Ochazuke is usually rice in green tea with some salty toppings or pickled vegetables. It is very simple food that involves hardly any cooking. Ochazuke is a “you make it at the table” kind of thing, so you probably won’t find it on the menu at restaurants, especially outside Japan.
If you tell your friends that you ate Ochazuke for lunch, you’re basically saying you didn’t have anything on hand to eat or didn’t want to cook. However, even though it’s very simple, Ochazuke can still be very tasty. In Japan, you can buy instant Ochazuke seasoning packets, which are actually pretty good once in a while. They have rice crackers, seaweed, and a lot of salty seasonings. The instant seasonings are very convenient to have sometimes, but you might not want to eat that everyday because they contain MSG. At the other end of the spectrum, there are more elaborate Ochazuke styles using expensive seafood and Dashi stock that you eat at upscale restaurants.
What we made here is very easy, and most of the ingredients are in a typical Japanese pantry. If you don’t have some of the ingredients, substitute or omit them. We recommend you do use Salmon Flakes, pickled plum, or something salty though, because you may find there is not much taste from just the green tea.
Ochazuke is good when you don’t have much appetite too. There is nothing hard to digest in the ingredients. It can be great to eat after holidays or parties. Let your tummy rest from big feasts, and have some mild but tasty Ochazuke!
Ochazuke Recipe
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Ingredients
- Japanese rice crackers
- hot green tea
- Steamed Rice
- Salmon Flakes
- thinly cut roasted seaweed
- sesame seeds
- wasabi
- soy sauce
Instructions
- Put rice crackers in a plastic bag and smash them to coarse pieces. Prepare hot green tea.
- Put rice in a rice bowl, top with cracker pieces, salmon flakes, seaweed, sesame seeds, and wasabi. Pour hot green tea over rice. Add a little soy sauce if you want.
Video
Angeline Del Carmen
February 22, 2014 at 5:37 pmWhere do u buy mirin?
Noriko
February 23, 2014 at 5:38 pmAngeline,
Japanese (or other Asian)markets, some grocery stores in the US (Asian aisle), or online.
June
April 11, 2014 at 3:35 amThe ochazuke I ate in the Japanese restaurant have very nice soup! It doesn’t taste like green tea as the soup is salty and I can taste katsuobushi… That ochazuke taste really nice! Do u know how to make the soup for this kind of ochazuke?
Noriko
April 14, 2014 at 11:13 pmJune,
you could use seasoned dashi instead of green tea, but this is how you eat at home.
Izzie
January 16, 2016 at 6:32 pmThis is so good. I used to eat this as a kid. One of my all time favorite Japanese dishes.
Tobias
September 11, 2016 at 7:05 amI can’t seem to find a place where you explain ratios etc for how to make Ochazuke with your ichiban dashi, would you consider adding this to this recipe?