Dinner is solved on a busy weeknight with this easy and delicious Pressure Cooker Japanese Curry using an Instant Pot!
My Instant Pot has been saving me plenty of time cooking for my family’s dinner. It has so many conveniences, but my favorite part is I am also able to cook up complex dishes like this Pressure Cooker Japanese Curry without having to sacrifice the flavors.
The actual pressure cooking time is only 15 minutes, and you don’t even have to be in the kitchen if you use an electric pressure cooker. I simply add the ingredients in the pot, set up the timer, go out for my kids’ activity, and come home for a fabulous dinner ready to eat. Who’s in?
Japanese Curry Rice カレーライス
Have you heard of Japanese curry or Curry Rice (Karē Raisu)? If not, it’s best described as mild and thick curry. Even though curry was originally from Southeast Asia, it has become one of the most popular foods in Japan enjoyed by people of all ages.
Japanese curry is always served with steamed rice, and the common ingredients include a variety of proteins (chicken, beef, pork, seafood), potatoes, onions, and carrots.
To make Thai or Indian curry, you would add the curry spices from the very beginning. However, Japanese curry is seasoned with curry roux toward the end of cooking. Until then it’s just a plain soup/stew.
What is Japanese Curry Roux?
As I mentioned earlier, Japanese curry is seasoned with curry roux. Typically made from fat and flour, roux is a type of thickening agent used for thickening soups and sauces.
Most Japanese make curry with a boxed Japanese curry roux like this (picture above). You can find different spice levels and various brands of curry roux at Japanese or Asian grocery stores. These days I can even find it in the Asian aisle at American supermarkets.
If you prefer to make curry roux from scratch and have an additional 30 minutes to spare, check out my Homemade Curry Roux recipe. All you need is flour, butter, curry powder, and additional spice.
Personalize the Store-Bought Curry with Additional Seasonings
Growing up in Japan, curry rice was a “fast food” for my family; the food that my mom made ahead of time or the previous day when she knew that she couldn’t prepare dinner in time.
I always saw my mom adding grated apples and different condiments to the curry while she was making them. She said, “If you put just the boxed curry roux, your curry will always taste the same. It will not be different from your neighbor’s curry.”
So she taught me two tricks. Use two different brands of curry roux (sometimes mix the spice level, like mild and medium spicy) and use additional seasonings.
My mom and I would use the combination of the following ingredients.
- Chocolate
- Coffee
- Butter
- Yogurt
- Grated apple
- Honey
- Red wine or sake
- Oyster sauce
- Worcestershire Sauce
- Tonkatsu sauce
- Soy sauce (used in this recipe)
- Ketchup (used in this recipe)
Other ingredients that my mom or I haven’t added in our curry include peanut butter, marmalade, and banana. Do you add any additional flavoring to your Japanese curry?
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Pressure Cooker Japanese Curry
Video
Ingredients
- 3 onions (large; 2¼ lb, 1,005 g)
- 1½ carrots (5 oz, 143 g)
- 3 Yukon gold potatoes (15 oz, 432 g)
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 tsp ginger (grated, with juice)
- 1½ lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs (see Notes for substitutions)
- ⅛ tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- ⅛ tsp freshly ground black pepper
For the Curry Sauce
- 1 Tbsp neutral oil (for cooking)
- 3 cups chicken stock/broth (for lower sodium, use water only or half stock and half water)
- 1 package Japanese curry roux (7–8 oz or 200–230 g; or make my Japanese Curry Roux)
- 1 Tbsp ketchup
- 1 Tbsp soy sauce
For Serving
- 6 servings cooked Japanese short-grain rice
- fukujinzuke (Japanese red pickled vegetables) (optional; or make my Homemade Fukujinzuke)
Instructions
- Gather all the ingredients. Please read my blog post about options for add-on condiments to season the curry sauce.
To Prepare the Ingredients
- Cut 3 onions in half and cut each half into 5 wedges.
- Peel 1½ carrots and cut into bite-sized pieces. I use a Japanese cutting technique called rangiri. This cut creates more surface area, which helps the carrots absorb more flavor and cook faster. Tip: You can cut the vegetables slightly bigger to avoid a mushy texture.
- Peel 3 Yukon gold potatoes and cut them into quarters. Soak them in water for 15 minutes to remove the excess starch. Tip: Do not use russet potatoes since they would break down too easily.
- Mince 2 cloves garlic (I like this garlic press). Then, grate the ginger with a microplane zester or ceramic grater and reserve 1 tsp ginger (grated, with juice).
- Cut 1½ lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs into bite-sized pieces. I use the sogigiri Japanese cutting technique to create more surface area and flatten each piece so it cooks faster. Season with ⅛ tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt and ⅛ tsp freshly ground black pepper.
To Cook the Curry
- Press the Sauté button on your Instant Pot (I use a 6 QT Instant Pot) or preheat a stovetop pressure cooker over medium heat. When the inner pot is hot, add 1 Tbsp neutral oil.
- Then, add the onion wedges, minced garlic, and grated ginger with juice.
- Add the chicken pieces to the pot and mix until just coated with the oil.
- Add the carrots and potatoes to the pot and mix well.
- Add 3 cups chicken stock/broth and use a spatula to press down the meat and vegetables into the liquid. Then, place the cubes from 1 package Japanese curry roux (I combine half mild and half medium spicy packaged roux) on top of the other ingredients. DO NOT MIX! Otherwise, the roux may sink to the bottom of the pot and burn while cooking. For solidified homemade roux, place the cubes on top of the ingredients and do not mix. For non-solidified homemade roux (that you just made), add it after pressure cooking is done.
- Cover and lock the lid. Make sure the Instant Pot‘s steam release handle points to Sealing and not Venting. Press the Keep Warm/Cancel button on the Instant Pot to stop sautéing. Then, press the Meat/Stew button to switch to pressure cooking. Press the “minus“ button to change the cooking time to 15 minutes.
- For a Stovetop Pressure Cooker: Close and lock the lid. Set the pressure level to high. Heat the pot on the stovetop over medium-high heat until you‘ve reached high pressure. Then, reduce the heat to medium low to maintain high pressure, and cook for 15 minutes.
- When it is finished cooking, the Instant Pot will switch automatically to the Keep Warm mode. Slide the steam release handle to Venting to let out steam until the float valve drops down, OR let the pressure release naturally (this takes about 15 minutes).
- Unlock the lid. (If you‘re using homemade curry roux, add it to the pot now and heat on Sauté mode for an additional 5 minutes until well blended into the stew.) Add 1 Tbsp ketchup and 1 Tbsp soy sauce now. Mix well, stirring to dissolve the curry roux and checking one last time that there are no undissolved chunks left. Tip: If you use my unsalted homemade curry roux, taste the curry sauce now and add salt to your liking. I recommend adding 2–4 tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt, but this will vary based on the brand of the chicken broth and condiments you added.
To Serve
- Portion 6 servings cooked Japanese short-grain rice on individual plates and serve the curry on top. Serve with optional fukujinzuke (Japanese red pickled vegetables) on the side.
To Store
- Keep the leftovers in a glass airtight container and store it in the refrigerator for up to 3 days and in the freezer for a month. The texture of the potatoes will change in the freezer, so remove them before freezing. Defrost the frozen curry in the refrigerator for 24 hours before you want to reheat it.
To Reheat
- Leftover curry sauce will thicken into a paste as it cools, so it tends to burn while reheating. To avoid this, stir ½ cup (120 ml) water or more into the leftover sauce until loosened. Then, gently reheat it on low heat. If the sauce seems thin, continue heating with the lid off to reduce the sauce.
Where do you get Furkujinzuke? The link you posted doesn’t work anymore
Hi Jim! I see, here’s a canned version on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2BglEKB
Hi, If we use the homemade roux, do we put the whole batch in the recipe? Many thanks.
Hi Sylvie! Yes you use the whole batch – the curry roux is for a curry recipe that requires 4 cups liquid. But each person has different consistency, so either you can make double portion just in case, or try not to exceed more than 4 cups liquid (or reduce water if you use vegetables that have high water content). 🙂
Hi Nami, I’ve made this twice already in the instant pot, it’s super easy, super quick, my husband loves it too. I’ve made the other curry recipe from your site with the grated apple a dozen times. But will only make that when I plan to be home for a longer period. The instant pot version is a quick easy weeknight dinner that take very little effort. Thanks for sharing this amazing instant pot recipe, please keep them coming!
Hi Pauline! I’m truly happy to hear you enjoy this recipe. Thank you for your kind feedback! We just filmed one Instant Pot recipe… hope to share it this month. 🙂
Nice video thanks 2 questions Ketchup can I use tomato paste and a pinch of sugar instead and also is the soy sauce necessary as I’m thinking the store bought curry roux already has a lot of sodium thanks Iain
HI Lain! Thank you! Sure, you can give it a try. It’s a small amount that doesn’t make a HUGE difference – it’s supposed to be slight complexity. 🙂
I really like your recipes and photos. I am not a good cook. but I can easily to understand your cooking step by step. thanks for your sharing and teaching
Hi Natalie! You’re very welcome. I think cooking more often (practice) helps to improve how you do in the kitchen. More chopping, more stir frying… you see the difference when you make a mistake and succeed. I’m glad my recipes are helpful. Thank you for your kind words!
I made this tonight using the homemade roux recipe. I used beef instead of chicken and added a small grated apple. It was so delicious!! Thank you!!!
Hi Taryn! So happy to hear that you enjoyed this recipe. Thank you for trying it and for your kind feedback. 🙂
The first time I tried it, the curry came out fine. However, the last two times I made it, the instant pot said “burn” and the bottom of the pot was burned. Do you know why it is burning and sticking to the bottom of the pot?
Hi Denny! On your second and third try, did you “mix” the roux? You have to keep it on top of ingredients so that it won’t go all the way down (mentioned in Step 11). I just make the sentences BOLD so it won’t be missed. 🙂
your photo shows beef curry and yet you are using chicken in the recipe.. Do you use beef stock for the beef curry?
Hi Heather! Which photo? Above four Japanese curry pictures are all chicken curry, not beef. And for my Beef Curry recipe (https://www.justonecookbook.com/japanese-beef-curry/), yes I used beef broth.
Hey, my girlfriend and I tried this recipe tonight and ended up getting a BURN code on the instantpot.
We had followed it step by step but think it may be because it took us too much time to add the individual ingredients. We prepped it all before starting the cooking process but curious if it was because the onions sat on the bottom too long.
This was our first time using the instantpot and still need to become more familiar with it.
Have you experienced this and any ideas how to avoid this in the future?
Hi Wesley! Thank you for trying this recipe! I’ve received so many feedback on this recipe since I published, but I actually never received feedback on “burn code” until I received yours. Funny part is that before publishing this post, I was actually worried that some people may “mix” the roux accidentally if they don’t read my instruction carefully (just put the roux on top, no mixing). However, no one had burning problem so far despite my concern. Therefore, like you said, it might be because you took a longer time to put ingredients in before adding liquid – this will definitely burn the bottom. Once liquid is in, the food won’t burn (unless all water evaporates). Hope this helps.
I just bought a 6qt instant pot and am looking for ideas for a good dish to feed a lot of people on a cabin trip, and may break in the IP with this recipe! Your recipe says it serves 4, could it be doubled in the one pot or would you have to make two batches?
Hi Cecilia! I actually changed the yield to 6 instead of 4. Originally I was thinking that American serving would be big, so to be on the safe side, I kept 4. But that could be a lot of leftover for regular (Asian) size, for example. So I’d say 6-8. With 6 QT, I don’t think you have space for double this recipe, but there is some space left in the pot for maybe 1.5 x the recipe. So that will be for 9-10.
this was amazing!!!!! Thank you for sharing. Such an easy way to make Japanese Curry. It turned out perfect!
Hi Sarah! Thank you for your kind feedback. I’m so happy you enjoyed the curry. 😀
Hi Nami! I did this with my pressure cooker & it was delicious! Just wondering if I can do this pressure cooker method with beef? Thanks!
Sure you can do it with beef too. Thanks for trying this recipe. I’m so happy you enjoyed it! 🙂
Hi Nami! I wanted to ask, are there really 3 onions in there? It seems like a lot, and I noticed in the step-by-step part you only mention one onion. Are we cutting and putting in all 3? Maybe it’s not as much as it seems, since it’s for a whole package of curry roux. I’ve never made a whole package at once. I just wanted to double check.
Hi Lion! Yes! Onions are so important to make good curry, and I think Japanese curry roux box also says 3 onions (in Japanese package – in English I think it was listed as lbs). It’s pretty common to add 3.
Sorry about the mistake in my instruction. I forgot to add plural “s” for “cut the onion” part. I’m still not used to adding plural in English (we don’t have this concept in Japanese). I have fixed the recipe.
Thank you for asking!
I can’t remember which recipe page you posted your idea on, to use one “mild” box and one “medium hot” box together to make the best “heat level” of curry. Anyway, I just wanted to say… you are a genius! It is perfect. I don’t like spicy food, so if I use the “medium hot” kind, I can eat it, but it’s just a bit more spicy than I would want, but I find the “mild” version of “Golden Curry” is a bit bland in fact when made alone. Mixing them is the best! Thank you!
Hi Lion! I forgot which one of my recipes but should be the recent one because we as a family can FINALLY do 1/2 mild + 1.2 medium hot. Half and half was my mother’s “genius” idea and that’s what she taught me, but my kids could only tolerate for mild for many years! LOL. Glad you found the perfect spice level!
Can I use a slow cooker for this?
Hi Karina! Sure you can convert this into slow cooker if you like. 🙂
Would the curry taste weird if I use dashi stock as opposed to chicken stock?
Hi Jos! Nope, I do that too, to make wafu (Japanese style) curry. My Curry Udon is with dashi too. 🙂