Oyakodon (Japanese Chicken and Egg Rice Bowl) Recipe (2024)

Super popular both at restaurants and at home, oyakodon (Japanese chicken and egg rice bowl) is sort of like the pizza of Japan—if pizza were the kind of soul-satisfying comfort food that's easy to make at home, with minimal ingredients, in about 20 minutes. This kind of quick and easy one-pot rice bowl is a huge time-saver in the kitchen.

In Japanese,oyameans "parent," andkomeans "child."Donburi, typically shortened to justdon, means "bowl," though, like "paella" or "casserole," it's also the name of any dish served in a donburi. These dishes are frequently (but not always) composed of ingredients simmered together in broth, then poured over rice. In this case, the oya and the ko are chicken and egg.

Making Oyakodon Broth

To make it, I start with the classic Japanese sweet-and-savory combination ofdashi, soy sauce, sake (make sure to use a dry one), and sugar. Some folks use mirin instead of sake; either will work. After combining these ingredients in a saucepan and bringing the mixture to a simmer, I add a thinly sliced onion. If you want to get all fancy or plan on making this alot, you can spring for a donburi pan, a small, saucer-like skillet designed specifically for simmering ingredients destined for rice-topping. Otherwise, a skillet will do fine. (You'll just have to squish the ingredients around a bit to get them to fit perfectly on top of a bowl of rice.)

I like to use a little bit more broth than is typical—I start with about a cup for every three eggs—because I like to simmer it down to tenderize the onion and to concentrate the flavor of the stock. I find that cooking the onions for a full five minutes at a hard simmer before adding some thinly sliced chicken gives them plenty of time to tenderize.

Additional Oyakodon Ingredients

I also like to use boneless, skinless chicken thighs, which stay juicy as they simmer, though you can easily use chicken breast if you prefer. Just be sure to slice the chicken thin so that it cooks rapidly, and don't let it overcook! Five to seven minutes is plenty of time for thighs, and three to four minutes should do for breast.

Once the chicken is cooked through, I add some sliced scallions. If you can get your hands onmitsuba, this is the place to use it. It's a Japanese herb that looks and tastes a bit like parsley, but the flavor is much milder. The aroma reminds me a little of watercress, but without any of the pepperiness. It won't make or break the dish, but it's nice to have if you can find it.

Next, I add eggs. The key here is to not overbeat them. You want to see distinct sections of egg white and yolk. Chopsticks are my favorite tool for beating eggs like this, and the chopsticks can then be used to drizzle the eggs into the simmering broth (see the video below). Traditionally, you'd cover and simmer the eggs until they're about half set, though nobody is stopping you from cooking them however you like them. Once the eggs are cooked, I pour the contents of the pan over rice. There will be quite a bit of extra juice. This is fine. It should soak into the rice and flavor the entire bowl.

Personally, I like to mix things up a bit by adding an extra egg white to the beaten eggs, reserving the yolk, cooking theoyakoto medium, then adding the extra raw egg yolk back to the top of the bowl for mixing in.

But that's just me.

August 2016