This may not be a popular post, but i have a problem. I dont really enjoy nabe. My wife is Japanese and will want to eat this all winter(starting now).
What i dont like about it? Its boring. British food gets a load of bandwagon hating on globally but some Japanese home cooked meals are just as if not more boring and bland/repetitive.
Additionally while I enjoy fish, i dont enjoy mixing fish and meat whether its a fish broth with meat or meat broth with fish. It seems most nabe stock is fish based.
Any tips for getting through nabe season for me? Is shabu shabu more or less the same?
49 comments
First off don’t jinx the weather!!! Secondly, with regard to nabe. There are so so many flavours of soup, different meats and veg you can use before you even start to think about the sauce you use so honestly I’d just say try until you find one you like and go from there. If not. Yakiniku is another option for cold weather food.
Nabe is great, absolutely love it.
If you don’t like it then I have a wild suggestion for you: *eat something else*
– kimchi nabe
– miso nabe
– soymilk nabe
– tonjiru/tonkotsu nabe
– chicken bone broth nabe (you can even make it yourself. 鶏ガラ is like 20-30 yen a piece at the supermarket).
– make your own damn flavor nabe.
You have complete freedom to make it how you like.
Sukiyaki, throw udon noodles in your nabes, pick a few ingredients you like and load up the nabe with those, try kimchee or miso bases…
Talk her into different and tasty nabe such as motsunabe, or why not even suppon?
Try to bring foreign hot pots in the mix such as french cheese fondue and fondue bourguignonne, Sichuan mala hotpot, Mongolian mutton hot pot and so on!
Totally agree with the mixing of seafood and other meat tastes.
Yeah, the nabe itself can be light flavor, but you have your ponzu or sesame seed sauce to dip it into so its not lacking flavor imo.
There are pre-made nabe soups too that come in a variety of flavors and you can adjust the water content to concentrate the flavor more, so maybe you can suggest that?
Shabu shabu is pretty much the same. It can be done with a very light flavor soup, or a stronger flavored soup. It’s up to you. I think most soups will be fish based broth, but I’m sure there are other broths as well.
Maybe you and your wife can take turns cooking so you don’t get nabe every day. That’s what my wife and I do.
I, too, am not a fan of any nabe I’ve had.
Second the kimchi nabe suggestion. Gives the broth so much more flavor and most Japanese people seem to like it so it shouldn’t be an issue. Also, you can put literally anything in nabe so see if you can find some specific ingredients you like/prefer and make sure they’re used more often!
Curry nabe. If you like Japanese curry you’ll enjoy it.
why not try making Thai Tom Yum? you can buy the paste at Gyomu
that stuff is good in cold weather, pair it with rice & an omelet and you’re fine
I use sesame dressing with sriracha as a dip for meat and veggies in nabe. Game changer! Try it
Sukiyaki all the way. I also enjoy a solid mizutaki, where chicken is usually the main protein source. Hinabe was a good fad I can still get by. Akita style kiritanpo nabe is my current favorite. Sapporo miso butter style is also junky and fun.
Honestly, I’d strongly suggest getting into the role of nabe-bugyo and building your own nabe style. Nabe is not a boring dish, unless you make it so. Does your family do the ojiya at the end? It’s to die for.
I’d give Chinese nabe a try! It’s delicious and quite different
My favorite is a Camembert and white wine nabe I found in a nabe recipe book a while back. It’s kind of a hybrid nabe and fondue and I make it several times each nabe season. I only use white wine for the soup and I don’t use any meat, although I sometimes wrap the cheese in bacon and fry it first 🙂 I use all different colours of vegetables. Here is something similar:
https://www.thermos.jp/recipe/detail/fry_146.html
I love the kimchi nabe and when I want to go wild, I sometimes add cheese on it!
Go shabu-shabu. You can throw in whatever you like, even splitting the broth to have different flavours.
I feel the same way, quite frankly. My husband is Japanese and he’s also a nabe fanatic. Whenever he says we’re going to have nabe for dinner I suggest oden instead, which I do like, and that works about half the time. The other half of the time I just eat my share of the nabe without complaint for the sake of domestic bliss.
Here are some ideas…
1. Tell your wife you don’t like nabe and ask to eat less, or zero of it.
2. Take responsibility for more of the cooking, cook what you like.
3. Eat a large lunch, or pre-eat on the way home. Eat a small portion of nabe.
4. Get a new wife who will take care of all the cooking but also dislikes nabe and Japanese food in general.
edit: I also like to point out how funny it is that OP doesn’t like nabe, but everyone’s go to suggestion is just to try different flavored nabes. XD
Mate, I get it. The food here is incredibly bland once you’ve tried everything. I miss my mango chutney, coconut powder, and all other sauces and other condiments.
Shabu shabu is doable *if* I get ponzu. Really not keen on the drab sesame seed sauce (goma).
Totally with you. No matter how you season it, how you mix and match, nabe is NOT like soup, curry, or any other food in any kind of broth.
Nabe is tasteless and anemic. Nabe is just wet ingredients. Nabe is preposterous.
You seem new.
Nabe has a huge amount of variety in flavour and ingredients. Very few nabe are fish-based (though many do contain fish extracts). For example, the most popular nabe base, kimchi nabe ([see here](https://www.ichibiki.co.jp/product/nabe-tsuyu-sauce/57475_1/)), is mostly soy sauce, sugar, honey, red bean paste, miso and gochujang. You definitely can’t taste any fish.
Apart from kimchi, there are a massive variety of flavours, from standard miso and soy sauce to tonkotsu (pork bone), chicken and lemon, soymilk, yuzu and pepper, chinese, curry etc.
If you’re that bothered about fish extracts being in Japanese food then I have bad news for you. Fish stock is used in gyudon (beef bowl), nikujaga (pork and potatoes), Japanese curry, okonomiyaki and takoyaki and pretty much every other Japanese food. Trust me when I say that none of the above taste like fish – fish stock is just used to improve the flavour.
(I agree with you reg. British food, some of the best food in the world is British and it gets way too much hate)
Nabe is lazy day food for me. Have a bunch of leftover veggies/meat but too lazy to actually cook something? Well, nabe it is then.
Of course, it doesn’t apply to all ingredients but most of the stuff I buy usually is good for nabe anyway. But I feel you. Nabe is generally great but every other day might be a bit too much.If you’re tired of the Japanese-type of nabe, maybe you can convince your wife to make (or even just make them yourself), what I would call it international nabe. I.e., hot pot/soup/similar dish from other countries. Or maybe you can have nabe but make a side dish to accompany it.
Hahaha. I have had nabe two days ago and I was thinking exactly the same. All this preparation and effort just to eat some bland boiled vegetables..
So at the store, the fish dashi is literally right next to the chicken buillion. You could ask your wife to use chicken or beef buillion and not dashi….That would fix everything I guess? Am I missing something?
I just make English ‘nabe’ (a stew). Goes down wonderfully.
My wife usually keeps nabe healthy using minimal flavoring. Some konbu, tofu, vegetables, mince chicken and the lightest pinch of dashi.
I find adding a bit of black vinegar compliments this setup so well. Highly recommend it.
When it gets boring you could always offer to cook something you like.
I love Mizutaki nabe with Goma-dare sauce. I could eat it everyday, specially in winter
I’ve got some Japanese food I don’t really like and I will say flavors here can be repetitive But I’m sorry… there is no way the grey matter that is British food can be tastier.
The only nabe I like has a ton of meat/seafood in it. Crab, shrimp, oysters, fish etc. Otherwise I end up throwing a lot of seasoning in it. Make it spicy and then at least it isn’t bland
Make your own base or try different bases, you can get giant bags of different bases at the grocery store for like 200 yen. Different veggies and meat, your decision, most people eat different kinds of nabe at home.
And, at the end, when it’s just broth left, throw in noodles. That’s such a delicious way to finish off a dinner! I like to use udon noodles, my husband prefers yakisoba.
Mala nabe is the shite!
Does your wife make her own nabe dashi? Otherwise im not sure how you can say all nabe tastes the same, the supermarket will stock (no pun intended!) like 2 dozen different kinds of nabe soups, from standard bland chicken or fish dashi to more interesting ones like spicy tantanmen, ebi miso, tomato flavor, and some that are made in partner with famous ramen shops based on their ramen broth. Part of the fun every winter in our family is seeing what new nabe broths come out with and trying them out.
Of course, I too would get tired of nabe if we had it more than once a week, so if you are getting that I am sorry for you.
Take over some of the cooking…that’s what I do. Make potato soup, goulash or nikujaga. If I want enchiladas, I make ‘em. Gravy and mash potatoes…that’s my secret recipe. Chicken noodle soup is dead easy to make as well.
Some things I’ve learned about eating nabe with Japanese people is that it’s (for lack of a better word) terrible. Nabe in and of itself can be great, but it all depends on what you put in. Tbh I’ve never heard anyone say this as a blanket statement before and I don’t know your history, but I feel like you’ve just had bad nabe. My first hint was that you’ve had nabe with fish which, I agree with you, is not good (I like fish, just not in nabe). Ways to spice it up as a gaijin:
– potatoes – My first time having nabe was actually with all foreigners and I actually had no idea this WASN’T a staple thing until the first time I had nabe with Japanese people. But trust me, it works.
– no fish anything (I’m not sure where you got the idea most stock is fish-based because this is not true)
– If you don’t like something just don’t use it? There’s no hard rule to what goes into nabe. Don’t like something? Just don’t put it in.
sesame soymilk, tantan nabe are great, good flavor for non fish eaters. とりやさい is also a decent one if you like white miso.
How often are we talking? 1x per week max, I hope? Here are some things I do: I am not a big pork person, so I’ll get a pack of it because my wife and child like it but I will also get a pack of chicken balls. That didn’t come out right. Chicken minced ball things.
Anyway, that and sriracha. I use sriracha in the soup and right on the minced ball things.
Also, you’ve got to change up the soups. I like the miso or spicy miso and there’s a tonnyu sesame one as well and then the tonkotsu soup is good.
I put sausages in my nabe when I’m fed up with Japanese flavors. They also had mini niku-man for a few years that were amazing in nabe but I haven’t seen them the last few seasons. Niku-dango are good too.
I just wanted to post that I absolutely LOVE nabe. All kinds! There are so many soup bases and it’s an awesome way to get all my protein and veg into one meal. My favorite is yuzu shoyu with chicken oil. The umami level is off the charts! It’s probably
our favorite meal to have at home, and the kids love it too, a big bonus.
I’m on the same boat, so I just don’t go to nabe parties.
I suggest divorce
Tabasco Scorpion sauce has been making my meals more exciting lately.
Don’t look at whats in the base and you won’t mind.
I genuinely dislike everything about Japanese home cooked food. I like ramen, sushi and stuff like that, but the stuff they eat daily at home is just unbearable for me.
Find a flavor you like. I don’t really like it either.
You can use dipping sauces/condiments to add flavor and variety to your food without affecting anyone elses nabe experience. I like keeping a dab of yuzu kosho on a small dish and putting some on each bite, but I have also used rayu, mayo, sriracha, tabasco, ume/shiso paste etc when necessary
Meanwhile I’ve been waiting all summer for it to be nabe season again. There’s so many kinds of nabe, and it’s so customizable, that I don’t know how you can not like it!
Nabe is better than sex…there…I said it
It can be boring. My daughter always chucks various kimchis into it to spice hers up.