Authentic Japanese meals you can make in the US?

16 comments

1. You can definitely scare up the ingredients for oyakodon.

2. Japanese curry is cheap. Walmart some other stores sell curry mix that’s imported. I love making it.
   https://www.walmart.com/ip/Japanese-Curry-Mix-S-B-Golden-Curry-Medium-Hot-220g/928880268

   Also onigiri are pretty easy. Rice ball with filling.

   Also ramen etc can be made healthy, can use noodles from packets but make your own broth and add what vegis, meat you want. Or even learn to make your own noodles. Simple recipe.

3. Tonkatsu is pretty similar to US chicken fried steak in prep. Just grab the ingredients from an Asian food Mart. Don’t skip the sauce.

4. You can make a LOT, especially if you’re near a good Asian or Japanese market.

   Try the YouTube channels

   Cooking with Dog

   Japanese Cooking 101.

   Also the book Japanese Cooking Recipes (https://www.amazon.co.jp/英語で作る料理の教科書-川上-文代/dp/4405011206)

5. In my humble opinion this is the last site you’ll ever need: https://www.justonecookbook.com/

   My Japanese mother-in-law gets annoyed because everyone keeps on comparing my cooking these recipes to hers and that mine taste better. 😇

6. For a good broth go to an Asian shop or a whole foods. They carry bonito and Kombu and make yourself a nice Dashi and that is a good start to damn near any dish.

7. When I lived in Japan I used this website to cook all my recipes since it was way cheaper to buy local Japanese ingredients: j-simplerecipes.com

   Nowadays I use justonecookbook.com a lot.

   My favorites to make are curry, tonkatsu sandwiches, sukiyaki, tonshouga yaki, katsudon, oyakodon, gyudon, nabeyaki udon, okonomiyaki, steamed gyoza, nikujaga… the list goes on but I haven’t come across a recipe on either of these sites that I don’t like.

8. Yakitori

9. Miso soup is pretty good. And there’s lots of variety in what goes in the soup, even in Japan. My late grandmother used to put in canned mackerel and eggs in there! But I guess the popular stuff is seaweed, tofu and nameko mushrooms.

10. Depending on where you live, try checking if there’s an Asian supermarket nearby. Japan/Chinatown type districts and neighborhoods with a large immigrant population often do. You can typically find a lot of specialized stuff there for cheap that you’ll struggle to find in a typical American or European store.

    By the way, if you want the real Japanese breakfast experience, try some [tamago kake gohan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamago_kake_gohan). It’s a real rite of passage for people who grew up with western breakfast sensibilities.

11. The easiest Japanese dish you can make with ingredients found from your local supermarket is Niku-jaga.

12. You should be paying $30-$50 for a big bag of Japanese rice. Don’t skimp on that part, and you are half way there

13. Healthy -ish stuff I’ve made recently that mostly doesn’t require a trip to H Mart:

    Cold soba noodles and tsuyu
    Japanese curry
    Shouga yaki
    Okonomiyaki
    Nabe- I like to do kimchi miso broth

14. Find an Asian supermarket and get soy sauce, mirin, cooking sake and you can make most Japanese food with those three ingredients plus sugar

15. As a non authentic but Japanese inspired lazy option, I have been putting random frozen vegetables and rice in my rice cooker, salmon or chicken like meat option in the air fryer (covered in a marinade), and then make a quick sauce if needed such as soy sauce, honey, ginger paste, rice vinegar, mayo, sesame seeds. Then I cut the cooked meat, and mix the veggie rice and drizzle a bit of the sauce. Another fun option is to julienne veggies (with a julienne peeler) and throw that and some shredded nori on top of your rice bowl.

16. I mean really depends what you can get in stores near you/are willing to ship online. Even then im sure certain rarer ingredients can be swapped out with something similar.