Cooked with ginger, fried tofu skin, and soy sauce-based sauce, this Japanese Ginger Rice is so fragrant that you would enjoy it on its own.
Have you seen young ginger (新生姜) in recipes before and wondered what it is? Compared to “regular” ginger, young ginger has thin skin and some parts may be a little bit pinkish. As young ginger is juicier and has a mild taste, it is often used in pickled ginger/sushi ginger (Gari ガリ in Japanese) or in this delicious Ginger Rice.
Watch How to Make Ginger Rice
Fragrant Japanese rice cooked with ginger, fried tofu skin, and flavorful soy sauce-based sauce.
What is Young Ginger?
Young ginger is in season during the summertime, usually between June and August in Japan. Young ginger and regular ginger that you normally see in the grocery store are actually the same. When you leave the young ginger under certain conditions for about 2 months, it turns into regular ginger.
During this 2 month period, the pink color turns into a golden color and the skin gets hardened as it matures. The ginger can actually last close to 1 year if you can control the moisture and temperature.
The Usasage of Ginger in Recipes
Ginger adds a nice aroma, zest, and spicy kick to Asian cuisines. It tastes great with food, but it’s also very good for you and your body. Not only does ginger’s unique powers keep you warm, but it’s also an appetite stimulant and digestive aid. There are also other health benefits, and if you’re interested, continue reading here.
Young ginger can be found in Asian grocery stores during the summertime. If it’s out of season or you cannot find any, you can substitute it with regular ginger, as I did for this recipe. If you’re not a big fan of ginger, reduce the amount of ginger by 1/3 or half, especially if you’re not using young ginger. I use the same amount of ginger as young ginger and my family enjoyed it.
What Dish to Go with Ginger Rice
We recently ate Ginger Rice and Miso Salmon together and it was fantastic.
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Ginger Rice
Video
Ingredients
- 1½ cups uncooked Japanese short-grain white rice (1½ cups (2 rice cooker cups, 360 ml) of uncooked rice yield roughly 4 servings or 3½ cups of cooked rice)
- 1 piece aburaage (deep-fried tofu pouch) (0.7 oz, 20 g; you can substitute it with crispy fried tofu cubes from an Asian grocery store, but blanch them first to remove excess oil)
- 1 oz ginger (preferably young ginger so it‘s less spicy)
- 1⅓ cups water
For the Seasonings
- 1 Tbsp soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp sake
- 1 Tbsp mirin
- ¼ tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt
Instructions
- Gather all the ingredients.
- Rinse 1½ cups uncooked Japanese short-grain white rice and drain well. For detailed instructions on rinsing and cooking Japanese rice, read my How to Make Rice post.
- Boil water in a small saucepan and pour on top of 1 piece aburaage (deep-fried tofu pouch). This will remove the oil in the aburaage (the manufacturer’s oil doesn’t taste good, so this extra step will improve the flavor of the aburaage).
- Cut in half lengthwise and slice thinly into strips.
- Peel 1 oz ginger and cut it into julienned pieces.
- In a 2-cup measuring cup, mix all the ingredients for the seasonings: 1 Tbsp soy sauce, 1 Tbsp sake, 1 Tbsp mirin, and ¼ tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt. Then, add 1⅓ cups water to the seasonings so that the liquid totals 1½ cups or 360 ml (equal volume as rice).
- Place the well-drained rice into the rice cooker. No rice cooker? You can also make rice in a pot over the stove, an Instant Pot, or a donabe. Pour the liquid into the rice cooker and mix well, and add the ginger and aburaage on top. Do not mix. Rice cooks evenly when it is not mixed with other ingredients.
- Soak for 20–30 minutes and then start cooking. If you have a “Mixed Rice” option, use it (see Notes below). When the rice is done, let it steam for another 10 minutes. Fluffy it up with the rice paddle and serve.
To Store
- You can keep the leftovers in an airtight container and store in the freezer for a month. See the tutorial here.
Nami, long time fan from way back when. Congratulations on your continued success and evolution of JOC. For this recipe, can I use myoga instead of going ginger? Or is it too fibrous?
Hi Yonsei in So. Cal! Thank you very much for reading Nami’s post and for your love and support!❤️
For this recipe, Yes, you can use Myoga and make this dish into Myoga Rice. You can thinly slice 3~4 Myoga, so it would not be too fibrous.
We hope this helps!
How can I modify this with no tofu and just cooking on stove top?
Hi Sara,
If you can’t find Aburaage (deep-fried tofu pouch), you can omit it or add a little bit of oil.
One of JOC readers uses Inari Age (the tofu pouch for Inari Sushi) for this recipe and he said it’s really good, too!
As for the stovetop instruction, Please see the “RECIPE NOTES” at the end of this recipe and check https://www.justonecookbook.com/how-to-cook-rice/
I hope this is helpful.
Nami, this looks delicious! Would I be able to cook it in the instant pot using your method for making plain Japanese rice, or would it burn on the bottom? As I recall, the last time I tried making instant pot takikomigohan it gave me the “burn” message and stopped cooking. I threw out my rice cooker since the instant pot’s stainless steel makes me less worried than the non-stick coating the rice cooker had (and I can’t find any without non-stick coating!).
Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated on how to tweak this for IP. Thank you!
Hi Elizabeth! I haven’t tried cooking this recipe in the IP so I can’t say for sure, but it should work. Make sure to rinse the rice well (so no excess starch build up on the bottom). Don’t mix the ingredients and they should be on top when you are cooking. 🙂
Hi Nami, you said in this article “ The ginger can actually last close to 1 year if you can control the moisture and temperature.” My ginger shrivels up in a couple of weeks. What’s the best way to make it last longer?
Hi Jane! That’s what I heard. I usually use up everything before I save for that long (Keeping young ginger is easier, at least 1+ month for me). My method is to wrap the ginger with damp paper towel and put it in an airtight container. I change the paper towel once in a while. I also cut or mince or grate and wrap in plastic and then freeze too.
Freeze them! Make sure to line up the sliced ginger on a tray without touching each other in the freezer prior storing them in a freezer bag. Last really long!
Hi Jos! Thank you very much for your input!🙂
I peel ginger and store it submerged in white wine in the refrigerator. Seems to last “forever” and is already peeled when I need it.
Hi Karen! Thank you for sharing it.🙂
I made this tonight for dinner to go with the miso butter salmon. Yummm..!! But FYI the 1.5 cups uncooked rice was measured using a rice cup, whereas the water and seasonings were measured using 1.5 measuring cups. And I used Jasmine rice. And it turned out very well. Nami, would I need to only double all ingredients if I want to cook double the amount of rice?
Hi Juliana! For this recipe, I used 1.5 cups using a regular measurement cup. When I use a rice cooker cup, I usually specify in the recipe saying “rice cooker cup” (not sure if that’s the right word… but I use it). And yes, I would double the ingredients.
Thanks. I’ll double the recipe next time so there is leftover to pack for lunch the next day! 😀
Hi Juliana! Yes, you can freeze it too! 🙂
Hi Nami! You’re my go to for Japanese recipes! Have you tried making this in the instant pot? I need to make a bigger portion so I wanted to try it in the instant pot. I’m wondering if I need to change the liquid to rice ratio.
Hi Shelly! Thank you so much for your kind words! Not this particular recipe, but you can make rice in the IP.
https://www.justonecookbook.com/instant-pot-rice/
Rice is tricky… I have to review some Japanese rice before, and even though they are all short-grain rice, the amount of water necessary for each brand of rice to make the same texture rice is so different. You probably need to do a test run to figure out the amount of water, but I have the suggested amount for Instant Pot Rice (link above). Hope that’s a good start… 🙂
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