Yoshinoya-style Gyudon (Japanese Beef Rice Bowl)
Gyudon is the ubiquitous Japanese beef rice bowl, found all over Japan (and the rest of world). At places like Yoshinoya you can buy a bowl of gyudon in Japan for as little as two dollars, but made at home this recipe is cheap to make and nearly foolproof. If you have your own homemade teriyaki sauce (check out my other recipe for that), then it’s ready in just minutes.
Ingredients
Serves 4
500g beef scotch fillet, topside or rump, very thinly sliced
¾ cup chicken stock or dashi (you can used powdered dashi if you like)
¾ cup Homemade Teriyaki Sauce (or use 1/4 cup soy sauce, 2 tbsp sake, 2 tbsp mirin and 2 tsp sugar)
1 tsp sugar (optional)
1 brown onion, peeled and thickly sliced
cooked short-grain rice, to serve
benishouga (Japanese red picked ginger), to serve
2 sliced spring onions, to serve
shichimi tougarashi (Japanese seven spice), to serve (optional)
Method
Combine the stock or dashi and terkiyaki sauce with the sugar (if using) in a medium saucepan and bring to the boil. Add in the onion and simmer for 2-3 minutes until the onion has softened. Add in the beef and stir until the beef is just cooked. Season with salt if necessary.
Fill 4 bowls with rice, flattening the top of the rice, and then add the beef mixture on top, allowing a little of the stock to soak into the rice. Sprinkle over a little Japanese seven spice and spring onion if you like, and serve with pickled ginger.
Tips for Gyudon
- Thinly sliced beef is available from Asian butchers, or frozen from Asian grocers. If you have trouble finding very thinly sliced beef, place a larger cut of beef in the freezer for 1-2 hours until quite firm and slice very thinly with a sharp knife.
- If you’re using Japanese beef which is heavily marbled with fat, it will be very tender when it just cooked. If using beef with very little fat, you can simmer the beef for perhaps 10-15 minutes to soften it.
- You can try this with very thinly sliced pork as well. Follow the exact same method as for the gyudon. A pork rice bowl is called “butadon”.
- Japanese gyudon places offer a range of extra toppings, like soft cooked eggs, grated radish and even kimchi. Try some of your own.
Could you do a slow cooked version of this?
I’m sure you could, but in only takes about 5 minutes to cook anyway so I don’t think you’d be saving yourself any effort.
Thank you for this recipe and accompanying video. It was easy to make especially after having made your Teriyaki sauce first. My Japanese neighbour says it tatse exactly like back home in Japan, so it’s Japanese approved Only thing I did differently was to swirl the egg into the portioned mixture as in Oyakudon.
Made this tonight It was AMAZING! I can’t wait to use the teriyaki sauce again!
Such a delicious and super easy recipe. Perfection!!
Is there an online store in the US I can order ingredients from? I’ve been twice to two different Asian markets and can not find all the spices or ingredients you use. Thanks!
I don’t usually comment but I had to share how quick and delicious this dish was!
I also swirled two beaten eggs in the last minute, turned off the gas and set a lid on top while I prepared the rice and side dishes.
Thank you, Adam! You’ve made this household very happy.
Hey Liam,
I made this today and it was nice but I don’t know if the taste was right, it was a bit flat.
So I have some questions:
1. We bought, I think you call it beef ribs (riblappen in Dutch), at the supermarket and sliced them ourselves, we cooked them for like 15 minutes but they still weren’t really tender. Should we just continue cooking at that point with the risk of the meat getting dry? It was cooked well-done in 5 minutes but the tenderness took some time.
2. We had 700 grams of beef, and we used 2 onions but we didn’t have nearly enough onion, at your video you used 1 onion but there was so much onion compared to your meat. At our dish the onion wasn’t even visible anymore because there was way more meat, did you use less meat in your video than 500g?
3. What should the dish taste like? Saucy or just plain rice with meat topping? Ours was a bit plain.
I want to make it for my 5 year old daughter.
Do I need to substitute the sake and mirin for something non-alcoholic? If so, what would be the substitute?
Thank you.
I made this using chicken instead of beef. Yes, I know this is heresy but I can’t afford beef. It worked beautifully and very quick to make. I add wilted greens to serve – looks good.
Jules
A couple of thoughts from a guy who made this last night:
1. Dashi
I didn’t have dashi, so I used some low sodium chicken broth, added some dried anchovies and kelp to it and simmered it for ~10-15 mins, though it made a nice substitute even if the flavor wasn’t exactly the same.
2. Meat
I sliced some semi-frozen chuck ad thinly as I possibly, maybe not the best cut for this but I found that the simmering took a while (~30mins) to get to a soft texture I desired, my onions have all disintegrated at this point so I cut another onion and dropped it in for the last ~5 mins ish of cooking, the results were actually excellent, you get some nice flavor from the cooked down onions and a good crunch from the fresher onions!
Thanks for the recipe!
I. See no egg in the discripsion????
My husband and I made the teriyaki sauce and gyudon today. Very easy to follow. Used chicken broth instead of dashi. Delicious!
Thanks for the recipe. This is very easy to make and the flavour is exactly the same like Yoshinoya in Japan!
Our local Japanese super market sells razor-thin wagyu beef, much like Yoshinoya-style. We followed this recipe tonight (with the added sugar) and, having eaten at Yoshinoya many, many times in Japan, this is really, really close. I could pick what the difference may be, it’s as good as the real thing (probably richer, in a good, tasty way and much closer than a lot of other recipes we have tried). Love it. Will make this again and again, thank you Adam.