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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: Homemade


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Healthy Fish Nabe (Gluten-Free)

Today I introduce you to Nabe which is a traditional Japanese simmering dish. Nabe is a very easy recipe that you can prepare with many kinds of ingredients. You can make Nabe with sea food, meat, various vegetables and various kinds of stock!

Nabe has a variety of great nutrients that come from the ingredients and the soup, and Nabe makes our bodies warm so Japanese usually have Nabe in winter time. Also, Nabe is a low-calorie dish if you choose the ingredients carefully.

Today, I used Tilapia. Tilapia is high in vitamin D, vitamin B12 and potassium. Also, Tilapia has a soft texture and light taste so it is good for many kinds of dishes. Just be careful not to cook it too much. Overcooking Tilapia makes the texture hard.

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This is the Tofu Shirataki I used. It is a firm tofu noodle and common ingredient for Nabe in Japan. It is very easy for kids to eat. In this recipe you can substitute normal Tofu for this.

Enjoy this healthy and easy dinner!

{Ingredients (servings 2)}

1 fillet Tilapia

10 leaves Napa Cabbage

4 Shiitake mushrooms

3 Green Onions

1 pack Tofu Shirataki

1 piece (5 square inches) Dried Kelp

¼ cup Soy Sauce
(Recommended Gluten-Free Soy Sauce)Soy Sauce REDUCED SODIUM [Gluten Free] (Organic)

¼ cup Cooking Sake

2 ½ cups Water

Here is my recipe in PDF: Healthy Fish Nabe


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Heal Your Stomach! “Bok Choy Milk Soup”

Of the many Japanese winter soup recipes, this Bok Choy Milk Soup is my favorite. It is easy to cook, healthy, and delicious!! I believe this is “The Winter Soup”!

Bok choy was brought to Japan from China around the 1970’s. The season for picking Bok Choy is early winter. So now is a great time to get delicious Bok Choy in many grocery stores in Japan and the US.

Bok Choy has great nutrition such as beta-carotene, vitamin C, potassium, calcium and so on. When we think about nutrition, we shouldn’t cook Bok Choy too long, but my mother always cooked this soup until the Bok Choy would get tender because it is easy for kids to eat. So many of my friends also loved my mother’s “Bok Choy Milk Soup”.

I used unsweetened soy milk in this recipe but you can use any kind of milk. And also I used turkey bacon but you can use regular bacon. I suggest you to taste and adjust the seasoning before serving if you use ingredients that are different from my recipe.

{Ingredients (servings 2)}

1 Head Bok Choy

5 slices Turkey Bacon

2 Chicken Bouillon Cubes

3 cups Soy Milk (unsweetened)

1 Tbsp. Vegetable Oil

Salt and Pepper for seasoning

Here is my recipe in PDF (4 MB): Bok Choy Milk Soup


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Okra Tempura (Vegetarian)

Today I introduce you to Okra Tempura. This tempura dish has a different texture from the fried-okra you may find in the U.S.  The tempura batter is crunchy but not thick. I season it with just sea salt when I eat it so I can enjoy the taste of okra.

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

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My mother used okra in her meals a lot because of the  nutrition. Inside, okra has a gooey texture from the pectin (a soluble fiber) and mucin (a protein). These two nutrients improve our digestion. Okra is also high in beta-carotene, minerals, vitamins and so on.

About my tempura batter, I always try to make tempura with a great crunchy (not greasy) texture because it is more delicious. In this recipe, I show you how to make  the best batter for crunchy tempura. I hope you like it.

{Ingredients (servings 2 as side dish)}

10~16 Okura

1 Egg

½ cup Cold Water

½ cup Flour

Vegetable Oil for frying

Here is my recipe in PDF (4 MB): Okra Tempura


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Braised Fish (Gluten-Free)

Braising is one common Japanese cooking method for fish. The taste is a typical Japanese “sweet-salty” taste, similar to Teriyaki or Sukiyaki seasoning. We use Cooking Sake, Soy Sauce, Mirin Sweet Cooking Rice Wine and sugar when braising.

We usually braise sardine, flounder, alfonsino, mackerel, cutlass fish, yellowtail and so on. I can’t always get many of these fish where I live in the U.S. so I chose Tilapia this time. Tilapia meat is good because it stays good after 15 minutes of braising and it soaks in the delicious sauce well.

When you braise fish, please add some slices of ginger. This kills the fishy smell and warms up your body because of the Gingerol action.

Enjoy your new fish recipe with steamed rice or with  Japanese Sake!!

{Ingredients (servings 2)}

1 Tilapia fillet

½ cup Cooking Sake

¼ cup Soy Sauce
(Recommended Gluten-Free Soy Sauce)Soy Sauce REDUCED SODIUM [Gluten Free] (Organic)

2 Tbsp. Sugar

1 Tbsp. Mirin Sweet Cooking Rice Wine

3 slices Ginger

2 Green Onions

Here is my recipe in PDF (5 MB): Braised Fish


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Green Pea Rice (Vegan/Vegetarian/Gluten-Free)

Today I introduce you to steamed white rice with green peas. The Japanese process for cooking rice is a little complicated, so in this recipe I show you the easiest way to cook steamed rice. It takes about an hour, but you don’t need to do much.

We have many kinds of seasoned-steamed rice recipes, because rice is the most important carbohydrate in the  Japanese diet. Japanese rice is short-grain rice which is soft, sticky and a little bit sweet in taste. This is good for ease of digestion and also great for making Sushi rice.

The “Green Pea Rice” in this recipe has a slightly salty taste and a very tender green pea texture so even kids who don’t like green peas tend to eat this rice happily.

Green peas are high in protein, vitamins, minerals, fiber and so on. Green Peas also have more vitamin B1 and fiber than many vegetables. But the nutritional value can weaken under the heat so when you cook, you can add the green peas to the recipe as the last part of the cooking process.

I love rice but I don’t have time to cook it for every meal so I always cook large amounts of steamed rice and freeze some of it. To store steamed rice, put cooked rice in a freezer bag and keep in the freezer. When you want to heat it up, you can microwave on a microwavable dish for 2~2:30 minutes. Please use the frozen rice within a month.

{Ingredients (servings 2)}

1 ½ cup Dried Rice (short-grain rice)

⅓ cup Frozen Green Peas

1 tsp. Salt

2 Tbsp. Cooking Sake

Water for soaking rice and cooking rice

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


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Very Flavorful!! “Asparagus with Bacon”

This is a common recipe for bacon-wrapped asparagus in Japan. We wrap a cut asparagus with a piece of bacon. The dish is usually pan-fried or grilled. You will often see bacon-wrapped asparagus on a long stick on the menu at Yakitori restaurants in Japan. When making it as a homemade dish, we usually use a toothpick instead of the long stick because it is easy to cook. But be careful about the toothpicks when you and your family eat. Of course you can serve without toothpicks even though the bacon wrap might come off.

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I use turkey bacon in this recipe but you can use any kind of bacon you want. And also if you or your family don’t like using cooking Sake or white wine for the dishes, you can substitute stock or broth for those.

We have this dish as a side dish and we sometimes put it in our lunch boxes.

In Japan, some kindergartens, most elementary schools (1st~6th grade) and some junior high schools (7th~9th grade) serve school lunch. If the school doesn’t have school lunch, we bring boxed lunches (sometimes the school also has a small shop to get lunch). My mother made boxed lunches for me and my sister all the time when our school didn’t serve lunch. We loved her lunch boxes so much!!

This is one of common Japanese school lunch.

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Recently, many Japanese mothers cook very cute lunch box dishes for their kids, which we call “Character Bento”. They decorate their lunch as cartoon’s characters with many ingredients to make their kids happy to eat everything. I really respect the mothers because they get up very early, prepare their family’s breakfast and a wonderful lunch box for their kids (some of them prepare lunch boxes for their husbands as well, not “Character Bento” though), and then many of these mothers get ready to go to their own work!

My Japanese friend made these boxed lunches! It is incredible!!! The 2 pictures are “Character Bento” for her boys. The 3rd one is a normal Bento for family event.

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I recommend this dish with any meal. If you want to have it for breakfast or in a lunch box, you can prepare it the previous day and cook it in the morning, or you can cook it the previous day and microwave in the morning, because the cutting, wrapping and cooking can take a little extra time, especially in the morning.

{Ingredients (servings 2)}

10 Asparagus spears

10 slices Turkey Bacon (any kind of bacon is okay)

A pinch of Salt and Pepper

¼ cup Cooking Sake or white wine

1 Tbsp. Vegetable Oil

Here is my recipe in PDF (5 MB): Asparagus with Bacon


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Delicious Braised Eggplant (Vegan/Vegetarian/Gluten-Free)

Following the previous post “This is what I call a great traditional Japanese dish!”,

This is what I call a great traditional Japanese dish!(Vegan/Vegetarian/Gluten-Free)

I will introduce you to one more traditional Japanese vegetable side dish which is called “Braised Eggplant”. This is also from Buddhist cuisine. It is very delicious, healthy and low-calorie!

If you like eggplant, I highly recommend you try this! You can enjoy the flavorful, tender, and yummy eggplant. The recipe is very easy and very traditional. I simmer eggplant in Japanese Dashi stock, soy sauce, cooking Sake and Mirin. If you like the flavor in Japanese dishes  you should keep soy sauce, cooking Sake, Mirin and Dashi stock on hand (here is my Dashi stock recipe in PDF: Homemade Anchovy Dashi Stock, Kelp Dashi stock ) (also some Asian markets carry useful Dashi stock powder). If you want to try more healthy dishes but you are not a big fan of Japanese flavors, you can just simmer the eggplant in vegetable stock and season with a pinch of salt and pepper. This is also a healthy and low-calorie dish. Unfortunately, however, if you cook it this way you will not get the protein that we get from soy sauce. In fact, my family doesn’t eat soy beans often, we usually get the soy nutrition from soy sauce, Tofu, Miso (soy bean paste), Natto (fermented soy beans), soy milk and so on.

In this recipe, I didn’t peel the eggplant because one of the important nutrients, Anthocyanin (antioxidant), is found in high amounts in eggplant skin. If you don’t like the gooey texture that the skin adds you can peel the eggplant.

{Ingredients (servings 2)}

½ Eggplant

1 cup Kelp Dashi Stock
(Recommended Dried Kelp for Dashi stock) Dashi Dried Kelp

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

2 Tbsp. Cooking Sake

2 Tbsp. Mirin Sweet Cooking Rice Wine

Here is my recipe in PDF (4 MB): Braised Eggplant

Here is my “Kelp Dashi Stock” recipe in PDF: Kelp Dashi stock


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This is what I call a great traditional Japanese dish!(Vegan/Vegetarian/Gluten-Free)

People have use this recipe since about 1300 years ago. This dish is typical Buddhist cuisine. Buddhist cuisine is cooked based on Buddhist concepts. The ingredients are mainly beans and vegetables. But the dishes are flavorful and nutritious because they were created to charge the energy of Samurai.

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This recipe is a basic Japanese dish in which I cut vegetables and simmer in Japanese Dashi stock. The Dashi stock is the most important ingredient. If you can’t prepare Dashi stock, you can use vegetable stock or chicken stock as a substitute for Japanese Dashi stock. Of course the flavor will change but it will still be healthy! In a similar way, you can use white wine as a substitute for cooking Sake.

This is a side dish so you can have it along with or in place of a salad with your meal!

{Ingredients (servings 2)}

1 Carrot

3 Shiitake Mushrooms

½ bunch Fresh Spinach

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

2 Tbsp. Cooking Sake

1 cup Kelp Dashi stock
(Recommended Dried Kelp for Dashi stock) Dashi Dried Kelp
*Any kind of Dashi stock is okay*
(Recommended instant bonito Dashi powder)Ajinomoto – Hon Dashi

¼ tsp. Salt

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

Here is my Kelp Dashi stock recipe in PDF: Kelp Dashi stock

Here is my Anchovy Dashi stock recipe in PDF: Homemade Anchovy Dashi Stock


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Non-Spicy “Mapo-Tofu”(Gluten-Free)

Mapo-Tofu is a popular Chinese dish. This recipe is totally my mother’s creation based on Mapo-Tofu. My mother came up with this recipe because the original dish is so spicy and I couldn’t handle it. This dish is very healthy because it has great protein, which comes from a combination of meat and tofu, so we always had this Non-Spicy Mapo-Tofu in our house.

The recipe is so easy to cook. It basically involves cooking ground chicken and tofu in chicken broth and then seasoning it in the same pan.

You can also use any kind of ground meat and any kind of broth in this recipe.

I recommend you enjoy tasting everything on the plate, the meat, the tofu, and the soup flavor! Because of the finished presentation you may think of it is a soup dish, but we eat it as a main dish with steamed rice.

Enjoy your new healthy and yummy dish!!

{Ingredients (servings 2)}

7 oz. (half pack) firm Tofu

½ lb. ground Chicken

1 tsp. minced Garlic (about 1 clove)

1 tsp. minced Ginger

2 Tbsp. Vegetable Oil

1 cup low-sodium Chicken Broth
(Recommended Gluten-Free Chicken Broth)Reduced Sodium Chicken Flavor Broth

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

1 Tbsp. Cooking Sake

1 Tbsp. Potato Starch or Corn Starch (for slurry)

2 Tbsp. water (for slurry)

1 tsp. Pure Sesame Oil

Here is my recipe in PDF (6 MB): Non-Spicy Mapo-Tofu


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Healthy and Quick “Tuna Pasta” Recipe

Today I will introduce you to a yummy light tasting, quick and healthy pasta dish! You don’t need to cook sauce in advance for this dish. You can put boiled pasta, drained tuna, and cut lettuce in a pan at the same time, cook for a few minutes and season. You can even cook everything in one pan. Boil the pasta, drain and cook in the same pan!

I usually don’t use canned food, but I always keep some canned tuna in my pantry because its stays good for a long time, is very useful, healthy and delicious. Tuna is a great source of protein and has other great nutritional benefits, such as vitamins, minerals, DHA, EPA, Omega-3 and so on. A Japanese tuna company published a study showing that fresh tuna and canned tuna have almost the same level of nutrition. (https://www.hagoromofoods.co.jp/knowledge/faq/faq_012.html). Canned tuna comes in water or in oil. I tend to choose tuna in water because it has less calories. Tuna in water has about 1/4 less calories that tuna in oil. But in fact, tuna in oil has more nutrition than tuna in water. So if you care about calories and protein more than other vitamins or minerals, you might want to choose tuna in water.

In this recipe, I use spaghetti, but you can use any kind of pasta you want. It is so easy, healthy, and delicious so I recommend it for lunch and/or for your weekday dinner!

Here is my recipe in PDF (4 MB): Tuna Pasta