What shall we cook today?
Simple, tasty recipes for your everyday meals.
Simple, tasty recipes for your everyday meals.
Chewy 100% wheat noodles (no buckwheat) in a pork-and-bonito broth, topped with sweet-savory stewed pork belly. An Okinawan staple with a gentle, salty flavor.
A guilty-pleasure bowl of sweet-savory gyudon piled with melting cheese. The carryover-melted cheese and sweet-savory broth are a perfect match, perfect for a late-night meal.
A Kyoto-born rice bowl of abura-age and green onion simmered in a sweet-savory dashi and bound with soft egg. It looks just like oyakodon, but is meat-free, cheap and quick.
A hearty bowl topped with spicy mapo tofu as is. The thickened soup clings to the noodles and stays piping hot to the last bite.
Cooling the pan on a damp cloth is the trick for an even color. Serve old-coffee-shop style with butter, honey and strawberry jam.
A classic home-style simmer with a sweet-savory broth soaked into the potatoes.
A rice bowl bound with soft-set egg, ready in 10 minutes.
The richness of coconut milk and the heat of green chili make it addictive.
The trick is mixing the egg into the rice first. A go-to dish in 10 minutes.
No binder, just the umami of the meat. Cut it open and the juices overflow.
A thick, gently sweet miso noodle stew with pumpkin that melts into the broth.
A fluffy crab omelette generously topped with a glossy sweet-and-sour sauce.
A mellow, rich black-vinegar dressing makes it refreshing yet satisfying.
A miso soup rich with pork umami and salmon fat, finished Hokkaido-style with butter.
A Kyoto-style rolled omelette soaked with dashi that bursts with juice when you cut in.
A cabbage-packed Chinese staple with the richness of tianmianjiang and the kick of doubanjiang.
Finished with chicken broth and a cornstarch thickening, the nostalgic taste of a neighborhood Chinese diner.
The old-fashioned taste of chewy thick noodles, with ketchup fried well to draw out its sweetness.
Shallow-fried in a pan, with a mellow black-vinegar nanban sauce and plenty of tartar.
A local dish from Tsuwano, Shimane: ingredients buried under rice with hot dashi poured over. Stir in wasabi and slurp it down.
No knife needed thanks to pre-cut vegetables and frozen seafood. Ramen with a silky five-treasure gravy made from the included soup.
Just fry pre-cut vegetables and simmer in salt broth. A light, vegetable-forward Chinese-diner taste with no thickening.
A homemade roux of flour and curry powder fried in butter, with beef and chunky vegetables. Served with salad and milk in the Meiji-era navy style.
No pot or pan. Frozen udon with sweet-savory pork and an egg yolk, done in 10 minutes.
Just wrap your usual cup yakisoba in fluffy egg. A street-stall-style late-night snack with mayo and aonori.
A light bite said to have been invented by a card-loving earl, made here as the cucumber sandwich of British afternoon tea.
Just top rice with potato chips and pour hot dashi over. A guilty 3-minute snack with two textures: crisp and softened.
Clams and leek simmered in miso and ladled over rice, a fisherman's dish from Fukagawa in old Edo. A finishing bowl with deep shellfish dashi.
Dashi that draws out the umami of shiokara, with a sharp hit of wasabi. A classic izakaya finish in 3 minutes.
Grilling the salmon is worth the effort. The toasty browning and crisp skin melt into the dashi, served with pickles. A classic finisher.
Any frozen sides at home will do. Learn only the 'main + side + color' combo and the tips to keep it fresh, and you will never dither in the morning.
Just pack the box tight with rice and top with grilled mezashi. An old-fashioned big-portion bento where the bitterness and salt keep the rice going.
Get the camping feel without going camping. Light the solid fuel in your kitchen and just wait for it to burn out for glossy rice.
Quick to make with just canned tuna and eggs. Wrapped in mayo-mixed egg, good for breakfast or a bento.
Crisp butter-fried potato and bacon wrapped in soft egg. Two textures, fluffy and crisp, in one dish.
The basic omelette. Smooth outside, soft inside, with cheese that oozes out from the middle.
Sauteed ground beef and onion wrapped in egg, topped with a ketchup-Worcestershire sauce, the taste of an old Western-style diner.
Shimeji and maitake fried fragrant in butter and soy, half inside and half on top. An omelette with a Japanese aroma.
Frozen spinach works fine. A pretty green-and-red dish, perfect for breakfast.
The Okinawan home version uses canned pork instead of fresh. The can's salt and umami set the flavor fast in this pleasantly bitter stir-fry.
Croquettes crisped in the toaster oven, natto topped with an egg yolk. A home-made diner tray that keeps the rice going.
Just simmer enoki in a sweet-savory sauce. Less sweet than store-bought, with the enoki's crunch kept intact. A make-ahead.
Just grill salmon, flake and dry-fry it. Plumper and more fragrant than the jarred kind, great for chazuke or rice balls. A make-ahead.
Just fry leek in sesame oil and work in miso. Fragrant, sweet-salty, and perfect on grilled rice balls.
Just marinate egg yolks in a soy sauce overnight. Serve the rich, custardy yolk over piping-hot rice.
Dry-fry torn konnyaku and simmer sweet-savory. Low-calorie, with a chewy bite and chili heat that is addictive.
Just fry ground meat with miso until the liquid cooks off. Great on rice, on udon, or wrapped in lettuce.
The trick is high heat and stopping while the egg is soft-set. Crisp garlic chives and fluffy egg, a Chinese-diner staple.
Soy-sauce soup with curry powder and a thickening keeps it piping hot to the last slurp. A nostalgic bowl built on the same idea as diner curry.
Crisp-edged ham and runny yolks. A diner and coffee-shop breakfast staple made in one pan.
A bag of bean sprouts and a little pork make a proper main. Fast high-heat frying is the key to the crunch.
Thin-cut pork instead of loin. Dusting with cornstarch helps the sauce cling and keeps it tender.
Half a block of firm tofu is plenty filling. Cornstarch makes it crisp outside, and the sweet-savory sauce and bonito flakes keep the rice going even without meat.
Cheap chikuwa turned into a treat in an aonori batter. Shallow-fried in a pan, not deep-fried. Also works straight in a bento.
Just fry wieners and cabbage in ketchup. Sweet-and-sour and a hit with kids, the taste of a Showa dinner table.
Crisp-grilled thick fried tofu topped with plenty of sweet-savory meat miso. The 'Rice Companion' meat miso works as is.
A rock-bottom-cost set meal of just egg and tofu. Sweet tamagoyaki and cold tofu keep the rice going, light and clean.
No grill needed. Parchment keeps the skin from sticking and browns them nicely. An easy fish set meal you eat whole, head and all.
Fluffy with lots of cabbage. Kansai-style, where the tricks are to flip only once and never press it down.
Sear the noodles first for a toasty edge. A splash of Worcestershire added to the included sauce brings the street-stall taste to your pan.
Hand-kneaded flour dumplings in a soy-seasoned broth loaded with chicken and root vegetables. Chewy dumplings that fill you up, an old-fashioned soup.
Hand-crushed tofu and root vegetables fried in sesame oil, then simmered. Rooted in Buddhist temple cuisine, gently flavored with kombu and dried shiitake dashi.
A thin, roux-free curry made with curry powder. Garam masala at the end lifts the aroma, a dish for spice lovers.
Sear it, then simmer gently in a sweet-savory braise. Marinate overnight for ramen-shop-style braised pork. The leftover braise makes seasoned eggs too.
Cooling the pan on a damp cloth is the trick for an even color. Serve old-coffee-shop style with butter, honey and strawberry jam.
A hearty bowl topped with spicy mapo tofu as is. The thickened soup clings to the noodles and stays piping hot to the last bite.
A Kyoto-born rice bowl of abura-age and green onion simmered in a sweet-savory dashi and bound with soft egg. It looks just like oyakodon, but is meat-free, cheap and quick.
A guilty-pleasure bowl of sweet-savory gyudon piled with melting cheese. The carryover-melted cheese and sweet-savory broth are a perfect match, perfect for a late-night meal.
Chewy 100% wheat noodles (no buckwheat) in a pork-and-bonito broth, topped with sweet-savory stewed pork belly. An Okinawan staple with a gentle, salty flavor.