Vegan Okonomiyaki (Osaka style)
This Osaka style Vegan Okonomiyaki is one of my favourite Japanese dishes. It’s the perfect snack or light meal (and even better eaten after a night out on the town). Get the recipe below.
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What is Okonomiyaki?
Okonomiyaki, sometimes fondly known as Japanese pizza, is a type of vegetable fritter.
There are two styles. The Osaka style is where the ingredients are mixed into a batter and then cooked on a hot grill. In contrast, the Hiroshima style is a bit like a small crepe or pancake pancake which is grilled and then other ingredients are layered on top.
On my trip to Japan we ate Osaka style okonomiyaki (in Osaka itself) and so that’s what I’ve decided to recreate today.
The batter
The glue that holds it all together is a batter usually made up of flour, eggs and dashi (a type of stock made from seaweed and fish flakes known as bonito flakes – see also toppings).
Of course we can’t have eggs in a vegan recipe so they need replacing. Luckily the amount of batter used in okonomiyaki is actually not a lot, so making your batter purely from flour and dashi actually works quite well.
As you’ll see from the above, traditional dashi includes fish but it is possible to make it with dashi made just from seaweed. You can also sometimes find vegetable dashi or mushroom dashi. I’ll let you decide which you’d like to choose.
Mixing your flour and dashi is what will bind all of your fillings together.
Fillings
What I love about okonomiyaki is that its name literally translates to “cooked as you like it” which means you really can get creative with your fillings and toppings (more on that below).
Having said that there are a few things you’ll almost always find in the batter. The first being napa cabbage and the second being tenkasu (crispy fried tempura batter). Yamaimo (or Japanese mountain yam) is also used but can be a little hard to find.
Meat and fish are also often included but we’ll skip those.
Other things you might want to mix in include spring onions, bean sprouts and mushrooms. I’m going to keep mine simple but feel free to add these or any other vegetables you like.
Toppings
You’d ordinarily see okonomiyaki topped with a special okonomiyaki sauce (the brown sauce you can see in the photo), mayonnaise, aonori (seaweed flakes), bonito flakes (thin, flaky, fish) and pickled ginger.
Of course given we’re making a vegan okonomiyaki we’ll be opting for aonori rather than bonito flakes and we’ll use vegan mayonnaise! We’ll also top with the okonomiyaki sauce and the pickled ginger which I love.
Luckily store bought okonomiyaki sauce is often vegan and you can even make your own by mixing vegan Worcestershire sauce and tomato ketchup.
Now we’ve got our batter, fillings and toppings, let’s cook!
The recipe
Vegan Okonomiyaki (Osaka Styles)
Ingredients
- 300 ml water
- 1 tsp vegan dashi stock powder
- 225 g plain flour
- 0.25 tsp salt
- 0.25 tsp sugar
- 250 g napa cabbage finely chopped
- 50 g spring onions thinly sliced lengthways
- 50 g tenkasu
- 6 tbsp okonomiyaki sauce
- 4 tbsp vegan mayonnaise
- aonori to garnish
- pickled ginger to garnish
Instructions
- Dissolve the dashi powder into the water to make the dashi stock.
- Place the flour in a large bowl and add salt, sugar, and pour the dashi stock into mix to make the batter.
- Add the cabbage, spring onions and tenkasu to a bowl and add the batter.
- Mix them well together with a fork.
- Heat a grill plate of non-stick frying pan to a medium-high heat, divide the cabbage mixture into two “pancakes” in the pan. When the edge of the okonomiyaki has become firm and cooked, flip it over.
- If you can, cover with a lid to steam for a few minutes.
- To finish, brush with Okonomiyaki sauce, mayonnaise, aanori and pickled ginger.
Nutrition
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