Japanese Vegetarian Okonomiyaki

Okonomiyaki is an iconic Japanese street food dish and it’s a savoury pancake that is made with a few simple ingredients. Okonomi means ‘as you like’ and Yaki stands for cooking or grilling. The base of okonomiyaki is made from a thick pancake-like batter filled with shredded hispi cabbage and spring onions. It’s served with a variety of savoury condiments including aonori seaweed, mayonnaise, and okonomiyaki sauce. It’s important to use Japanese mayonnaise, which is eggier, and tangier as compared to a regular mayonnaise and Okonomiyaki sauce which has a deep umami, fruity flavour. I’ve created two variations for you to choose from, one vegetarian option that uses cheddar & kimchi and another with prawn & bacon.

Okonomiyaki is believed to have first appeared in Osaka. It filled a gap as a satisfying, convenient and a filling dish. There are two main versions of okonomiyaki: Hiroshima-style and Osaka-style. Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki is made by layering the batter and followed by layers of cabbage, egg noodles, other condiments, and the batter again. Osaka-style okonomiyaki, on the other hand, mixes all the ingredients together in the batter before cooking.

It's one of the meals my boys enjoyed a lot as they were growing up and they liked Okonomiyaki’s for the fact that they could play around with the toppings to vary flavours. It’s a simple but great way to incorporate lots of vegetables in our diet.