Japanese Summer Recipes

Cold noodles are great summer dishes. Japanese noodles, such as somen and soba (buckwheat noodles) are chilled and served with dipping soup (mentsuyu) and some toppings.

Salt-boiled edamame in pods are eaten by squeezing beans out of pods with fingers. It's a popular Japanese summer appetizer and go well with cold beer.

Eggplant (nasu) is the king of summer vegetables in Japan and is often cooked during the summer. Grilled and chilled eggplants which is called yakinasu in Japanese is a traditional summer dish.

Harusame are transparent noodles made from potato starch or mung bean starch. This is a popular harusame salad seasoned with soy sauce based dressing. It's a refresing dish to add in a summer meal.

Hiyashi chuka is a popular summer noodle dish. It's like a noodle salad. Restaurants in Japan serve hiyashi chuka only during the summer. Colorfully served hiyashi chuka can be very appetizing.

Hiyayakko is the simplest and most popular Japanese tofu dish. All you need to do is place toppings on top of chilled tofu. It's a great summer appetizer or side dish.

Rei-shabu is cold shabu shabu. Although it's too hot to eat shabu shabu in summer, rei-shabu is a great alternative. It's a healthy and nutritious dish to eat lots of vegetables with meat.

This vegetable curry recipe is a variation on basic Japanese curry. Eggplants add great texture to the curry. Add your favorite summer vegetables.

It's said unagi gives us stamina, and it's consumed the most during the summer in Japan. This is a basic Japanese unagi rice bowl which is topped with glaze-grilled unagi and kabayaki sauce.

Because it's said that the bitterness of goya helps us beat the heat, goya dishes are often cooked during the summer in Japan. Chanpuru are stir-fried dishes which are regional specialities in Okinawa, Japan.