This is one of my favorite pasta recipes. The garlic and bacon mingle well together, and the cabbage gives it a satisfying texture. This is a great meal to make on a budget, but essentially it’s just a fancy bacon delivery system!

If you’re in Hiroshima, the people will call this simply “okonomiyaki”, but everywhere else it’s known as Hiroshimayaki or “Hiroshima style”. Hiroshimayaki is heavy on the cabbage and contains yakisoba—much different than Kansai style, which you can find here: Kansai style Okonomiyaki

This is a lightly seasoned Japanese pasta, and is great for a school or work lunch box. Enjoy!

This recipe is for fried gyoza (dumplings). Many restaurants actually use frozen dumplings, but this is how you make them by hand. They taste the best right after you pull them out of the fryer.

Konnyaku is made from konnyaku potato (yams). It has lots of fiber and is very low in calories, so its very good for your diet!

This is an old favorite of mine. Great for an afternoon or late night snack. It’s easy and always tastes great! I’ll often have these for my obento (lunch box) too!

Gomoku Yakisoba is crispy, grilled noodles with vegetables, pork, and seafood, in a hearty, thick sauce. It’s great to make with your friends and enjoy in a large dish on a hot plate around the table.

Mizuna is a Japanese vegetable, also called Japanese Mustard or California Peppergrass, which used for hotpots, salads, and pasta, among other things. This is just a quick little side dish you can throw together, especially if you have some mizuna leftover from other recipe.

Sweet and Sour Pork is a popular pork recipe from China (there it is called “Subuta”) and is very common in North America.

Many recipes call for ketchup for the “sour,” but we’ll take a different approach here.

This is a Chinese style stir fry. You can use Chinese soup powder or chicken soup powder for sauce and for the stir fry, Chinese cabbage, carrot, pork, other vegetables, and mix it with katakuriko to thicken. We also have donburi dish called “Chuka don” in which you put Chinese stir fry on a ball of rice.

We use ground daikon in many ways: with grilled fish, grilled egg, soba, nabe, etc. It makes for a light dish, also has lots of vitamin C, so it’s good for your health! This recipe contains a little bacon, and as you know, everything goes better with bacon, so enjoy!

Mizore is the Japanese word for sleet, and nabe means “hot pot.” This recipe contains ground daikon, which many people think resembles wet snow, hence the “sleet”. Its tasty and contains lots of vitamins. Also it is very good with mochi (Japanese rice cake). We eat a lot mochi in New Year season, so it’s perfect for the new year!

This recipe is good for an appetizer or side dish. Easy and fun way to eat vegetables!

Kushikatsu is deep fried meat, seafood or vegetable on a stick. “Kushi” is Japanese for stick, and katsu means cutlet. There are many kushikatsu restaurants in Japan. Osaka is famous for kushikatsu. Stand up kushikatsu bars abound for people to patronize after work with friends and cold beers.

Japanese: Tonkotsu Soup no Takikomigohan.
Takikomigohan is a Japanese rice dish with mushrooms, vegetables, meat, or fish, and seasoned with dashi and soy sauce. For this, I made the soup from pork chop bones and added it to the takikomigohan. It tastes great and makes use of the stuff you’d normally toss out.

Mushrooms cooked in butter is like paradise fried in heaven sauce. They are so tasty, and this recipe is pretty much good with any kind of mushrooms, so please try your favorite type, or whatever you can get your hands on!

Miso is a staple of Japanese cuisine, typically produced by fermenting soy beans. It is a delicious, salty,seasoning used to make not only miso soup, but a wide variety of Japanese dishes. Misoyaki (the “yaki” means grilled, e.g. “teriyaki”, or “yakitori”) is one of these. Before cooking, the meat is marinated in a mixture of miso, soy sauce, sake, sugar, sesame oil, garlic, and green onion (i.e. the essentials), then fried and paired with bean sprouts and green bean salad. Enjoy!

Japanese: Butaniku no Umeshiso Maki.
As you probably know by now, “butaniku” is the Japanese word for pork. “Buta” means pig and “niku” is our word for meat. The kanji for meat is 肉. A wildly popular comic and cartoon series in the early 80′s called “Kinnikuman” featured a superhero with the same name who had a 肉 character tattooed on his head (because he was very muscular). Look for the link below and enjoy this dish while you’re watching Japanese anime!

Japanese: Buta Kimchi.
This interesting blend of cultures is very popular at izakaya and teppanyaki restaurants in Japan. If you’ve never tried kimchi, it is a delicious Korean side-dish, a medley of pickled vegetables and spices. Coupled with pork (buta) and sesame-oil, then stir-fried for just a few minutes, it makes for a quick, exotic meal.

Chanpuru is a popular Okinawan dish and means, roughly, “something mixed.” Goya is a bitter fruit, and looks very weird, but it is very tasty with this tofu, egg, and pork stir-fry. Okinawa food is very different from regular Japanese cuisine. You can find many new and adventurous dishes at an Okinawa restaurant.

Japanese: Butaniku no Jyagaimo Yaki.
This recipe is simple and easy to make many servings, so it’s good for a party. The sauce is an oyster/okonomiyaki sauce blend and tastes delicious. After cooking, the potatoes will be very tender so you can even eat them with the chopsticks.

Japanese: Harumaki. Harumaki originated in China a long, long time ago. Haru, or 春, means “spring” in Japanese and “maki” translates to “roll” (sushi rolls are also called “maki”). Harumaki might look difficult to prepare, but it is actually very easy. However, it takes a little extra time than most of my recipes. Enjoy!

Tonjiru warms the body, so it is a common item found at winter festivals in Japan. The taste is different from regular miso soup, and varies from family to family and prefecture to prefecture. Many teisyoku restaurants serve this soup, so drop by when you’re in Japan and try it out!

Reisyabu literally means cold shabu-shabu, a traditional Japanese hot pot. The pork sheds a lot of the fat when it is boiled and tastes great with salad and sesame dressing.

Japanese: Hakusai no Tonyu Ni. Hakusai is a common vegetable we use in hot pots. It’s also called “napa”, or Chinese cabbage in English. Chinese cabbage gets very soft and sweet when it is boiled and has dietary fiber and lots of healthy minerals. The Japanese word for soy milk is “tōnyū” ( 豆乳 ) and is a healthy alternative to cream in this recipe.

This recipe takes a long time to make it but it is really tasty and the meat is so tender you don’t even need a knife!

Japanese: Ma-bou Dofu. Mapo Tofu originated in China and it is very popular in Japan. Most Chinese restaurants in Japan serve this and also we also make it at home. When combined with steamed rice we call it “ma-bou don.” Add more doubanjiang if you like spicy food!

Gyoza came from China a long time ago and it is a very popular food in Japan. Most Ramen restaurants serve Gyoza, and we also have Gyoza specialty restaurants. You can find deep fried Gyoza in Japanese restaurants in foreign countries, but our regular gyoza is grilled. We also have boiled and steamed gyoza. Hand made is much better than frozen gyoza. Please try!

Japanese: Butaniku to Oba no Itamemono.
This dish is extremely fast and easy to make, and very tasty. Adding the shiso leaves and sesame oil imparts a strong, fresh, almost peppery mint flavor.

Butaniku means pork, nasu is eggplant and itame is “stir-fried”. Many Teishoku-ya (a restaurant similar to an American diner) serve this kind of food. Miso is a very addictive taste, and is great on steamed rice. A friend of mine gave me lots of fresh eggplant, so I am make many eggplant recipes now!

Pork rolls are very good with green perilla. We call it Oba or Aojiso or Shiso. This leaf has a wonderful smell, but is a little difficult to find outside of Japan. It has lot of beta-carotene. Some izakaya (Japanese pub) serve this food.

Japanese love fried rice! We call it Yakimeshi, yaki means grill, and meshi means rice. We make it at home but ramen restaurants serve the best fried rice! We have many kinds of fried rice, beef, spicy, Japanese pickle, etc. I made a basic one this time.

This is a Japanese style croquette—we call it “korokke”. It is deep fried crushed potato. We also have a cream sauce croquette with shrimp or crab. My favorite way to eat it is to buy it directly from deli and eat is on the street! It is super yummy! I made four servings this time, please half all the ingredients if you want to make it for 2. I always make extra and keep it freezer.

Katsudon is rice, egg, and sauce topped with a pork cutlet. It is a very commonly cooked at home and it is prepared differently in almost every district in Japan. Many Japanese restaurants serve katsudon, most commonly in udon restaurants.

Tsukune are Japanese meatballs. We use ground chicken or pork and you can grill them or add them to a soup. Yakitori restaurants grill them on a stick. They are really yummy. I made pork tsukune this time.

This is one of the oldest and most popular Japanese spaghetti recipes. Mixed with ketchup and fresh vegetables, it is a popular menu for coffee shops and we also often make it at home. It is so easy and also tastes great!

Japanese: Butahikiniku no Oyster Sauce Itame. We often make stir-fry with many kinds of ingredients at home. Mothers like making stir-fry because you can use whatever you have in your freezer—easy and quick. We usually eat stir-fry with steamed rice. I use oyster sauce and sesame oil this time, so it is kind of like Chinese-style Japanese food.

Ginger Pork is called “Shogayaki” in Japanese. It means to grill with ginger. It is a standard meal to cook in the home. In Japan you can find shogayaki in a Teishoku-ya (similar to an American diner). The typical way to make Shogayaki is to marinate the pork in the spices before cooking, but a famous TV host named ‘Tamori’ started a the trend of not marinating the pork and now many Japanese cook it in this fashion.

Many Japanese will make yakisoba during the summer months on a BBQ grill. Yakisoba can also be found in the “yatai” (booths where food is sold) at various summer festivals, and at teppankayi restaurants. This recipe is very light, but you can thicken it with various sauces (see notes below).

The pork cutlet sandwich, or “katsu sando” as it is known in Japan is a popular lunchbox item and can be found in many convienence stores and on
the ubiquitous food carts wheeling up and down the aisles on Japanese bullet trains, or “shinkansen.” Katsu sandwiches are not only delicious, but very easy to make.