Description
Vegan Okonomiyaki, A.K.A. Japanese pancake or Japanese pizza is a delicious savory dish. This dish loaded with vegetables, like cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, green onions, and a very special root vegetable. This recipe is not only delicious, but it’s also pretty healthy-ish. I’ve adapted this recipe to make it vegan friendly, while keeping true to the authenticity.
Ingredients
Scale
Dashi:
- 5 pieces (2 inches in size) – kombu, dried seaweed see notes
- 5 pieces – dried shiitake
- 1 teaspoon – mushroom seasoning, optional I used https://amzn.to/33vye6Q (you can find this in your local Asian supermarket, it is much cheaper in store)
- ⅓ cup – water
Vegan Japanese Style Mayo (Optional, see notes)
- 1 cup – vegan mayo
- 2 tablespoons – mirin
- ¼ cup – sugar
- ¼ + ⅛ teaspoon – Indian black salt (kala namak), see notes
- 1 tablespoon – mustard
Main Ingredients:
- 2 cups (190g) – cabbage, thinly cut and cut into ½ inch pieces
- 1 cup (75g)- fresh shiitake mushrooms, thinly sliced
- 2 stalks of green onions, and more for topping, thinly sliced
- ½ cup (64g) – all purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon – salt
- ¼ teaspoon – sugar
- ¼ teaspoon – baking powder
- 2 inches (80g) – East Asian mountain yam (nagaimo/yamaimo)
- ½ cup – tempura scraps (tenkasu/agedama), see notes
- 2 tablespoons – pickled red ginger (beni shōga), optional
- 3 pieces – vegan bacon, cut in half, optional
- Oil, for frying
- Furikake (seaweed seasoning)
Okonomiyaki sauce (Optional, See notes)
- 1 ½ tablespoon – granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons – vegan oyster sauce
- 4 tablespoons – ketchup
- 3 ½ tablespoons – vegan Worcestershire sauce
Instructions
- Make the dashi. Heat water along with kombu, dried shiitake, and mushroom seasoning in a small saucepan. Bring it up to a boil, and turn the heat off, and allow the kombu and dried shiitake to sit in the hot water for 10 minutes. Drain the dashi into the bowl and discard the rest, set aside.
- Prep vegan Japanese style mayo. In a bowl, mix together the vegan mayo, mirin, sugar, Indian black salt, and mustard. The sugar won’t dissolve right away, so allow it to sit as you prep and cook! Come back to it, and stir it together.
- Prep and cut the cabbage, fresh shiitake mushrooms, and green onions. Thinly cut a head of cabbage, until you get about 2 cups worth, and cut into ½ inch pieces. Sometimes you can get pre cut shiitake mushrooms, but if not, thinly cut these along with the green onions as well. Set the veggies aside.
- Defrost your vegan bacon, and cut them in half. Set aside.
- In a bowl, mix together the dry ingredients, flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda.
- In this next part, it will get slimy and sticky, so wear some gloves before starting. Peel and grate 2 inches of the mountain yam over the same bowl with the dry ingredients.
- Measure out ¼ cup of dashi and add it to the bowl, mix the ingredients together with a whisk until fully combined.
- Next, add in the cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, green onions, tempura scraps, and pickled red ginger and mix it all together.
- Heat a little bit of oil in a large pan over medium heat. When the oil is ready, add half of the batter to the pan. Spread it out to about 6 inches in diameter and 1/2-3/4 inch thickness, and form into a circle. Add 3 pieces of bacon to the top and cook the bottom until nicely browned, about 5 minutes. Flip over and cook for another 5 minutes. Remove from the pan, and onto a plate. Continue cooking the second batch of batter.
- Prep the okonomiyaki sauce. In a small bowl, mix together the sugar, vegan oyster sauce, ketchup, and vegan Worcestershire sauce.
- Spread the okonomiyaki sauce over the top of the okonomiyaki, then some of the vegan Japanese style mayo (if you want to be extra like me, you put some mayo in a squeezy bottle and drizzle it over in a zigzag pattern), sprinkle some furikake, green onions, and a little more pickled ginger. Cut into quarters or bite-size pieces and enjoy!
Notes
- Kombu comes in various sizes, so just break it into smaller pieces.
- I like adding the mushroom seasoning because it adds so much more flavor and it enhances the flavors of the dashi. If you cannot find it, no need to worry, you can skip it.
- I highly suggest making my Japanese style mayo, it will be a little bit looser than normal, but I think it tastes the closest to Japanese mayo. If you really don’t want to make it, you can use American mayo, but keep in mind that the flavors are totally different.
- Indian black salt or Kala Namak, is a salt that is sulphurous, pungent-smell. It makes certain dishes taste like eggs, which is perfect for this mayo. Do not skip this ingredient.
- You can find premade tempura scraps in your local Asian supermarket. It adds texture, flavor, and fluffiness to the okonomiyaki.
- Red pickled ginger is also optional, I personally couldn’t find this, so I didn’t add it to my dish. It still tastes great with or without it.
- I like adding vegan bacon to this because I wanted to recreate the traditional style where they added pork slices. It adds a great smokey flavor to the dish.
- If you don’t want to make it, you can buy okonomiyaki sauce: https://amzn.to/2XxMDeZ
Keywords: vegan, Japanese, recipe, entree, savory pancake, Japanese pancake, Japanese cuisine
