Update: Picture updated on 7/20/12
The literal translation of Oyakodon (親子丼) means “parent-and-child rice bowl.” The typical ingredients include chicken (as in parent), egg (as in child), and onions. The ingredients are simmered together in a sauce then served on top of a bowl of rice. It’s a very common Donburi dish and served at most traditional Japanese diners. I first learned how to cook the dish during home-making class in middle school (although this recipe is not from the textbook). It’s very easy to cook so I hope Oyakodon will be your go-to recipe when you are busy.
Ingredients:
- 2 chicken thighs, rinsed and patted dry
- 2 eggs
- ½ onion, thinly sliced
- 3 Tbsp. mirin
- 1 Tbsp. sake
- 2 Tbsp. soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp. sugar
- 1 cup dashi stock
- Chopped mitsuba or finely chopped green onion for garnish
Instructions:
- Cut the chicken diagonally (Use Sogigiri cutting technique)
- Crack eggs into a bowl. DO NOT BEAT. Instead, hold chopsticks with the tip of chopsticks touching the bottom of the bowl, and write “Z” a couple of times. Set aside.
- In a shallow frying pan, heat mirin and sake and bring it to a boil.
- Add soy sauce, sugar, and dashi and bring it to a boil.
- Spread the onion into the pan and place chicken on top. Cover with a lid and keep the heat on high until it boils.
- Once it boils, skim off the scum and fat, and lower the heat to medium and cook for 12 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through and onion is soft. You can lightly stir the chicken and onion while cooking.
- Slowly and evenly add eggs into the pan instead of pouring at once.
- Use chopsticks and poke around the ingredients so eggs will disperse evenly. Shake the pan so the ingredients move around and bottom doesn’t stick to the pan.
- Serve Japanese rice in a large serving bowl.
- When the egg is cooked about 80%, add mitsuba (or green onions) and turn off the heat after 1 minute.
- Pour the mixture on top of rice and pour extra sauce. Serve immediately.
Copyright 2011-2013 Just One Cookbook. All rights reserved.
Enjoy!
Hi, I'm Nami. Thanks for stopping by Just One Cookbook. You can read little bit more about me 
{ 35 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Nami, I just made Oyakodon this week, and I went on your site looking for a recipe! I ended up using my mom’s, which is chinese-ized oyako don. I’ll try your recipe next time and compare.
Hi Sau! My Oyakodon has rather traditional and authentic taste. Some people like it to be more salty and sweeter, but mine has good Dashi taste. I cook chicken and onion in Dashi-Jiru and that makes this dish very flavorful, not over killed by say sauce and sugar. I’d love to try your Chinese-ized Oyakodon too!
I just looked at your website. It is AMAZING!! I expected to see one photo of the finished dish. I never thought you would be able to put so many details and photos of each step. I am truely impressed and inspired. I wanted to try the Oyakodon at my dads house one day soon.
Thanks Angel! I wasn’t sure if those big pictures of each step is too much (esp. if you are going to print out). But I wanted to show how easily we can prepare most of the food I cook. I get motivated by feedback people give me, so thank you for writing! Good luck with Oyakodon!
Hi, I made this dish today – just one thing didn’t work out that well: the eggs. I don’t know if there was maybe too much liquid still in my dish?, but they just seemed a bit scrambled, even though I had hardly stirred them! (Only initially, to make sure that eggs would disperse evenly). Do you have any idea what might have gone ‘wrong’? The dish was very tasty btw!!
Thanks!
Hi Valerie! Hmm hard to tell without a picture, but do you mean the egg was overcooked like scrambled eggs? Not sure how you pour the egg, but like the #6 picture, you pour (well beaten) egg slowly… so the egg will float fluffy. It’s very thin layer that it will cook quickly. If you didn’t pour egg like a string (sorry don’t know how to explain), it will create a large spot of egg mixture in one spot… Hmm I really want to help you, but I don’t know enough about the situation and it’s a bit hard to advise. Sorry Valerie I’m not helpful here. If the egg was cooked too fast, then maybe you needed to lower the heat? Japanese like to eat Oyakodon with a little runny eggs. I know we don’t eat raw eggs here for safety reason…so I sort of cooked egg. But you can stop cooking eggs early if you like it more runny (and using fresh eggs). Let me know if I can help you further. I love feedback and that’s how I can make my recipe better. Thanks again!
Hello Nami – I made this oyako don for my family last week and it was a HIT!
Everyone enjoyed it and asked for seconds!
Thanks for sharing your recipes and tips
Hi Irene!
Thanks for your feedback! I’m so happy to hear that your family enjoyed this meal. You made my day!
This looks wonderful and so easy! I also love the meaning of the name – parent for the chicken and child for the egg.
Yum! I have been looking at your recipes almost every day this week – wondering what to make next. Everything that I have tried so far has been delicious: it looks as if it’s Oyakodon tonight!
Hi Morgan! I’m really happy to hear that you enjoy my recipes.
Thank you for writing, and enjoy Oyakodon tonight! I hope you will like it.
What a lovely website that you have. Thank you for your hard work on this website.
Twice now I have tried the Oyakodon recipe and both times came out great. For the broth I went to a Japanese market here in Los Angeles and used Hondashi for the broth. Worked out great for me. I also used a perforated flat ladle to scoop out the Oyakodon from the pan leaving behind the excess liquid. Quick to make recipe and yet so wholesome!
Thank you.
Hi Alfredo! Thank you so much for leaving your feedback here. LA has several Japanese supermarkets that you will find all the ingredients I use for my recipes.
I’m happy to hear you enjoyed this recipe. Thank you so much for writing!
SO YUMMY!! Thank you for the recipe Nami! =D
See if mine looks authentic enough? I followed your recipe EXACTLY! You are the best!! LOVE ALL YOUR RECIPES and please keep them coming!!!
http://www.priscillaliang.com/2012/08/oyakodon-asari-miso-shiru/
Checking it out now!
I used to eat this at least once a week when I was in college! So glad I came across your recipe. Can’t wait to try this. Thanks!
You are welcome! I hope you will like it!
I used to make oyako donburi all the time and then over the years I forgot about it! I’m going to try yours.
- Michael
Hi Michael! I hope you enjoy this recipe.
Hi Nami, I forgot to tell you that I tried your oyakodon recipe and I enjoyed it very much. Thanks for sharing!
- Michael
Hi Michael! Thank you so much for trying this recipe! I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed it.
hi Nami,
Thank you for posting this recipe. It was very delicious.
I love your recipes. They are very well explained, and easy to follow.
Keep it up!
Hi Jane! Glad to hear you enjoyed this recipe! Thank you so much for letting me know. Thank you for following my blog!
Hey Nami, oyakudonburi is one of my favorite Japanese dishes and I am so glad I found your website. I made the dish tonite for dinner for my family and it blew me away! My hubs never had it before and he loved it
. Thank you, it tastes just like the ones from the Japanese restaurants here (live in Hawaii) and I always, ALWAYS, wanted to learn to make it!. Thanks again!
Hi Jasmine! I’m really happy to hear that you found my site looking for this recipe! It’s very easy once you know how to make it and thank you for trying this recipe. I am happy you and your husband enjoyed this dish! Thank you for your feedback!
Hi,
I enjoyed reading your recipes. Just wondering what’s the difference between sake and mirin? Reason is because I also came across mirin as sweet sake. Is it the same?
Look forward to your advice. Thanks.
Hi Sue! You can read more about Sake here and Mirin here. But basically mirin is a kind of rice wine similar to sake, but with a lower alcohol content (14% instead of 20%) and it’s sweet and syrupy. You can substitute mirin by sake and sugar (3:1 ratio). Hope this helps.
Thanks for the great recipe! I made it today. I’m an English teacher living in Aichi prefecture. Great Blog! ありがとうございます（＾＾）/
こんにちは Jelani! Thank you so much for trying this recipe and giving me feedback! I’m glad you enjoyed it! Are you on JET program? I still remember my English teacher in Elementary school.
I lived on Oyakodon as a college student in Tokyo so I know a good Oyakodon when I taste it. Last night, I followed this recipe and was immediately transported back to Japan! This is Oyakodon as it was meant to be. Kudos to Nami! The one thing I might point out to others is that the dashi really is key to this recipe. An inferior dashi will dull down the flavors in this dish. Also, the liquid should boil down by at least a quarter of a cup. Finally, me being me, I didn’t completely follow Nami’s instructions on agitating the eggs in the skillet. My method wound up almost scrambling the eggs in the liquid. It tasted alright but it doesn’t look very attractive. Next time I will follow Nami’s instructions without deviation. Oh, one other thing, mitsuba is an authentic garnish for this dish but it may be hard to find. An alternative, which is kind of the “working man’s” version of Oyakodon, is to garnish with pickled red ginger, available in most Asian markets. In any case, looking forward to exploring the rest of this great site!
Hi Weston! Thank you for your feedback! I’m so happy to hear that my recipe worked for your taste! I also have been cooking Oyakodon for a long time too.
I change little things around and came to this recipe and I stick to it so we can always eat good Oyakodon! 
I think my recipe will leave you more soup because I like to have extra sauce over the rice. Yeah mistuba can be very hard to find outside of Japanese grocery stores but it adds nice fragrance and hope they become more common herb one day. The red ginger is always good with donburi. I love them too! Thank you for making my day with your kind comment. Thanks for following my blog!
Nami,
Thanks for your nice reply. I think your experimentation with the ingredients ratio paid off. The sauce is perfectly balanced. I’m looking forward to trying your nikujaga recipe next!
Weston
Thanks Weston! Hope you will enjoy my Nikujaga recipe. I adjust the amount of sweetness depending on the day (for bento I prefer sweeter Nikujaga as it’s eaten cold/room temp, etc). Have fun cooking!
Hello Nami!
I just wanted to say THANK YOU for sharing this recipe – oyakodon has long been one of my favourite dishes at my local Japanese restaurant and I found your website while hunting for the recipe. Your instructions were easy to follow and the result was delicious (and tasted like it does in the restaurant). Now I just have to decide which of your other recipes I’ll try next!
Hi Catherine! I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed this oyakodon recipe! It’s pretty easy to make, right? Chicken, egg, onion, rice… Pretty much staple ingredients so you can prepare it when you are busy etc. Thank you for your kind feedback! Gyudon is similar to oyakodon if you can get thinly sliced beef. With chicken, I like chicken katsu don.
{ 10 trackbacks }