Japanese rice porridge is called Okayu (お粥), and it’s a warm, savory, and gooey rice dish, perfect for those cold days or when you’re feeling a bit ill.
You might feel like your stomach needs a comforting dish made with minimal ingredients to help ease cold, flu, and indigestion symptoms.
If you’re not in the mood for traditional porridge, you’ll love this easy rice recipe you can have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!
Okayu is just a simple, light meal that’s so easy to make, and anyone can do it.
Okayu is a popular dish made by simmering rice in water until the mixture begins to disintegrate and becomes mushy. To make Okayu, you must use a specific 1:5 rice to water ratio, called zen-gayu (全粥), to give the rice a thick porridge-like consistency.
Keep in mind that Okayu is not quite the same as Zosui, which is a much thinner rice soup.
This dish is similar to a Chinese rice porridge called congee, but it’s mild and bland when it comes to flavor.
That’s because the role of Okayu is to be light on the digestive system, and it’s supposed to help the body heal, so the Japanese don’t really add any significant source of protein or spices to it and prefer savory but healthy toppings like Nori (seaweed), and pickled plums.
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