Overview
Nabe (鍋) refers to both Japanese hot pot dishes and the pot itself. A popular winter meal, nabe is typically cooked and eaten at the table. Common ingredients include vegetables, mushrooms, meat, and seafood. The cooking liquid is either a seasoned, flavorful broth that also serves as a soup, or a light broth used solely for cooking.
While often enjoyed at home, hot pot dishes are also available at some restaurants or as part of a ryokan dinner. Each diner uses a small personal bowl, and cooked ingredients are scooped out with a serving ladle. Depending on the type of nabe, condiments such as ponzu, grated daikon radish (daikon-oroshi), yuzu kosho, mustard, and shichimi are provided for diners to customize the flavor.
Popular Types of Nabe Dishes
Yose-nabe is the most common and basic hot pot dish, served in homes across Japan. Vegetables, mushrooms, meat, and seafood are cooked in a flavorful broth typically made with water, sake, soy sauce, mirin, and dashi stock. A common way to end a yose-nabe meal is to add raw eggs and cooked rice to the remaining broth to make zosui, a thick rice dish similar to porridge.
Sukiyaki is a hot pot dish featuring thinly sliced beef or pork and vegetables cooked in a mixture of soy sauce, mirin, sugar, and water. Cooked ingredients are typically dipped in beaten raw egg before eating. Sukiyaki is served at restaurants specializing in sukiyaki and shabu shabu.
Shabu shabu is named after the sound of swishing thin meat slices in simmering broth. The broth is often very lightly flavored, sometimes just with kombu seaweed and dashi stock. All ingredients except the meat (thinly sliced beef, pork, or sometimes raw seafood) are added to the broth. The meat is swished in the pot to cook just before eating. Ingredients are dipped in ponzu or sesame sauce. Shabu shabu is found at sukiyaki and shabu shabu specialty restaurants.
Oden is a hot pot of ingredients simmered for hours in a light broth, often made with dashi stock and soy sauce. A winter favorite, it is eaten to warm up in cold weather. Popular ingredients include daikon radish, eggs, konnyaku (konjac), various fish cakes, and potatoes. Mustard is often served as a condiment. Oden can be found at specialty oden restaurants and convenience stores.
Chanko-nabe is famously the staple food of sumo wrestlers. This hot pot dish can have a light or rich soup base, with common ingredients including vegetables, seafood, and meat. Chanko-nabe is eaten with various condiments depending on the broth flavor. Ryogoku, home to Tokyo's sumo stadium and many sumo stables, is where many chanko-nabe restaurants run by retired sumo wrestlers are located.
Motsu-nabe is a hot pot dish containing pork or beef offal, vegetables, and chili peppers in a soup base of dashi stock and soy sauce or miso. Noodles are often added to the remaining soup to finish the meal. Motsu-nabe is found across Japan but is especially popular in Fukuoka.
Yudofu is a boiled tofu dish that highlights the delicate flavor of soft tofu. A light, clear broth, often simply flavored with a piece of kombu seaweed, is typically used. The boiled tofu is dipped in ponzu before eating. Yudofu is most easily found at tofu specialty restaurants in Kyoto.