Chazuke (Rice with Green Tea) Recipe

Cha 茶, or ocha means tea in Japanese, and chazuke 茶漬け or ochazuke is a traditional Japanese dish made by pouring green tea over cooked rice with savory toppings.

It’s popular as a quick meal. On the busy morning when you don’t have time or when you feel lazy, you just put rice in a rice bowl, and add some toppings and pour green tea on it. It’s simple and delicious.

I’ll show you 3 chazuke recipes in this article.

Simple chazuke with typical Japanese ingredients
Rich chazuke with tuna
Chazuke with a chazuke-seasoning

Before that, you might wonder if the rice should be warm or not. In fact, it depends on your taste although chazuke was originally made using cold rice to make a nice warm meal. Personally, I like having chazuke with warm rice, but some people still prefer cold rice.

Simple style chazuke with typical Japanese ingredients

Toppings: chopped yakinori seaweed sheet, roasted rice (brown round ones in the photo) ,white sesame seeds, moshio seaweed salt and grated wasabi ( green paste on the edge of the bowl in the photo).

Topping options: flavored salt such as ume plum seaweed salt ,lemon seaweed salt , kombucha(kelp soup tea powder) instead of seaweed salt.

Green tea : Furuichi Seicha: #02 Organic Kagoshima Sencha green tea, Midori no Daichi (Wa) The Aroma of sencha enhances the flavor of roasted rice, seaweed, and wasabi.

Rich style chazuke with tuna

Toppings: tuna (tinned tuna), coriander leaves, black pepper, white sesame seeds, shoyu (soy sauce).

Topping options: salmon, dil or chive leaves.

Green tea: Azuma Tea Garden: Spring Gyokuro from Wazuka, Kyoto (Gokou & Yabukita Blend) Gyokuro green tea has a strong umami flavor, and so, it goes well with rich toppings like tuna.

Chazuke with a chazuke-seasoning

It’s popular to use a chazuke-seasoning as it’s simple and super easy. You just open the packet which is packed for each meal, and then sprinkle it onto rice.

Chazuke seasoning :Kameya Foods: Farm Direct Wasabi Chazuke - Seasoning It contains similar ingredients to the first recipe such as yakinori seaweed sheet, roasted rice, wasabi

Green tea: Miyazaki Sabou MY07: Organic Kamairicha Green Tea Kamairicha, pan-fried tea, is green tea made by heating the leaves in a pan instead of steaming. It tastes light and less astringent than sencha green tea, and so, the taste of chazuke will be milder.

These recipes are just some examples. There are hundreds of variations of chazuke . You can make your own chazuke if you just have cooked rice and green tea.

If you'd like to know how to cook Japanese rice in a pan, read this article. How to Cook Japanese Rice in a Pan