Eggplant and ground beef are a great taste combination. They are good in meat sauce for pasta, and wonderful in curry too! Eggplant gets very tender and becomes a nice melt-in-your-mouth texture. Well-browned beef gives a tasty flavor to the sauce.
Sesame Sauce is a very convenient seasoning for vegetables. It is quick and easy to make. Then just mix with your favorite steamed or boiled veggies. It is also very healthy because there is no added fat or oil in it. When you eat salads, a lot of the time, the dressing is the problem for healthy eating.
Broccoli is one of the super vegetables, and you would like to eat a lot, but maybe not plain. Instead of cheese or butter, use this Sesame Sauce, and it doesn’t add very much calories.
Somen is very tasty and a super easy dish, but it is a somewhat light meal by itself. Gomoku means ‘variety of ingredients’ in Japanese. Here I put cucumber, ham, Kinshi Tamago, and Benishoga on Somen, but you can add any of your favorite veggies or protein. With vegetables and meat along with noodles, Gomoku Somen is a more complete meal. By cutting everything into thin strips, it is easier to eat, and you can enjoy all the toppings in every bite. You may dip or just pour the sauce over the noodles.
Pork Shigureni may not be as popular as beef, but it is as tasty as Beef Shigureni, I think. The way you cut the meat changes the texture as well. Although you can use thinly sliced meat if you want, here I cut pork into thin strips. It is chunkier and gives a more substantial feel to the meat.
I always thought “proper” Nikujaga is made with beef but never with pork. That’s how my mom always made it, so I made it that way too.
One day a friend told me that Nikujaga at her home was always with pork. Blasphemy! However, I didn’t have sliced beef on hand today, so I tried it with pork like hers, and it was actually really yummy! Sometimes I’m too stubborn to change certain recipes, but it is good to be open to new ideas. Chicken must work too!
Summer is a great time to eat fresh corn. Sweet and crispy. Here I made a very simple and easy fresh corn salad with a Japanese twist.
Ponzu Sauce is a tangy sauce which is great for meat, tofu, and vegetables. Ponzu Sauce works as a salad dressing without any oil, and that is very healthy.
Donburi is rice with some topping in a bowl. Typical toppings are chicken and egg (Oyakodon), Tempura (Tendon), or beef (Gyudon). It’s a complete meal in a bowl.
The topping, however, can be anything you like, really. I had leftover baked salmon from dinner the night before, so it was recycled into this dish. And I have to say, salmon still made a pretty good Donburi.
If you ‘d like to see more details on Donburi dishes, please check out our Oyakodon Video.
This is a spinach salad with a flavorful sesame sauce (hourensou no goma-ae) that is very similar to our Green Beans with Sesame Sauce, and is a great little side dish. It is super quick to make, but very nutritious and tasty.
It’s best to make your own ground sesame using Suribachi (mortar) and Surikogi (pestle), but you can also use store-bought ground sesame. Freshly ground sesame has a stronger aroma.
If you’d like more detailed instructions, please watch our Green Beans with Sesame Sauce video as a reference.
You bought Miso paste, but don’t know what to do with it other than Miso Soup? Here is an idea for a meat dish using Miso. Marinading with Miso makes chicken tender and flavorful. And as usual, it is very easy to make! Just start earlier in the day or the night before to have enough time to marinade the chicken.
If you’d like more detailed instructions, please watch our Miso Grilled Salmon video. It has almost the same steps as this chicken recipe except the grilling time.
If you want one more little dish for your dinner, this may be it! A quick and easy side dish salad, but with a little kick from Wasabi.
Avocado and a Wasabi mayo sauce make an unusual match. If you are not sure about the hotness, go easy on the amount of Wasabi paste. If you like the zing, go for more.
We have another salad using Japanese mayonnaise dressing, Potato Salad. If you like this Avocado Salad, come and take a look our Potao Salad video, too.