This tamago kake gohan recipe for Japanese egg on rice – or TKG for the KFC generation – makes a classic Japanese breakfast for egg lovers. This deliciously-simple breakfast egg dish of raw egg stirred into piping-hot steamed Japanese rice can be customised, served simply with soy sauce and sesame oil, or sprinkled with spring onions, sesame seeds, furikake, bonito flakes, or roasted seaweed.
If you’ve enjoyed our recipes for Japanese comfort food dishes, particularly the recipes for donburi or rice bowl dishes, such as oyakodon, the Japanese ‘chicken and egg’ rice bowl, and katsudon, the pork cutlet and egg rice bowl, then you’re going to love this tamago kake gohan recipe for Japanese egg on rice.
A quick and easy breakfast dish of raw egg stirred into cooked rice, tamago kake gohan is versatile and can be customised as you like, with traditional Japanese sauces, pickles, condiments, and toppings, such as furikake seasoning, bonito flakes and roasted seaweed, or European ingredients, such as Italian Parma ham and Parmigiano-Reggiano, which is apparently very popular.
This tamago kake gohan recipe comes with a warning, however: if you don’t like raw eggs, this dish is not for you. If you do eat raw eggs, you probably know this, but do use pasteurised eggs to be safe, make sure the rice is piping hot, and stir the egg in as soon as you plate the rice, to reduce the risk of salmonella. If you have concerns, don’t make this dish. More tips below.
This tamago kake gohan recipe is the latest recipe in our Weekend Eggs series of quintessential eggs dishes from around the world. If you’re visiting us for the first time, we started Weekend Eggs back in 2010 when we launched Grantourismo with a yearlong global grand tour aimed at promoting slow, local and experiential travel, more sustainable, ethical, engaging, and immersive forms of travel.
We spent two weeks in each destination, staying in apartment rentals and holiday homes to get an insight into how locals lived their lives, and in each place we settled into, we explored the local food, connected with local cooks and chefs, and learnt to cook local specialties. We shared those in a series called The Dish, for which Terence learnt to cook a quintessential dish of each place, and in our Weekend Eggs series, for which Terence cooked local breakfast eggs dishes. We rebooted that series last year.
If you’re an eggs lover and particularly a lover of breakfast eggs dishes, do dig into our Weekend Eggs archive (link above) for inspiration and ideas or browse our collections of our 21 best breakfast recipes of 2021 and our all-time 12 most popular Weekend Eggs recipes in 12 years of Grantourismo, which we compiled as part of Grantourismo’s 12th birthday celebrations.
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Tamago Kake Gohan Recipe for Japanese Egg on Rice
This tamago kake gohan recipe will make you a classic Japanese breakfast dish that’s also known as TKG to the KFC generation – which doesn’t include me, I have to say; I’m very much in the Kentucky Fried Chicken “wheels are talking” age group.
One of the things I love about this tamago kake gohan recipe is that it’s endlessly adaptable. The Japanese breakfast dish that can be eaten very simply, with little more than a raw egg stirred through steamed rice, doused with soy sauce, and sprinkled with spring onions or scallions.
Or you can make our tamago kake gohan recipe, in which a mixture of raw egg, soy sauce, mirin and sesame oil is stirred through the piping-hot steamed rice, before we top it with a raw egg yolk, which we place into a shallow well, so it partly cooks, and then sprinkle it with finely sliced roasted seaweed (kizami nori), spring onions, furikake, and bonito flakes.
But the beauty of tamago kake gohan is that it’s easily customisable with your favourite condiments, sauces and other toppings – just like a rice porridge or congee, which can also be eaten simply or can be topped with an egg, vegetables, herbs, pickles, crunchy shallots, sliced chillies, you name it.
You can really create your own tamago kake gohan recipe and put anything on it. They don’t even need to be Japanese ingredients, if you want to go fusion. I’ve read that the Japanese are really getting creative with their tamago kake gohan recipes these days. Just a few tips to making this tamago kake gohan recipe.
Tips to Making this Tamago Kake Gohan Recipe for Japanese Egg on Rice
As usual, I only have a few tips for you to making this tamago kake gohan recipe as it’s super easy and comes together in minutes.
My top tip is if you don’t eat raw eggs, can’t eat raw eggs or have any concerns about eating raw eggs, do not make this tamago kake gohan recipe. More tips on raw eggs below.
Do use Japanese rice if you can source it – if you can’t find it locally, you can buy it online – and definitely use a rice cooker to steam the rice, as you can fluff it up once cooked and leave it in the rice cooker so it stays hot.
I find that two cups of Japanese white rice makes enough rice for two people – one cup of rice per person – and is the perfect amount for a traditional Japanese donburi bowl.
Make sure you use pasteurised eggs and keep eggs refrigerated to reduce the risk of possible salmonella infection from raw eggs.
Most classic tamago kake gohan recipes call for the soy sauce to be poured onto the rice first then the beaten raw egg to be stirred through the rice, then any other sauces (such as mirin or mentsuyu) to be doused on, however, I prefer to whisk the raw eggs with the Japanese soy sauce, sesame oil and mirin first in a mixing jug with spout as I find the rice is then evenly seasoned.
After you pour the raw egg mixture into the rice, you’ll find the rice looks wet, but quickly stir it in and keeping stirring it in and it will dry and thicken as the mixture coats the steamed rice and the rice soaks it up.
Work quickly, as the hotter the rice is, the better it will soak up the mixture, plus it’s safer as the heat partly ‘cooks’ the egg. Which is also what will happen when you create a small shallow well at the centre of the rice for the raw egg yolk. By the time you sit down to eat it, you’ll see and taste that it’s firm around the edges.
Once you’re done, work quickly to sprinkle the toppings onto each bowl. I portion everything out after I slice the scallions. By the way, if you can’t find kizami nori, shredded roasted seaweed, I use scissors to cut a sheet of nori into fine slices.
You should find most ingredients in the Japanese section or Asian section of a good supermarket, otherwise, make a beeline for your nearest Japanese community, where you should find a Japanese specialty shop, or your nearest Asian supermarket or Chinatown.
You’ll also find everything online on websites such as Amazon, which has shichimi togarashi, the Japanese 7 spice blend that we recommend, as well as bonito flakes, kizami nori, the shredded roasted seaweed, and furikake. If you don’t want to buy furikake, you could make your own or just use a mix of white sesame seeds and black sesame seeds.
And to repeat our warning above, if you don’t like raw eggs or can’t eat raw eggs, then this dish is definitely not for you.
If you do eat raw eggs, you probably know this already, but just a reminder to wash your hands, cooking utensils and working area thoroughly with hot soapy water before handling raw eggs, use pasteurised eggs to be safe, to make sure that the rice is piping hot, and to stir the egg in as soon as you plate the rice, in order to reduce the risk of salmonella infection.
This is not a medical site – it’s a food and travel site where we share recipes and tips purely for your entertainment and information – so we cannot provide medical advice, however, you’ll find more information here about using raw eggs safely in cooking, symptoms of salmonella infection, and diagnosis and treatment of salmonella poisoning. The American CDC has a comprehensive salmonella section on its website.
Tamago Kake Gohan Recipe for Japanese Egg on Rice
Ingredients
- 2 cups Japanese white rice
- 4 pasteurised eggs
- 2 tsp Japanese soy sauce
- 2 tsp sesame oil
- 2 tsp mirin
- 6 spring onions green part only, finely sliced
- 2 tbsp roasted seaweed finely sliced
- 1 tbsp sesame seeds or furikake
- 1 tbsp bonito flakes
- 1 tsp shichimi togarashi Japanese 7 spice blend
Instructions
- Use a rice cooker to steam 2 cups of Japanese white rice; when done, fluff up the rice with a fork and leave it in your rice cooker (turned on) until ready to serve, so the rice remains piping hot.
- In a mixing jug, whisk two pasteurised eggs, Japanese soy sauce, sesame oil and mirin until thoroughly combined.
- Working quickly, scoop the hot Japanese rice out of the cooker and into two bowls, pour the egg mixture over the rice to distribute evenly between the two bowls, use a fork to thoroughly stir the egg mixture into the rice, and create a shallow well at the centre of each bowl for an egg yolk.
- Crack open the other two pasteurised eggs, one at a time, separating the yolk from the white, then use a large spoon to transfer a yolk to each bowl, carefully placing the yolks into the shallow wells you created at the centre of each bowl.
- Sprinkle onto each bowl some finely sliced spring onions, finely sliced roasted seaweed, sesame seeds or furikake, bonito flakes, and shichimi togarashi, the Japanese spice blend, and serve immediately.
Nutrition
Please do let us know in the comments below if you make this tamago kake gohan recipe as we’d love to know how it turns out for you.
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