Japanese Chicken Curry Recipe {One Pot, 40 Minutes, Water Free}

This Japanese chicken curry only takes you 40 minutes to make.

Simply put every ingredient into one pot, season with some Japanese curry cubes and coconut milk, you will get your weekend family meal ready. Plus your Monday lunch bento~

What makes this Japanese chicken curry recipe foolproof?

You don’t even need to add any water or salt when you cook! The tomatoes will release enough “umami” liquid to cover all the ingredients. The Japanese curry cubes will be flavorful and savory enough, so that you don’t need to add any extra seasonings by yourself!

Enjoy the tender chicken, the mushy carrots and potatoes, and the rich and creamy Japanese style curry sauce over your hot steamed rice.

Water-free Japanese chicken curry

As you have probably noticed, we don’t need to use any water or stock to make this Japanese chicken curry. Instead, we use a great amount of tomatoes to make our curry sauce creamy and full of umami flavor.

– What is Umami?

According to WebMD, umami, which is translated to “savory”, is your fifth basic taste alongside sour, sweet, bitter, and salty. 

In the early 20th century, a Japanese chemist named Kikunae Ikeda discovered this flavor and named it as “umami”, or “deliciousness.”

Umami flavor comes from three compounds that can be found in natural foods: glutamate, inosinate, and guanylate.

Which food contains the most umami flavor?

Of course, the answer is MSG, which is a bottle of glutamate binding with sodium.

The safety of MSG is still controversial. But good news is that, the umami flavor can be naturally found in plants and meat. For example, mushrooms, tomatoes, seaweed, cheese, and kelp are healthy and loaded with natural umami flavor.

Why add so many tomatoes into my Japanese Chicken Curry?

My trick for making delicious and creamy Japanese chicken curry is using a lot of fresh tomatoes to substitute water.

Will it burn your pot? Of course not!

Fresh tomatoes contain 94% water. As long as your pot’s lid is able to effectively lock the moisture from the food, the water released from the tomatoes will be way enough to immerse all the ingredients in your pot.

According to healthline, tomatoes contain 150–250 mg of glutamic acid per 100 grams. In the same serving, truffles contain 60–80 mg, beef contain 10 mg, scallop contains 140 mg of glutamic acid.

In other words, tomatoes taste more “delicious” than truffles, beef, or scallop in terms of their glutamic acid percentages.

The subtle sweet, sour, and savory taste from fresh tomatoes can pair with the mild flavor of Japanese chicken curry JUST RIGHT!

Japanese Curry Roux

Compared with Indian curry powder, Japanese curry roux is such a foolproof and lazy-proof seasoning.

Japanese curry roux is made of Japanese curry powder, a blend of spices, butter, and flour. It looks like a chocolate bar.

By adding a few Japanese curry roux cubes into your pot, you can turn a bland meat/vegetable stew into aromatic and creamy Japanese curry without any other seasonings. And the flour in these curry cubes can thicken your sauce within minutes.

My rule of thumb is using one Japanese curry roux cube per serving. We are making 4 servings of chicken curry in this recipe, so I will be using 4 cubes of curry roux.

Japanese curry is thicker in texture and milder in taste than Indian curry. Therefore, feel free to add 1 tsp of Indian curry powder to your Japanese curry stew if you want a spicier and bolder taste.

EQUIPMENT

I used this 3.3-quarts cast iron Dutch oven from Buydeem.

Special spikes on the lid help lock in the moisture of your dishes, making them moist & flavorful, enabling cooking to be more efficient while keeping the nutritional value and original taste of the ingredients.

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Ingredients in Japanese Chicken Curry

1. Chicken

You can use both chicken thighs and chicken breasts in this recipe.

This dish would be easier and heathier if you use chicken breasts, but juicier tastier with chicken thighs.

If you are going to use chicken thighs, I’d suggest you to searing them before cutting:

– Simply heat the skillet over medium-high heat without adding any oil to it. Heat the skillet for about 3 minutes until it gets very hot.

– Place the chicken skin side down in the skillet, leave the skillet uncovered, and sear the skin side over medium heat for 5 minutes. Then, flip the chicken over, sear the meat side over medium heat for 5 minutes until both sides turn golden.

– Transfer the seared chicken thighs to a cutting board, cut them into bite size cubes.

In this way, we can bring out more flavors and aromas through the Maillard reaction. Also we can burn some extra fat on the chicken thighs before adding them to our curry stew.

If you are going to use chicken breasts, the instructions will be even easier. Follow my step-by-step instructions listed below.

2. Apples – it’s a must have

It is not often for people to add apples to their Japanese curry. I decided to give it try when I happened to see an apple-flavor Japanese curry roux at my local Asian store.

Sweet apples and sweet Japanese curry sounds like a very harmony combination to me. And the result surprised my friends and me. They all told me that they’re going to add apples to their curry since then.

The apples in Japanese chicken curry will be soft like potatoes, and be adding a subtle fruity sweet taste to the curry sauce.

3. Onions, potatoes, and carrots

These three ingredients together make the most classic Japanese curry base.

Fry onions until transparent so that they can release their flavors and aromas better. Add bite-size potato and carrot cubes, simmer until you can easily mash the potato cubes with a fork. Then you can stir in the curry roux.

4. Tomatoes

As we have introduced above, we will be using a lot of fresh tomatoes here to substitute water and add the umami flavor to our curry.

If you are allergic to tomatoes, feel free to substitute the tomatoes in this recipe with 3 cups of vegetable/chicken stocks.

5. Japanese Curry Roux

A few blocks of Japanese curry roux can season and thicken your curry at the same time.

You may notice that Japanese curry roux are sorted into have “mild“, “medium hot“, “hot“, and “extra hot“. According to my experience, all of them taste the same.

Different from Korean people, Japanese people can’t really tolerant spicy food. Therefore, feel free to use their “extra hot” curry roux if you are able to eat yellow mustard.

6. Coconut milk

We add a small amount of coconut milk to the Japanese chicken curry to add a rich and nutty flavor, and adjust the thickness of the sauce.

Make sure you use canned coconut milk, because the carton coconut milk could be too watery and too bland to season the curry

If you are allergic to coconut, feel free to substitute the coconut milk with the same amount of Greek yogurt.

7. Beef

We are not going to use any beef in this current recipe, but I actually like beef curry more than chicken curry. The only reason why I don’t make beef curry that often is that beef could take forever to cook.

If you are a beef lover, feel free to substitute the chicken in this recipe with the same amount of beef.

The only difference is that you will need to fry the beef, garlic, onion, and tomatoes first, simmer them for 1 to 2 hours until your beef turns tender. Then add in the potato, carrot, and apple cubes to boil for 20 more minutes until they turn soft. Lastly, stir in the curry roux cubes.

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How to Make Japanese Chicken Curry Step-by-Step:

1. Cut chicken breasts into bite-size pieces. Mince the garlics. Chop the onion, carrot, tomatoes, potato, and apple into 1 inch pieces.

2. Add oil and butter to a large Cast Iron Dutch Oven (use code “Msshi15” for 15% off), heat the oil over medium heat until the butter melts. Add the chicken breasts, stir fry until there is no longer pink on the outside. (You can also use boneless chicken thighs.)

3. Add the minced garlic and chopped onion, stir fry over medium heat until the onion turns translucent and soft.

4. Add the chopped carrot, potato, apple, and tomato, roughly stir until all the ingredients are well mixed. Cover and simmer over medium-low heat for 15 minutes until the potatoes turn soft. (*Yes, there is no need to add any water into the pot. The tomatoes will release enough water to immerse all the ingredients.)

5. Add 4 Japanese curry cubes, stir continuously until they are fully dissolved.

6. Leave the pot uncovered, simmer and stir frequently over medium-low heat, until the curry becomes thick. It will take about 5 minutes. (The curry sauce and the potato cubes can stick to the bottom of your pot and get burnt easily. Therefore, you should stir frequently using a silicone spatula, and intentionally scrape the bottom of the pot to keep it from burning. )

7. Once the curry has reached your desired thickness, pour in ¼ cup of canned coconut milk or Greek yogurt. Stir until well mixed. Taste and add in some salt and pepper to your taste if it’s needed.

8. Serve hot with white short-grain rice.

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