July 10, 2020

Japanese Nikujaga Recipe

Nikujaga is a traditional Japanese dish primarily made of two ingredients: niku (meat) and jagaimo (potatoes). It is one of the most popular comfort food in Japan. In this recipe, I used thinly sliced beef, stewed with potatoes, carrots, and onions. I also added snow peas! It is flavored with a slightly sweet soy sauce base. I hope you enjoy this Japanese Nikujaga Recipe!

While nikujaga is not often found in restaurants, it is often cooked at home. It’s similar to American beef stew, but it contains less meat and less broth. It is probably the most popular stewed dish in Japan. If you like Japanese stewed dishes, please check out our nimono recipe.

Tips for Making Nikujaga Recipe

If you mix the nikujaga too much, the potatoes can fall apart, so be careful.
Also, if you cook the sliced beef too long, it can become hard. The cooking time is important. As soon as it browns, please add the other ingredients and continue to the next step in the recipe.
Beef is used in this recipe, but other meats such as pork can also be used. Pork is commonly used in eastern Japan.
Other recipes use shirataki noodles. I’ve also used shirataki noodles for this recipe and recommend it if you have it available. A similar recipe that also uses shirataki noddles can be found here.
There are other versions of this recipe that use tuna instead of pork or beef, or also include mushrooms. This recipe is very versatile and can be used with various ingredients you may have left over in your fridge.

Japanese Nikujaga Recipe (Beef Stew)

Nikujaga is traditional Japanese dish primarily made of two ingredients: niku (meat) and jagaimo (potatoes). It is one of the most popular comfort food in Japan. In this recipe, I use thinly sliced beef stewed with potatoes, carrots, and onions. I also added snow peas! It is flavored with a slightly sweet soy sauce based sauce. I hope you enjoy it!

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Total Time 45

Course Main Course

Cuisine Japanese

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

Main Ingredient Preparation

3 potatoes
1 carrot
1 onion
30 grams snow peas (~10 pods)
0.25 tsp salt (for the snow peas)
200 grams sliced beef (~1/2 lb)

Sauce

1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp dashi
0.5 cups water
2 tbsp cooking alcohol
2 tbsp mirin
1 tsp sugar
3 tbsp soy sauce

Instructions

Preparing Main Ingredients

Peel and cut 3 potatoes into bite-sized chunks and soak in a bowl of water
Peel and cut the carrot into bite-sized chunks
Peel and slice the onion
Pinch the curly end of the snow peas and pull downward along the pod to remove the strings
Add 0.25 tsp of salt to the snow peas and heat in a microwave oven for 30 seconds (1000 W microwave)
Remove the sliced potatoes from the bowl of water and pat dry

Cooking Nikujaga

Add 1 tbsp of vegetable oil into a frying pan
Add the sliced beef and cook on medium heat until browned
Add the carrots, potatoes, and onions into the same frying pan and fry on medium heat for 2-3 minutes
Add the dashi and 0.5 cups of water. Cook over low heat until boiling
Add the cooking alcohol, mirin, and sugar into the frying pan
Cover and stew on low heat for about 10 minutes
Add the 3 tbsp of soy sauce, cover, and stew on low heat for about 10 minutes again
Add the snow peas into the frying pan, turn off the heat, serve, and enjoy!