🍱 Unadon
Unadon is a bowl of hot steamed rice topped with charcoal-grilled eel glazed in tare, a sweet, glossy sauce of soy, mirin and sugar. The eel is tender and rich, with caramelized edges, and the sauce soaks into the rice. It is finished with a pinch of sansho pepper, whose citrusy tingle cuts the richness.
Diets
Allergens
Contains (in a typical recipe):
What it is made of
Recipe
Ingredients
- 400 g eel fillets
- 600 g cooked short-grain rice
- 60 ml soy sauce
- 60 ml mirin
- 30 g sugar
- Sansho pepper, to taste
Method
- Simmer soy sauce, mirin and sugar for 8–10 minutes until syrupy to make the tare.
- Grill the eel skin-side down over high heat for 4–5 minutes, then flip and grill 2–3 minutes more.
- Brush with tare and grill for 1 minute; repeat the glazing two or three times.
- Spoon a little tare over hot rice in bowls, top with the eel and sprinkle with sansho.
How to make it lighter
- Use a smaller rice portion (about 120 g) and add a side of cucumber or pickled vegetables.
- Brush on the tare instead of pouring it — the sauce is mostly sugar and soy.
- Eel is rich in fat; a 70–80 g piece is a satisfying single serving.
History
Grilling eel over charcoal and glazing it with a sweet soy-based sauce became popular in Edo (today's Tokyo) in the 18th–19th centuries. Eating eel on the midsummer Day of the Ox is a custom still widely kept in Japan. Serving the eel over rice in a bowl is usually traced to the early 19th century.
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Values are estimates per 100 g for a typical recipe; home and restaurant versions vary. Diets and allergens are worked out from the ingredients of a typical recipe — always check with whoever cooked the dish. Not medical advice. Nutrition data: Me Nutrition dish database v13. How we count →