Tempura is one of the most famous Japanese foods outside Japan. It is battered and deep fried seafood and vegetables. Tempura can be as formal as you want it to be at very expensive Tempura specialty restaurants in Japan, or casual home cooking. It is not that hard to fry Tempura, but you may need to practice a couple of times. However, it is worthwhile because freshly made Tempura is just so heavenly!
Tips for making perfect Tempura
At the hands of skilled Tempura chefs at nice restaurants, Tempura is light and crispy fare even though it is fried food. Seafood such as shrimps and fish as well as seasonal vegetables are prepared in front of you. It is so good and this kind of Tempura would not give you heartburn. By following a few tips below, you can make the perfect Tempura at home!
- Choose the right ingredients: There are a lot of Japanese restaurants in the U.S. that serve Tempura, but their vegetables are usually not really so suitable for Tempura like broccoli and carrots. Broccoli florets get too soft and burned but the stalk is undercooked. Carrots… just don’t taste that great in Tempura. Understandably it is hard to get some traditional Japanese vegetables like lotus root, but others like green beans are everywhere in the US as well. You don’t need to use zucchini (unless you just love it)! Recommended vegetables for Tempura which are not so hard to find everywhere are green beans, brown onions, sweet potatoes, kabocha squash, eggplant, and shiitake mushrooms.
- Use ice cold water: One of the most important points to make the tempura batter light and crispy is by using the ice cold water. This big difference in the temperature of batter and oil helps the finished product to be crispy.
- Use low gluten flour: The best flour to use for tempura is wheat flour with low gluten such as cake flour. All purpose flour or bread flour that have high gluten content make the batter heavier. Some people mix the potato starch or rice flour with the wheat flour for a lighter texture.
- Do not overmix the batter: Similar to the choice of flour, overmixing the flour develops the gluten in the flour, which makes the batter heavy. Once you pour the cold water into the flour mixture, gently mix using chopsticks until almost combined. The best Tempura batter is not fully mixed with a lot of lumps of flour.
- Maintain the high oil temperature: It is important to maintain the high temperature of the frying oil consistently around 350 to 375 Fahrenheit (175 to 190C). In order to keep the temperature high, you don’t want to put too much of the ingredients in the oil at once. It doesn’t take too long for the ingredients to be cooked through in hot oil, so make multiple batches instead of trying to cook all at once.
What to serve with Tempura
- Tempura sauce called Tentsuyu for dipping or simply use salt. Tentsuyu is very similar to Mentsuyu (noodle dipping sauce). If you use our Mentsuyu recipe, just dilute the sauce with two parts water.
- Steamed Rice – freshly cooked steamed rice is a perfect accompaniment of hot and crispy Tempura. Tempura Donburi is one of the most popular rice bowls in Japan for this reason!
- Soba noodles – Tempura is very commonly served with soba noodles, both hot or cold. Try our Tempura Soba Recipe (hot) or Zaru Soba Recipe (cold).
Short Video
A full recipe video is also available in the recipe box below and on our YouTube channel.
More Tempura Recipe
Tempura Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 4 shrimp
- 4 slices kabocha squash
- 4 slices sweet potato
- 4 slices eggplant
- 6 green beans
- 3/4 cup cake flour ( )
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 3/4 cup water with 3-4 ice cubes
- oil ( for deep frying)
- Mentsuyu
Instructions
- Cut vegetables into 1/4″ thick slices. Make diagonal cuts on shrimp to help straighten.
- Put cake flour, baking powder, salt in a medium bowl and whisk well.
- Add ice water into flour mixture and stir with chopsticks (not whisk) about 10 times. It’s OK to have a lot of lumps in batter.
- Heat oil to very high temperature (375F). Dip vegetables and shrimp in batter, and deep fry until they float and are cooked through.
Video
This recipe was originally published in April, 2013. The post was updated on February 24, 2025 with more useful content, new photos and a short video.
9 Comments
I couldn’t believe I could make Tempura at home. The recipe worked perfectly. My family loved it. I noted that keeping the oil at ~375F is important. Also, the sweet potato must not be sliced thicker than 1/4-inch, otherwise it will take a long time to fry
Thanks a lot for sharing your secret recipe.
Eric,
Glad you liked our recipe! Thanks for the tips!
I know this is over 2 years late but another thing you can do with sweet potato is to boil it for about 3 minutes before placing it in the tempura. This way it is partially cooked and the dip in oil will cook it the rest of the way.
What’s the best oil to use when frying tempura? Thanks!
i really like the recipe of tge tempura it was awesome!
Crayon,
Glad you liked our Tempura recipe!
Crayon,
Glad you liked our Tempura recipe!
Hello there, I wanted to know if you could make a video about how to make pickles?
I really like eating pickles with my Japanese food especially when I go to Japanese restaurants but I have no idea how to make them – Japanese style – for myself to eat at home. I really love your recipes and made a few of them. I’m only asking since you don’t have a video for it.
Hope to make more Japanese food with your videos. 🙂
Katie
It’s unbelievable how easy and quick you can make tempura by your own. Thank you so much for the recipe! We will make it again. Greetings from Germany!