)

½ tsp. Black Pepper (total)

3 Tbsp. Vegetable Oil (total)

1 Tbsp. Soy Sauce

1 tsp. Pure Sesame Oil

Here is my recipe in PDF (5 MB): Fried Wheat Noodles


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EGG-FREE Healthy Sweet Potato Treats (Vegan/Vegetarian/Gluten-Free)

This is an EGG-FREE and MILK-FREE healthy, tasty  Japanese-style sweet treat. Because of its sweet taste, Japanese use it for desert a lot. Examples are baked sweet potato, caramelized fried sweet potato, sweet potato snacks, dried sweet potato, mushed sweet potato and so on.

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Sweet potato is high in fiber, vitamin B, C, E, and potassium. The amount of vitamin C in a sweet potato is 10 times of that in an apple. And the vitamin C in sweet potato does not break easily when heated.

Sweet potatos gain their sweet taste when cooked slowly. So I don’t use the microwave to make them tender so I can get a really sweet taste in the dish.

This recipe uses a small amount of Mirin instead of egg as a brush coat on the dough before baking. So this is also a great sweet for kids!

I hope you will like it!

{Ingredients (15 small balls)}

1 Peeled Sweet Potato

3 cups Water

3 Tbsp. Sugar

2 Tbsp. Gluten-Free Margarine

3 Tbsp. Mirin Sweet Cooking Rice Wine

Pinch of Organic Black Sesame Seeds

Here is my recipe in PDF (5MB): Japanese Sweet Potato Treats


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Chicken Meatball Soup

 

This very flavorful soup brings you great nutrition because the ingredients are chicken, green onion, ginger, dried shiitake mushroom and kelp. This dish is high in vitamin A, vitamin B, vitamin E, vitamin D, minerals, beta-carotene, allicin, calcium, protein and so on. Also it is low calorie and low fat. This dish makes you warm, gives your metabolism a boost, and helps improve your immunity so it is great to help you recover from sickness and get back a good appetite.

(Recommended Dried Kelp) Dashi Dried Kelp
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I highly recommend eating kelp occasionally. Recently, it is easy to get dried kelp at many grocery stores and at most Asian markets in the US. Japanese use kelp for Dashi stock and side dish like pickles. Dashi stock is used as seasoning in Japanese dishes. We use several kinds of Dashi stock such as dried anchovy, dried bonito, dried shiitake, dried kelp and so on. The kelp Dashi stock is great to compliment exquisite tasting ingredients. Kelp helps maintain your body’s alkaline. Also kelp has a good amount of fucoidan and iodine which are essential nutrients (in moderation) for humans.

{Ingredients (servings 2)}
*Click BLUE TEXT to link to the product on Amazon*

½ lb. Ground Chicken

1 Egg

2 Tbsp. minced Green Onion

½ tsp. grated Ginger

1 tsp. plus ½ separate Tbsp. Soy Sauce

½ tsp. plus ½ separate tsp. Salt

1 ½ Tbsp. plus ½ separate Tbsp. Cooking Sake

1 ½ Tbsp. Flour

1 carrot

3 pieces Dried Shiitake Mushrooms

2 cups Kelp Dashi Stock
(Recommended Dried Kelp for Dashi stock) Dashi Dried Kelp

1 cup Water (leftover from soaking Shiitake)

Here is my recipe in PDF (6MB): Chicken Meatball Soup

Here is “Kelp Dashi Stock” recipe in PDF (5MB): Kelp Dashi stock


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Sweet-Savory Japanese-Style Pumpkin (Vegan/Vegetarian/Gluten-Free)

In the Japanese diet, simmered vegetable dishes are very important to fulfill the terms of the Japanese basic meals rule, which is called “Ichi-juu, San-sai.” This basic meals rule means basic meals should consist of one bowl of cooked rice, one kind of soup and three vegetable or fish side dishes.

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Also simmered vegetable dishes are very common in Mahayana Buddhist cuisine for Buddhist monks. These dishes are an important nutritional source for the monks who are forbidden from eating meat and fish.

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In the Japanese dish, C. maxima pumpkin is a common ingredient. It is high in vitamins, potassium, fiber and beta-carotene. The taste is very sweet. We also use this pumpkin for sweets. Interestingly the pumpkin is lower in calories and carbohydrates than bananas!

This recipe is incredibly easy. You can put water, Japanese common seasonings and the pumpkin in a pan at the same time and just simmer. We don’t use Dashi stock because the pumpkin has great flavor itself.

I hope you can add this dish to your dinner.

{Ingredients (servings 2)}

½ Pumpkin

2 cups Water

2 Tbsp. Sugar

3 Tbsp. Soy Sauce REDUCED SODIUM [Gluten Free] (Organic)

2 Tbsp. Cooking Sake

2 Tbsp. Mirin Sweet Cooking Rice Wine

Here is my recipe in PDF: Sweet-Savory Japanese-Style Pumpkin


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Pumpkin Croquette

Today I introduce you to a simple and healthy vegetable croquette recipe. This time I cooked the croquette in the oven so there is no need to worry about hot oil and messing up a  kitchen. The ingredients are pumpkin (C. maxima), onion and carrot.

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The differences between this recipe and the potato croquette recipe I posted earlier are taste and nutrition. I used C. maxima pumpkin (Kabocha), which is common in Japan. C. maxima pumpkins are especially high in vitamins, potassium, fiber and beta-carotene. They have more of a strong sweet taste than butternut squash, are not soggy and taste very good. So this kind of pumpkin is good for simmering dishes, a traditional style in Japanese cooking.

 *Click picture to link to this product on Amazon*

In this recipe I show you my mother’s original batter for fried dishes. Normally fry-batters are made from flour, egg and panko (bread crumbs). My mother’s batters are an egg mixture (egg, flour and white vinegar) and panko  (bread crumbs). The white vinegar makes the croquette batter very fluffy texture. You can use this egg mixture for any fried dishes such as fried chicken. Please try it!

{Ingredients (12 balls)}
*Click BLUE TEXT to link to the product on Amazon*

½ Pumpkin (Kabocha)

1 Onion

1 Carrot

1 Egg

1 Tbsp. Flour

2 Tbsp. water

1 tsp. Rice Vinegar

1 cup Panko Bread Crumbs Japanese Style

3 Tbsp. Olive Oil

½ tsp. Salt

¼ tsp. Black Pepper

Here is my recipe in PDF: Vegetable Croquette