5 Japanese Recipes from Kitchen Princess Bamboo - Best-Japanese (2024)

Last week a friend introduced me to Kitchen Princess Bamboo. In case you have never come across it, this YouTube channel is dedicated to healthy and authentic Japanese food recipes. It was set up by Akino Ogata in 2016 to introduce the best Japanese recipes to the wider world. Since then, her inspirational videos have surged in popularity and she now has over 195,000 subscribers on YouTube.

What’s great about Kitchen Princess Bamboo is that Akino regularly uploads new videos each week on Saturday. Her videos cover a wide range of Japanese dishes from Japanese Sweet Potato desserts to Bento boxes and Japanese breakfasts. Her playlist section is also super helpful with lots of recipe ideas. You can find playlists for vegetarian food, seasonal dishes and recipes by ingredients. For example her recent seasonal playlist where she covers Ginger Recipes for the Cold Season or recipes that use Tofu.

There are a lot of cooking channels on YouTube. What makes Kitchen Princess Bamboo different is that it not only succeeds in teaching you how to cook but more importantly the videos inspire you to do so! Here are 5 Japanese recipes that we recommend to get you on your Japanese cooking journey.

Essential Japanese Recipe – Basic Onigiri Types

Onigiri or Japanese rice balls are perfect for a quick snack or part of a lunchbox treat. In Japan, you’ll find them at every single convenience store with all kinds of fillings. You can get the classic salmon flake filling or tuna mayonnaise along with konbu and pickled plum. The main difference between sushi rolls and onigiri is that sushi is seasoned with sushi vinegar while onigiri are typically seasoned with furikake or even just with salt.

Unsurprisingly, Akino’s video on the 8 basic onigiri types has over 1.5 million views on YouTube. She starts by explaining how to make various fillings such as salmon flakes or tuna mayonnaise. Next she explains how to prepare for and form the different types of onigiri balls from Shio to Grilled Onigiri. If you are looking for a video that covers all the essential Onigiri receipes, this is the one to check out.

Fluffy Japanese Pancakes

Japanese pancakes are extremely popular these days. If you’re near London you’ve probably already seen posts of FuwaFuwa‘s delightful pancakes. It’s likely you’ve already eaten them yourself! These fluffly, light and airy pancakes are made using souffle techniques. It’s not the easiest Japanese sweet to make but in just over 5 minutes, Akino shows you how. This includes her tips on how to make a really fluffy pancake. To give a quick hint it’s all about the meringue! Here is the full fluffy Japanese pancake recipe on her website and here is the video below.

Traditional Japanese Breakfast Recipes

Start your day with Kitchen Princess Bamboo’s breakfast recipes. This particular video looks at the staples of a traditional Japanese breakfast – miso soup and Japanese rice. You can learn how to cook each and Akino shows you the way to make dashi stock from scratch. This wholesome breakfast is satifying and nutricious and simple to make. Here is the full recipe which also has a link for the recipe on how to make tamagoyaki (egg roll omelet).

Homemade Mochi

There are two different types of Mochi – one is Mochi for meals while the other is Mochiko for dessert. In this video Akino shows you how to make both. Although the traditional way of making Mochi is through pounding with a mallet as you may have seen online or in person, in this video you can see 4 ways to make it at home in a much shorter time. The first method requires a stand mixer and the second method involves steaming and blending. The other two ways use a microwave or boiling. Whichever way you make it, it’s going to be a lot of fun and probably a lot cheaper than buying at a Japanese supermarket!

Soboro Bento

Japanese Bento lunchboxes are great and there are so many different types of Bento variations. This one uses Soboro which is the Japanese technique for cooking ground meat, fish or eggs into fine crumbly pieces. Akino’s recipe uses ground chicken and eggs for the topping for the Bento but you can also add this Soboro on top of a ricebowl. Aside from explaining the reasons behind the stripe patterns, Akino also gives some tips on how to make a more luxurious version placing Karaage or Teriyaki Chicken on top of the Soboro mix.

Japanese Recipes by Kitchen Princess Bamboo

We hope that you enjoyed these selection of recipes. Aside from the recipes themselves, it’s lovely to learn about Japanese culture through these videos such as seeing how Japanese people offer rice to ancestors in the Onigiri video. Along with her YouTube channel and website, you can also follow Akino on Instagram. We wanted to say thank you to Akino for allowing us to introduce her recipes for Kitchen Princess Bamboo on Best Japanese. Definitely subscribe to this channel if you are interested to try making Japanese recipes at home.

Finally if you are looking for more Japanese recipes please check out recipe section which we will updating more often going forward.