Ochazuke Recipes (Rice with Green Tea)

I should have shared Ochazuke Recipes long ago. Ochazuke is a simple rice dish made by pouring tea over cooked rice, with toppings of your choice. I am sharing three popular Ochazuke Recipes today. They are Sake Chazuke (Salmon Ochazuke), Ume Chazuke (Pickled Plum Ochazuke), and Nori Chazuke (Seaweed Ochazuke) – in order of my favourites.

The origin of ochazuke (お茶漬け) is a bowl of leftover rice, which is cold and dry, with boiling water so that people can eat soft and warm rice. This method of eating cold rice existed in the Heian period (794 – 1185).

In the mid to late Edo period, ochazuke permeated everyday life as green tea became popular among common people. Servants of merchant’s families only had a short break for meals, and they loved eating ochazuke because they could swallow rice quickly. Ochazuke shops sprouted up and became popular among people as a fast-food shop.

The ochazuke in the Edo period was still just rice with green tea in a bowl. It was served with a side dish at ochazuke shops.

In modern days, the ochazuke is made not only with a variety of toppings, but also dashi-flavoured broth poured over the rice, instead of teas. The teas poured over the rice include varieties of green tea as well as roasted green tea called ‘hōjicha’ (ほうじ茶).

The ‘o’ (お) in the word ‘ochazuke’ (お茶漬け) is a prefix that expresses the following word ‘chazuke’ (茶漬け) politely. That’s the reason why we call a specific Ochazuke ‘xxx chazuke’, where xxx is the name of the topping.

Nagatanien and Ochazuke

The first thing Japanese people think of when they hear the word ‘ochazuke’ (お茶漬け), is the food company called Nagatanien (永谷園), which is famous for its instant ochazuke. Nagatanien specialises in instant foods.

Ever since introducing the instant ochazuke in 1952, Nagatanien has been in pursuit of instant foods such as instant miso soup, furikake toppings for rice, and fried rice seasonings.

Instant nori chazuke was the first product produced by Nagatanien (photo above) and they called it ‘Ochazuke Nori’ (お茶漬け海苔). They even registered ‘Nagatanien no Ochazuke Nori’ (永谷園のお茶漬け海苔, Nagatanien brand Ochazuke Nori) as a trademark.

The company subsequently introduced Sake Chazuke (鮭茶漬け, salmon ochazuke) and Ume Chazule (梅茶漬け, pickled plum ochazuke). They were followed by a couple of other flavours such as Wasabi Chazuke (わさび茶漬け).

Nagatanien no Ochazuke Nori was so popular that they produced over 15 billion Ochazuke Nori between 1952, when they first marketed it, and 2016. The production of all flavours of the instant ochazuke up to the year 2016 reached over 24 billion. And it’s still counting.

The symbolic packaging of black, yellow, and green stripes was designed based on the stage curtain at traditional Kabuki theatres.

How to use Instant Ochazuke

Making Ochazuke with an instant ochazuke pack is simple. There is an instruction written on each packet but it’s in Japanese. So here it is:

1. Put rice (about 100-120g) in a bowl.
2. Sprinkle contents of the instant ochazuke over the rice.
3. Pour 150-180ml boiling water over it.

The Nagatanien ochazuke pack says 100g rice with 150ml hot water, but I tend to add a bit more rice. I find that the flavour is a bit salty to my linking, so I increased the water to 180ml.

What’s in my Ochazuke Recipes

It is such a simple dish that I thought I would give you three different Ochazuke Recipes using the most popular toppings – salmon, pickled plum, and seaweed. Depending on the toppings, I used a dashi-based broth to be poured over the rice.

Sake Chazuke (Salmon Ochazuke)

• Rice
• Grilled salted salmon
• Arare for Ochazuke (tiny rice crackers)
• Chopped mitsuba or finely chopped green onions
• Wasabi (optional)
• Hot green tea (in the iron pot)

In the case of Sake Chazuke, I prefer adding green tea because the grilled salmon has a good degree of saltiness with a strong flavour. There is no need to use dashi stock for it.

Arare (あられ) is a generic name for small rice crackers. The smallest one is a tiny ball of about 3mm/⅛” in diameter. It is called ‘ochazuke arare’ or ‘bubu arare’. You can easily buy a small bag of bubu arare in Japan, but it is probably very difficult to find it outside of Japan. So, I made them myself from a piece of omochi (rice cake). I briefed the method of making bubu arare in the recipe card.

Ume Chazuke (Pickled Plum Ochazuke)

• Rice
• Umeboshi (pickled plum)
• Roasted white sesame seeds
• Kizami nori
• Wasabi
• Chopped mitsuba or finely chopped green onions

Dashi Broth

• Dashi stock
• Soy sauce
• Cooking sake
• Salt

There are different types of umeboshi – soft and hard, small and large. For Ochazuke, mid-sized soft umeboshi suits best.

Although umeboshi has a strong salty-sour flavour, it is a simple and plain flavour. I think that flavoured dashi-based broth goes much better with the umeboshi than green tea. But some people just pour green tea.

Nori Chazuke (Seaweed Ochazuke)

It is not possible to replicate Nagatanien no Ochazuke Nori, but I tried to make it similar to that.

• Rice
• Kizami nori
• Shio konbu
• Arare sticks (tiny rice cracker sticks)

Konbu Dashi Broth

• Instant konbu dashi powder
• Matcha powder (optional)
• Boiling water

Arare sticks are the long version of bubu arare that I talked about earlier.

Konbu dashi powder contains not only powdered konbu but also salt and sugar. So, if you are using home-made konbu dashi as an alternative, you need to add a small amount of salt and sugar to it.

The matcha powder is used to make the colour of the broth like green tea and also give a touch of matcha tea flavour.

How to make Ochazuke

The fundamental process of making Ochazuke is very similar regardless of the toppings.

1. Warm the rice in a bowl if chilled.
2. Place toppings on the rice.
3. Pour tea or broth over the rice.

If you are using broth, you need to mix the broth ingredients first, then pour it over the rice. The photo below is showing how to make Ume Chazuke and Nori Chazuke.

There are many other toppings you can make Ochazuke with. I am not posting Ochazuke Recipes for these but to name a few:

• Tarako (salt cured cod roe) chazuke.
• Nozawana (pickled nozawana leaves) chazuke – see the photo in the section HOW TO USE INSTANT OCHAZUKE
• Tai (sashimi snapper) chazuke.
• Kimchi (spicy fermented cabbage) chazuke.

The photo below is buri (sashimi kingfish) chazuke, which was made in the same way as tai chazuke. I should post some of the above later.

As a rule of thumb, you can simply pour green tea over the rice if the topping has a sufficiently salty flavour (e.g., tarako). Otherwise, make a broth with dashi stock or instant dashi powder. Adding a small amount of shiro dashi to boiling water also let you make a good broth quickly.

Try my Ochazuke Recipes and enjoy different flavours!

Yumiko