How to cook "with visual instructions" "using familiar ingredients from your local grocery stores" healthy, traditional and delicious Japanese dishes!!
Today I introduce you to “Japanese-Style Corn Side Dish in Buttery Soy Sauce”. This is a super quick and easy recipe which takes only 15 minutes or so. It is a great side dish for your family and friends during this holiday season! In this recipe I use soy sauce and butter (or margarine) for seasoning so it has a very different taste from a corn dish seasoned with just salt and pepper, but it is incredibly flavorful and delicious!! As an aside, have you ever tried to season a sautee dish with soy sauce and butter/margarine? If not, please try it sometimes!! You can season sautéed meat, seafood, vegetables…almost anything! I love sautéed mushrooms seasoned with soy sauce and margarine, which is totally divine!!
The reason I used frozen corn kernel is I always keep them in the freezer. I buy many fresh ears of corn, steam them for a short time, cut the kernels off and freeze in a plastic bag. This is why I cook over medium-high heat to evaporate the water from the frozen corn. You can use fresh corn kernels for this recipe and cook over medium-low heat.
Ingredients (Servings 2) *Click BLUE TEXT to link to the product on Amazon*
3 cups (20~24 oz.) Frozen Corn Kernels
1 Tbsp. plus 1 Tbsp. (to taste) Margarine or Butter If you follow vegan/vegetarian diet, please use your favorite vegan/vegetarian margarine
Today I introduce you to “Vegan Quinoa Bowl with Almond Sauce”.
Lately, I love using almond butter for making sauces because it reminds me of Asian flavor!! In this recipe, I use lemon juice, onion powder and garlic powder for the sauce to make the recipe simpler. However, when I combine soy sauce, rice vinegar, almond butter and a hint of sesame oil, it becomes a totally Asian dish!!
In addition to the sauce, I use a little bit of warm water to adjust the consistency. You can use some olive oil but since almond butter is high in healthy fat, I don’t need to add unnecessary fat.
This dish is wonderful because you can translate the dish into a taste that fits your preference. You can use any kind of vegetables for topping. And if you are not following a vegan diet, it is good to add some cooked chicken!! Plus, you can use any kind of spice in the sauce. I like using some curry powder too!!
The recipe is so simple:
Cook quinoa. Mix the sauce ingredients. Cut vegetables (Cook them if you need. I cooked the tofu and broccoli). Place everything in a serving plate.
Today I will introduce you to Ginger Chicken Crumble. This is a common recipe in Japan. We usually eat this chicken crumble with rice and sometimes put it in a rice ball. It is also great with salad, pasta and so on. The picture shows my original chicken crumble rice bowl which has sautéed spinach, pickled belle pepper, carrot with sesame dressing and poached egg. It is divine!!
In addition you can store it in the refrigerator for about 4 days so this dish works well for you to add protein to your meal easily.
In this recipe I use traditional seasonings which give the dish a savory-sweet taste. But because of the simple recipe, you can change the seasonings as you want. You can make it spicy, salty or curry flavor!
Today I will teach you “How to make Authentic Homemade Miso Soup” with recipe video and detailed PDF direction. It is very easy to cook and has great flavor and wonderful taste, but I am sure you have never tasted authentic miso soup at most of restaurants in the US.
One of tips for cooking miso soup is to use great Dashi stock. I use different Dashi stocks depending on ingredients in my miso soup. I like to use bonito Dashi stock for vegetable miso soup. I tend to use kelp or anchovy Dashi stock for seaweed and seafood miso soup. Sometimes I use blended Dashi stocks which is very flavorful! If you follow a vegan diet, you can use kelp Dashi stock. I have some homemade Dashi stock recipes in my blog.
Here is “Kelp Dashi Stock” recipe post: Homemade Kelp Dashi stock / Salted Kelp (Vegan/Vegetarian/Gluten-Free)
Here is “Anchovy Dashi Stock” recipe post: Homemade Anchovy Dashi Stock (Gluten-Free)
But you can also use instant Dashi stock powder to save time. There are a lot of great ones in many Asian markets and also on Amazon.
I want to tell you one more tip to cook delicious miso soup. Basically I use 2 Tbsp. of miso paste for 2 cups of Dashi stock. But you can use less or more miso paste. I tend to use a little bit more miso paste than 2 Tbsp. for vegetable miso soup. I use less than 2 Tbsp. of miso paste for seafood miso soup because I can enjoy the seafood flavor!
Miso soup is an important dish in the Japanese diet. Miso (Soybean paste) is a traditional fermented food product. It is a very nutritious food, and Japanese say it may help keep the doctor away. In fact, there have been many studies of the beneficial effects of Miso on human health. I like to eat miso soup for breakfast more than anything else because I feel energy, my stomach feels comfortable and my head becomes clear. I think my body gets ready for school or work when I have miso soup in the morning.
In this recipe I use tofu. I like tofu miso soup because it is the quickest and easiest miso soup recipe! You can use any vegetables such as onion, potato, spinach, Daikon radish, mushrooms, carrot, bean sprouts, and so on. You can also use any seafood and seaweed for miso soup such as Wakame seaweed, clam, freshwater clam, oyster, lobster, and so on.
The recipe is very easy.
Boil Dashi stock and cut tofu. Dissolve miso paste.
Ingredients (servings 2) *Click BLUE TEXT to link to the product on Amazon*
“Sesame Tofu” is not a traditional Japanese dish. I have never had “Sesame Tofu” in Japan. When I had “Sesame Tofu” at a Chinese restaurant in the U.S., I was amazed at how delicious it was! So I tried to cook it myself.
This sesame tofu recipe is perfect! It is not too sweet and not too greasy, so it is in keeping with my dishes. It is a gluten-free and vegan dish! Delicious!! In addition, tofu has a lot of nutrition. As you know, tofu is high in great protein so it is often used as a meat substitute for vegans and vegetarians. Also tofu itself is low calorie (33 kcal / 2 oz.) so it is good food for people who care about their diet.
In this recipe 7 ounces (1/2 pack) of tofu can serve 2 people. You may think it is too small an amount compared to many Chinese restaurants in the U.S. In Japan, people traditionally eat many dishes containing soy beans. For a balanced-diet, which I highly recommend on the post You can Eat Anything You Want! But…, I suggest eating 1/4 pack of tofu every day depending on your other protein sources. If you make this recipe as a main dish, you might want to add some small side dishes to your meal.
The recipe is easy. We can cook with one pan.
Dry tofu and dredge in corn starch.
Cook and season.
Ingredients (servings 2) *Click BLUE TEXT to link to the product on Amazon*
This is a traditional Japanese side dish which is called “Goma-Ae” in Japanese. The dish dresses boiled fresh green beans with sweet sesame dressing. The sesame dressing contains ground white sesame, soy sauce and sugar. It is a healthy, delicious, easy and very quick to prepare dish.
In Japan we usually use a traditional Japanese mortar and pestle for grinding white sesame. Ground sesame makes the dish very flavorful and it is easy to eat. If you have a spice grinder, you can use it. If you don’t have either a spice grinder or a mortar and pestle you can put sesame seeds in a zipper bag and beat them with a rolling pin until they are ground.
The basic arrangement for many Japanese meals is called “Ichi-juu, San-sai,” which consists of one bowl of cooked rice, one kind of soup and three vegetables or fish small portion dishes. So this dish is a very common dish in the Japanese diet.
When you want to add a vegetable dish to your meal or in your lunch box, this is a great choice. Also, you can use any kind of vegetable with this dressing, such as boiled spinach, boiled carrot, boiled broccoli and so on.
The recipe is very quick. It takes only 10 minutes.
Mix the sauce ingredients, boil fresh green beans and dress.
You can store this dish in the refrigerator for 3 days. If you want to store longer, please dry the boiled green beans very well before dressing in the sauce and transfer them to a clean container. You can then keep it in the refrigerator for 5 days.
Enjoy this new healthy side dish!!
Ingredients (servings 2) *Click BLUE TEXT to link to the product on Amazon*
There are many different meanings of “HEALTHY” for each person. Having good nutrition, being positive, being powerful, building up muscles, losing some weight… Also there are many ways to be healthy. Exercise, diet, meditation, sleep…
Today’s post is for people struggling with becoming healthier, but it doesn’t recommend a one size fits all solution about what to do and how to do it. The post is based on my study, research and real-life experiences.
My suggestion to all of you who want to lead a healthy life is that
“You can eat anything you want. But it must be WELL-BALANCED!!”
In your meals, you have to include many COLORFUL ingredients, some different COOKING METHODS and some different TASTES in dishes, and the dishes have to be served in SMALL PORTIONS which you can grab with a hand.
[Other suggestions] Only ONE dish of carb (Rice, bread or noodles) in a meal. CHEW well. Not too much fried food.
For example, one day my meals consisted of:
Steamed multigrain rice: Steamed, Carb
Onion miso soup: Fermented, Savory
Simmered Daikon: Simmered, Sweet-savory
Scrambled egg and tomato: Pan-fried, Spicy taste
Boiled green beans with sesame dressing: Boiled, Sour taste
This is what I learned by watching my mother cook so it is easy for me, but I know it is not easy for people who are not used to these sorts of multiple small dishes.
Here are some tips:
*Prepare some dishes ahead of time when you have any spare time. In my recipes, there are a lot of main dishes and side dishes, which can be stored in the refrigerator for 2-5 days or for much longer in the freezer. You don’t need to cook a lot each time.
*If you have to eat one dish as a quick lunch, you can adjust your dinner appropriately.
*If you have to eat out for dinner, you can adjust your breakfast and lunch in advance.
This well-balanced cooking also saves you money in your grocery budget and minimizes wasted food because you know your meal composition in advance so you can buy the minimum foodstuffs.
When I was in Japan, I always followed this well-balanced meal composition for my breakfast and lunch. For dinner I often ate out with my co-workers, which meant dinner was not always well-balanced, but at least 2 out of 3 meals were balanced everyday. In addition, I was too busy to work out so I did Yoga for 30 minutes once a week and I had Taiko (Japanese Drum) lessons for 90 minutes twice a month, and that’s it. I was 5.4ft. and 120lb.
After I moved to the US with my husband, we have always worked out 3 times a week (weights, stretching and cardio), and we always eat healthy (salad, soup, chicken, no flour, no fried food… but its still not like the meal composition in Japan). Before I knew it, I gained 15 lb., which may not have been all fat because I did build some of my muscles up.
Still, it was a lot of weight for my frame. So I started my traditional Japanese cooking for most meals. After a week I stopped between-meal eating. After two weeks, I stopped craving snacks or junk food. After three weeks, I lost 7 lb. naturally. Of course, the meals I ate easily make me full so I am not hungry and constantly craving food. My mother and grandmother always said that our brain doesn’t signal us to eat more when our body absorbs varied and good amounts of nutrition. And it happened to me. It is true!!
In addition, when I have these well-balanced meals, I feel very happy, very powerful and have very positive thinking. When we eat a lot of unhealthy food and don’t work out we lack energy, we crave more food and also we have greater risk for many lifestyle-related diseases.
If you want to have pizza, you can have one piece of pizza as a carb, plus your meat with some small portion side dishes which are cooked with various cooking methods and which have various tastes. Don’t keep eating same-taste-same-cooking method food.
I want to also say that eating raw vegetables does not always lead to good absorption of nutrition. For example, cooked tomatoes and carrots have 1.5 times more absorption factor of beta-carotene and lycopene than raw ones. And cooked vegetables have smaller volume than raw vegetables so that means we can get much more nutrition when we eat cooked vegetables compared to eat raw vegetables. On the other hand, some vegetables lose their benefits when cooked too much. For example, over boiling broccoli breaks down it’s vitamin C. We have to choose the correct cooking method based on each vegetable’s characteristics. In my recipes, there are many cooking methods based on each ingredient’s characteristic. This comes from natural internalized attitudes from watching my mother cook.
Good luck with your happy life!!
{Here is my make-ahead recipes}
*(Make sure that you can transfer dishes to the refrigerator after they cool down to room temperature because the steam from the hot food in the container makes the dish go bad easily.)
Today I will show you how to cook “Kelp Dashi stock”.
Kelp is very nutritious and delicious when prepared correctly. It is low calorie, high in iodine, minerals, and fucoidan. It is good for making your skin smooth, hair and nails strong, and also helps to treat constipation. It is also a great food for people on diets. It is good for our health.
Significantly, while Kelp is gooey and chewy, because of its nutritional elements and fucoidan, Kelp dashi stock is not gooey and doesn’t have a strong smell so you can use it for many dishes.
I introduced “Anchovy Dashi stock” before. These two dashi stocks differ in taste and flavor. We use Anchovy Dashi stock when we want a stronger fish taste in dishes. On the other hand Kelp Dashi stock is usually used for dishes which we want to enjoy the individual tastes of ingredients such as vegetables, fish and so on. Of course, it is good for vegetarians and people who don’t like Anchovy Dashi stock smell.
We usually use the kelp for other dishes after we cook Dashi stock. This time I will use the leftover kelp to introduce a side dish which we call “Shio Konbu (Salted Kelp)”. Japanese usually eat it with cooked white rice. Shio Konbu is also great in your salad. It makes your salad more nutritious, healthy and delicious!!
{Ingredients (for Dashi Stock)} *Click BLUE TEXT to link to the product on Amazon*
Your Home for Homemade Japanese Food 