Only 4 Ingredients Easy Oden Soup

🍢Only 4 Ingredients Easy Oden Soup (おでんスープ)🍢

🥢What kind of dish is Oden??

Oden is a profound and indispensable hot pot dish on Japanese dining tables. This richly flavored oden soup can be surprisingly easy to recreate and enjoy authentically in your own home.

For Japanese people, Oden is deeply cherished as a soul food. The steam rising from home dining tables, specialty shops, and the counter of convenience stores in winter is a familiar and beloved winter tradition.

On a bitterly cold winter day, hot oden is the ultimate luxury. With just one bite, its warmth and the gentle umami of the broth will slowly and thoroughly warm both your chilled heart and body to the core.

🥬Main ingredients for Oden

There are no absolute rules for the ingredients used in oden, but common ingredients include boiled eggs, chicken on the bone, daikon radish, beef tendon, konnyaku, and nerimono (fish cakes).

**gyusuji=beef tendon** It’s beef tendon (the connective tissue found in beef, not the muscle itself).
The long, slow cooking process transforms the tough tendon into something wonderfully soft and gelatinous (jelly-like). It’s very chewy, but in a tender, melt-in-your-mouth way. It absorbs all the deep, umami flavor of the Oden broth.

**konnyaku** = **konjac** Konnyaku is one of the most unique and healthy items in Oden!
It is a jelly-like food made from the root of a plant called the Konjac yam.
It is extremely low in calories, high in fiber, and often referred to as a “zero-calorie food” in Japan, making it a very healthy choice!

**daikon radish**　Daikon is arguably the most famous, essential, and beloved ingredient in Oden!
Daikon is excellent at absorbing flavor. It soaks up all the deep, savory umami of the Oden broth. When you eat it, the broth just bursts into your mouth!

Oden set : Japanese supermarkets sell products containing multiple ingredients, such as fish cakes for oden and konjac.

Nerimono is a general term for fish cakes, satsumaage, kamaboko, etc. Nerimono is made by shaping a paste made from fish meat and frying or baking it.

“餅入り巾着＝mochiiri-kinchaku”　My absolute favorite oden ingredient is the **Mochiiri-kinchaku**, a true delight of sticky rice cake nestled inside a pocket of fried tofu. The contrast is simply divine: **the way the mochi gently melts and stretches, encased by the savory, yielding fried tofu, is the very definition of delicious perfection.** It’s utterly irresistible!

⭐The joy of making oden at home

However, each region has its own unique characteristics, often adding items such as musubi kombu (ribbon-shaped kelp), sausages, and sticky taro roots (satoimo).

Selecting your favorite fish cakes—like chikuwa, satsuma-age, and hanpen—and creating your own signature oden is one of the greatest pleasures.

Japanese oden soup recipe is completed by mixing the extracts from the ingredients. The aroma and taste of Japanese oden soup recipe will change depending on the ingredients you use.

I also recommend using shirataki (thread-like konnnyaku) instead of konnyaku. Surprisingly, sausages are also a great ingredient for oden!

As a side note, Nagoya Prefecture has a very unique local dish called miso oden.
This is oden made with hacho miso, which is widely produced in Nagoya.

Please enjoy the rich aroma and the subtle difference in flavor that constantly evolves depending on the ingredients you use.

🥣What is Japanese oden soup made of ?

Oden soup only requires four ingredients:

Dashinomoto
Salt
Sugar
Light soy sauce.

Making authentic dashi at home for every meal is time-consuming and expensive, so it is common to use granules called “dashinomoto” dissolved in hot water.

Making oden soup is very simple, but the salt content varies greatly depending on the type of dashinomoto you use, so you’ll need to adjust the proportions accordingly.

The salt concentration of oden soup should be around 1.1 to 1.3%.

If the flavor is too weak, it will not taste good, so be sure to keep to the amount of water.

If it boils down and becomes too salty, add hot water to adjust.

Remember, the rule is to adjust the amount of water without changing the ratio of seasonings!

🍚Types of dashi

Dashinomoto = Dashi stock
Kayanoya and hondashi are product names that are a type of dashinomoto.

Hondashi : The dashi stock granules that I usually use are “Hondashi bonito flavor”. In addition to dashinomoto made from bonito, dashinomoto made from kelp and dried sardines are also sold.
- Nutritional value of 1g of hondashi
  - 2.4 kcal
  - Protein 0.27 g
  - Fat 0-0.01 g
  - Carbohydrates 0.3 g
  - Salt equivalent 0.4 g 　
Kayanoya : There are many types of dashinomoto on the market, but Kayanoya is classified as a slightly more premium product. This product is not made of granules, but is packed in small portions with powdered ingredients such as bonito. This product has a low salt content. Kayanoya dashi usually contains 8g per bag. Use 1 packet for every 400ml of water.
- Nutritional value of 1g of kayanoya
  - 3.1 kcal
  - Protein 0.3 g
  - Fat 0.03 g
  - Carbohydrates 0.4 g
  - Salt equivalent 0.1 g 　
Homemade dashi : Of course, you can also make your own dashi soup using bonito flakes and kelp and use that. To get the ideal ratio, use 20 grams of kelp and 40 grams of bonito flakes to make dashi.
- Nutritional value of 1g of homemade dashi
  - 0 kcal
  - Protein 0 g
  - Fat 0 g
  - Carbohydrates 0 g
  - Salt equivalent 0 g

Hondashi official website is here　👉　https://www.ajinomoto.co.jp/hondashi/

kayanoya dashi — Kayanoya’s official website is here　👉　https://www.kubara.jp/kayanoya/dashi/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=brand_kayanoya&argument=HGYaGQZw&dmai=kad000013&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21056167640&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2Yf2i9yskQMVDX0PAh3t9BqvEAAYASAAEgJ_qfD_BwE

Sumashi Jiru (Clear Soup) Made With Homemade Dashi — **For more information about homemade dashi soup, check out this article.　👉　Clear soup of tofu and wheat gluten**

📊NUTRITION FACTS : Japanese Oden

TOTAL NUTRITION VALUE

974 Calories
Protein 88.6 g
Total Fat 51.7 g
Total Carbohydrates 48.0 g
Sodium 10.7 g

ODEN SOUP　728ml：The salt concentration is 1.2%

37 Calories
Protein 2.0 g
Total Fat 0 g
Total Carbohydrates 7.0 g
Sodium 8.4 g

JAPANESE ODEN SOUP RECIPE

🍲INGREDIENTS : Japanese Oden (3SERVINGS)

Nerimono (Fish cake : chikuwa, gobouten, satumaage, tsumire) 120g
Atsuage or Ganmo (Deep-fried tofu) 100g
Konjac 220g
3 Eggs
☆Chicken wings 200g
☆Japanese daikon radish 500g
☆Gyusuji (boiled and skewered beef tendon) 80g
☆Water 500g～700g
♪Hondashi 5g　≪If you use Kayanoya, use 2 p (16g).≫
♪Salt 4g
♪Sugar 4g
♪Light soy sauce 15g
2 Mochiiri-kinchakus

🔪How to make Japanese Oden

Step1

Put chikuwa, gobouten, satsumaage, tsumire, deep-fried tofu and boiling water in a bowl, wait 2 minutes and discard the water. Soaking in hot water removes excess oil from the surface of the fish cakes, making it easier for the flavor to penetrate.
Boil the konnyaku for 1 minute to remove the lye. This process is called “アク抜き=akunuki“. There is no harm in eating the lye, but it may leave a harsh konnyaku flavor. Harsh flavor is one of the senses of taste.The harsh flavor has a feeling close to bitterness, but in some cases it makes you feel uncomfortable.
Make a lattice incision on the surface of the konnyaku.This is to make it easier for the flavor to soak in.
Add eggs to boiling water and boil for 9 minutes. Soak in cold water for a while, then peel off the shell.
Pour hot water over the Chicken wings. When the surface becomes whitish, give it to a colander. This way the soup will not become cloudy when simmering.
Cut the Japanese daikon radish into 3 cm, about 90 g pieces.
Put chicken wings, Japanese daikon radish, beef tendon, and water in a pressure cooker and pressurize for 7 minutes. Wait for the pressure to release naturally. If you open the lid and see bubbles, it’s lye. Remove the lye from the broth.

Step2

Remove the chicken wings, radish, and beef tendons from the pressure cooker and arrange them in the clay pot along with the chikuwa, gobouten, satsumaage, tsumire, deep-fried tofu, konjac, and eggs.
Mix the dashi stock granules, salt, sugar, and light soy sauce and pour into a clay pot.
If the fire is strong, the dashi will become cloudy. Maintain over medium heat. Simmer for about 40 minutes. It’s best to leave it for a few days instead of eating it right away to let the flavors soak in.　(Other than mochiiri-kinchakus)
If you boil the mochiiri-kinchakus for a long time, mochi will melt , so add it when you eat it and let it simmer for a while.

**It takes quite a while for the radish to cook. You can save time by using a pressure cooker.** I use a T-fal “Clipso Minut Easy” pressure cooker. The content is 4.5L. 👉　Pressure Cooker (Atsuryoku nabe) Cooking

naokoan

I’m Naoko. After graduating from a registered dietitian training school, I am working as a registered dietitian at a hospital in Japan. I love to cook and eat delicious food. I make recipes with calorie counting. The reason why all the ingredients are written as “g” is to accurately calculate calories. I am especially good at cooking with pressure cookers and ovens. I would like to introduce the recipe to foreigners who are interested in Japanese food. So I started writing Japanese home cooking recipes on my blog in English. 大学卒業後、管理栄養士として病院で勤務しています。レシピはカロリー計算を出来るだけ正確に行いたいので“g”で表記しています。日本の家庭料理のレシピを英語で紹介しています。圧力鍋とオーブンを使う料理が得意です。日本食・和食に興味を持ってもらえたら嬉しいです。よろしくお願いします(*ˊᵕˋ)♡‧₊