Gyudon

Quite a few of you have asked me to do a traditional gyudon episode! These Japanese beef bowls were made popular decades ago in the US by the Japanese chain Yoshinoya. They’re so good!

Gyudon is a perfect quick homemade dinner, for those days when you’re not feeling like cooking anything complicated. Pre-made Yoshinoya heat-and-eat gyudon you can buy at the store (or online) has more preservatives than I’d personally like; I definitely prefer to make this from scratch.

That’s definitely not to say I won’t indulge in the store-bought gyudon once in a while, though. Convenience food is exactly that – it’s there for convenience. But if you have the time, I’d highly recommend making this at home.

For an alternate Japanese dish, try my quick and easy Teriyaki Beef recipe or my low-carb Sukiyaki and Japchae.

NOTE 1: For gluten-free, replace soy sauce with tamari or your preferred gluten-free “soy sauce.”

NOTE 2: Regarding raw egg yolks, especially here in the US – unless you have a reputable local farm you can rely on, and use the egg yolks right away, I’d stick to poaching your eggs before you add it to this dish. Please use raw eggs at your own risk.

Ingredients

• ½ Cup Cooked White Japanese Rice
• ½ Medium Yellow or Sweet / Vidalia Onion
• ¼ Cup Hontsuyu / Mentsuyu Base
• 5 oz Thinly-sliced Sukiyaki or Shabu-Shabu Beef (usually ribeye; shaved beef also works)
• 1 Egg (optional; see above for raw egg warning & substitute suggestion)
• Green onions / Scallions
• Salted pickled ginger

Directions

In a small frying pan, add 1/4 cup of hontsuyu or mentsuyu soup base. Because you’re cooking off the liquid in the soup base, please use a small frying pan for this, instead of a saucepan / pot.

(NOTE: You could make the soup base / broth from scratch, but most Japanese households just keep concentrates on hand to create a variety of dishes, rather than make this from scratch for each meal. I promise I’ll do a tutorial on making your own soup base in a later episode, for those of you who are purists.

To this, add half of a medium sweet onion (I prefer Vidalia onions), sliced, and cook until the onion has softened and absorbed some of the broth.

Once the onion has softened, add the thinly-sliced sukiyaki / shabu-shabu beef to the pan. If you have a hard time finding Japanese-style sliced beef, shaved beef (the kind you would use for thinks like cheesesteaks) works just fine – it’ll just be slightly thicker than the traditional kind used in gyudon. Shabu-shabu is even thinner-sliced than sukiyaki; so the choice of sliced beef thickness is totally up to you, though traditionally, we use the sukiyaki thickness.

Pile the beef / onion mixture on a bowl of steamed white rice, and top with thinly-sliced green onions / scallions. Serve with miso soup, some Japanese salt-cured ginger, and either some iced tea (in Japan it’s often an iced barley tea called mugicha) or beer, and enjoy your gyudon!