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Celebrate summer with this delightful Japanese dessert called Anmitsu! It’s a Japanese wagashi dessert with agar agar jelly, fruits, mochi, red bean paste, green tea ice cream and a good drizzle of sweet black sugar syrup.
Anmitsu (あんみつ) is a summer dessert (but why don’t we enjoy all year around?) made of small cubes of agar agar jelly, sweet azuki bean paste, mochi, a variety of fruits, ice cream, and boiled peas. It’s usually served with black sugar syrup called kuromitu that you pour onto the jelly before eating.
Watch How to Make Anmitsu あんみつの作り方
Delightful Japanese wagashi dessert with agar agar, fruits, red bean paste, green tea ice cream, and drizzled with kuromitsu.
What’s included in Anmitsu:
Agar agar jelly (kanten): Agar or agar agar is a white translucent jelly made of seaweed, which is suitable for vegetarian/vegan diet instead of animal/chemical-base gelatin.
Sweet red bean paste (anko): As you may know, majority of wagashi (Japanese confectionery) includes sweet red bean paste. It’s a crucial part of anmitsu (coming from anko)
Mochi: This type of mochi is called shiratama dango, and it’s a classic Japanese sweet dumpling. It’s made of glutinous rice flour. They are chewy and soft at the same time.
Green tea ice cream: You can use vanilla ice cream instead, but I wouldn’t recommend other flavors of ice cream to avoid conflict in flavors.
A variety of fruits: You can pick your favorite fruits to go with anmitsu.
Red endomame peas: Anmitsu is topped with these boiled and chilled peas. These specific peas could be hard to find. I took a short cut and used these peas from a canned Fruits Mitsumame.
Black sugar syrup (kuromitsu sauce): This is another crucial part of anmitsu (coming from kuromitsu). This syrup is usually made of Okinawan black sugar.
Imagine. Enjoy putting mouthfuls of these delicious items from the bowl… Despite all the differences in texture and flavors, this dessert represents quintessentially Japanese harmony, where everything works together. It doesn’t take too long to prepare, especially if you can purchase sweet red bean paste, kuromitsu, and green tea ice cream (but trust me, homemade is SOOO good!).
After making 4 videos (anmitsu, agar agar jelly, shiratama dango, and green tea ice cream) and writing 10 NEW pages for my How To page and Kitchen Pantry page just for this Anmitsu post, I’m so ready to hit “Publish” and share this post!
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- 1 batch Agar Agar Jelly (Kanten)
- 1 batch Shiratama Dango (Mochi)
- 6 Tbsp red bean paste (anko) (See Notes for homemade recipe)
- 6 scoops green tea ice cream (or vanilla ice cream)
- strawberries
- banana
- kiwis
- kuromitsu (brown sugar syrup)
- Boiled red endomame peas (optional)
- Please note that we can prepare everything but Shiratama Dango ahead of time. If you cannot purchase sweetened red beans, green tea ice cream, kuromitsu at a Japanese grocery store, you can find the recipe link in the ingredient section above.
- Make Agar Agar Jelly. (10 mins)
- Make Shiratama Dango. (15 mins)
- Cut fruits into bite-sized pieces. Divide agar agar jelly, fruits, shiratama dango, sweet red bean paste, and ice cream evenly into serving bowls. Serve with kuromitsu on the side.
Prep and cook time: This is for preparing agar agar jelly and shiratama dango and for assembling anmitsu only (assuming that the rest is either purchased or prepared ahead of time).
Red bean paste (anko): Homemade recipe, click here.
Recipe by Namiko Chen of Just One Cookbook. All images and content on this site are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without my permission. If you’d like to share this recipe on your site, please re-write the recipe and link to this post as the original source. Thank you.
Anmitsu Trivia
This is just a trivia for those who want to know a little bit more about anmitsu. Anmitsu recipe actually evolved through different periods of time and this agar agar jelly dessert has many variations now.
It started as mitsumame (みつ豆).
mitsumame = agar agar jelly + black sugar syrup (mitsu) + red endomame peas (mame)
mitsumame + fruits = Fruits Mitsumame.
mitsumame + shiratama dango = Shiratama Mitsumame
mitsumame + ice ceam = Cream Mitsumame
mitsumame + sweet red bean paste (anko) = Anmitsu
mitsumame + sweet red bean paste (anko) + ice cream = Cream Anmitsu.
mitsumame + sweet red bean paste (anko) + ice cream + shiratama dango = Shiratama Cream Anmitsu
mitsumame + sweet red bean paste (anko) + ice cream + shiratama dango + fruits = Fruits Shiratama Cream Anmitsu (and that’s this recipe!).
Hope you enjoy! Thanks so much for reading!
Aloha Nami,
Watching your an mitsu video always put me in a good mood (I watched it a lot!) and I’m happy to say that I finally made your recipe for my husband’s birthday????. It was enjoyed by my whole family! I was worried about the dango, but it came out well, even with the mochiko flour. I didn’t have the black sugar syrup so I improvised by making a brown sugar syrup. Thank you for sharing a delicious recipe and fun, happy video!
Mahalo, Amy
Aloha Amy! Aw thanks for watching my Anmitsu video. You know this recipe is not so well-known, so I was wondering who would watch and make it. YOU! You’ve just made me so happy! Thank you!!! I’m glad your family enjoyed it!
Thank you Nami! I am so, so thankful that you share your recipes. Thank you for being so generous with your gift of cooking. Have a great Labor Day weekend!
Nami, there is a site (https://www.lemoda.net/japan/food/entry/endo-mame) that says that endomame is: Pisum sativum L. (the scientific name for the plant). When looking this up, it seems they are a variety of garden pea with a different color (http://plants.bauercreative.sk/pisum-sativum.php). Pisum sativum (without the L. at the end) is the name for peas, in general: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pea Someone may not be able to find the purple/red variety in certain areas, but if not, it seems as if typical garden peas are very close. A fresh, sweet, plump variety (the sort you might find at a farmer’s market) would likely be a good replacement. 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing the information, Oleander!
If you have a Trader Joes close by, they usually stock green tea ice-cream.
Hi Reggie! Yep, we’re lucky to live lots of stores that sell green tea ice cream. However, I hope you give my green tea ice cream a try… it’s very good!
Hi Nami, I looked up your green tea recipe. TWO cups of milk? Wow around here that is just a sample batch to try something new! I’ll have to quadruple it. Also we normally use goat’s milk to make ice cream because it makes it SO creamy and delicious. I might have to leave the farm and actually BUY some cow milk if this is supposed to be on the less creamy side of things.
Hi Reggie! Wow, goat milk! Where are you from? I think some supermarket carry goat milk, but it’s not easy to find here in the US (or even in Japan).
Nami go out and look North! See me waving? Okay I’m not quite that close. I work on a farm and goat dairy in the Sacramento area. Yes some grocery stores have goat’s milk, and, I think, it is usually overpriced. It is SO MUCH better when you “grow your own”. Like knowing the history of the food from your own garden; knowing what the milk animal has been eating (and more importantly what they have NOT been eating) makes me much more comfortable about the quality of my food. I have to admit, we do add some evaporated cow milk (organic of course) to increase the cream level. We raise the LaMancha breed which are lower in butterfat than many goat breads. In fact the butterfat content is about the same 4% as the average of grocery store cow’s milk.
Ohhh I see you (waving)!!! I understand what you mean. You’re lucky to know the source really well and get the best quality of milk up there! Thanks for sharing, it’s very fascinating to hear about how you make goat’s milk. 🙂