I’ve been living in inaka Hokkaido for about a month, and have been struggling to avoid getting those delicious konbini bentos every day. I’m not a great cook, and I live a 40 min round trip walk from the nearest supermarket, so it’s difficult to buy lots of ingredients in one go. Also my Japanese isn’t great so it’s hard to tell what a lot of stuff is in the supermarket.
Does anyone have any recommendations for relatively easy-to-make recipes with minimal ingredients? I also have a wheat intolerance, so I’m trying to avoid noodles etc (proving difficult lol)
13 comments
Hello, I am in about the same situation. I buy the ~270-350円 portions of meat (some are pre-seasoned with teriyaki or other sauces), potatoes, onions, and peppers. I fry the vegetables, cook the meat, and that’s all. It works out to like 1.5 meals. I always have potato chips with it.
Curry is fine sometimes but I’m just not good at it and it makes my place smell rank, it’s reserved for before-burnable-garbage day.
Good luck, I know how you feel. 500円 Seiko Mart Hot Chef meal with a Coke is soooo easy.
Unless you need to save cash at the expense of time, effort and taste, just keep buying those bentos. The reason they exist is that there’s a market in Japan for them.
just translate this website using chrome. very simple recipes. ingredients are what you typically see in any supermarket.
https://www.kurashiru.com/
I like this site because they usually feature what is on season ingredients and recipes for those ingredients.
you can also type an ingredient, say しめじ (shimeji) and it will show you recipes
First: get yourself a rice-cooker. This will save you a lot of time and stress, especially if you cannot eat wheat. And then start thinking of your meals as of „rice + something else“. This “something“ could be:
moyashi stir-fry with butter and curry powder
agedoufu
fried renkon
simple roasted fish
daikon boiled in dashi with some miso on top
onion-bacon soup
okra wrapped in cheese and bacon
etc.
Also, you can always make yourself chahan or onigiri or omraisu.
These are staples you will find the recipes for online. Most are pretty self-explanatory though.
Just base everything on rice and know your veggies. Also, be careful about wheat in soy sauce.
There are gluten-free brands though, and I tend to get it online, although some big supermarkets might carry it as well: イチビキ 小麦を使わない丸大豆しょうゆ
Happy cooking!
In supermarkets, google-translate could help quite a bit with identifying ingredients. Now that I think about it, it’s also very useful for helping with instructions on the packet.
http://www.justhungry.com is a nice source for recipes. Miso soup, nabe, and tonjiru are easy starting points, especially if you cheat and just buy your dashi in tea-bag form or bottled.
Check if you have a gas stovetop. If not, buy LP gas cartridge and portable stovetop.
Step 1: get a rice cooker.
Step 2: get a wok.
Step 3: buy rice, meat, onions, carrots, cabbage, salt, pepper, soy sauce, mirin, different flavored stirfry sauce packs (check there is no 小麦 in it), whatever. (Consider washing and cutting vegetables beforehand and saving them clean and cut for the next few days.)
Step 4: cook rice and stir fry your meat and veggies.
Meal takes about 20 minutes, or however long your rice cooker takes. Stir frying takes like 2 minutes (with gas, only do it with gas, stir frying sucks with electric).
Now you may not save much money, but you learned a life skill and your health will thank you for are getting fresh meat and veggies in your diet. You can later branch out to things like mappo tofu (can also buy sauce packs for that too), fried rice, yakisoba (maybe not with the wheat allergy), or if you’re getting more creative Pad Thai (because rice noodles) because it’s all basically made the same way.
You can also mix some garlic, ginger paste, and chicken stock in with your rice after you wash it and throw a chicken breast on top of it before starting your rice cooker. Everything cooks up super nice. Then drizzle some sweet chili sauce on in and enjoy your 2 minutes of effort.
Probably worth noting that a lot of konbini bentos have wheat in them, so be careful. I agree that rice cookers are great as you can use it to make soups, stews, rice bread etc. as well as just rice.
If the supermarket is far away, I also recommend buying frozen or canned veggies as they last longer so they won’t go bad before you can eat them. Mix veggies, rice and eggs for cheap and easy food. Look out for discounted meat at the end of the day, portion it and freeze it.
There are also gluten free pastas, noodles, panko, soy sauce etc. around in major supermarkets, often with kids’ food, but you can easily find pre-made curries, soups and sauces without wheat. Just check the ingredients for 小麦. Otherwise you can bulk buy the gluten free stuff on Amazon.
I would look into getting an airfryer. They aren’t particularly expensive and you can cook almost anything in them.
Pretty much everything in the combini has wheat 小麦. Better off listening to others, get a rice cooker and go from there. Chicken breast is insanely cheap here, and good fish too. Make a few meals to freeze and you should be golden.
Sounds like you need a car
You can easily get a weeks worth of supplies from the supermarket in one go, carrying for twenty minutes. Backpack, two hand carry bags. Dont need to fill em but distribute the weight. If you preserve breads fruits and veggies properly and freeze what you wont eat soon it will last. Maybe a one off trip if you buy a big rice bag to last you a month+
And regarding knowing what stuff is – google translate in the evening when its not busy, or just buy food you recognise
Im also not a great cook but i got out the habit of fast food with sweet potatoes and carrots, just boil and mash! Add tofu or fried salmon for protein, and some other veggies if im feeling fancy
Good luck!
Buy a cheap bike. It massively extends your range.
Many (most?) supermarkets in Japan will deliver your groceries to you for like 500 yen. Ask for “takuhai” (宅配) when you go. Or you can just go online and save yourself the trip. Any of the big ones (Life, Aeon, etc.) will deliver. Get someone to help you if you have trouble with the Japanese and google translate.
And cooking is a skill anyone can learn. Look up some simple recipes and go from there. It really just comes down to practice and trial and error. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and screw things up. The worst it’ll cost you is a not very tasty dinner, or at worst, a couple hundred yen ending up in the garbage.