Gyudon (牛丼), or 'beef bowl,' is a quintessential Japanese comfort food that combines thinly sliced beef and sweet onions simmered in a savory broth, served over a bed of fluffy rice. To put its popularity into perspective, there are almost 5000 restaurants specializing in Japanese beef rice bowl in Japan, nearly double the number of McDonalds here.
By the way, I often see it miswritten as guydon or gyu don, but the correct spelling and pronunciation is gyudon.
My Gyudon recipe is based on the style popularized by Yoshinoya, with tender, flavorful beef and sweet onions cooked in a savory sweet sauce, which percolates down into the rice underneath. It comes together in minutes, making it the perfect weekday lunch.
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Why This Gyudon Recipe Works?
- A cut of beef with a good amount of fat is the key to a flavorful beef bowl.
- Fattier cuts also tend to have a lot of connective tissue, so slicing the beef thinly against the grain is crucial to making it tender.
- Savory dashi broth with sweet white wine is the secret to this Yoshinoya gyudon recipe.
- Simmering the beef in extra broth keeps the beef tender and moist while providing a flavorful sauce to season the rice.
Ingredients
- Beef - You can't have Gyudon without beef, and I like using a relatively fatty cut. This keeps the thin slices of beef moist, and the fat contributes a smooth richness to the sauce. Yoshinoya is famously picky about their beef and only uses short-plate beef from America. Short-plate can be hard to find, so I like to use boneless short ribs for my Gyudon. It tends to have good marbling and is a little more tender as well. If you live in an area where Philly Cheesesteaks are popular, ribeye or chuck that's been sliced for cheesesteak is another good option. Regardless of what cut of beef you use, it's crucial to slice the meat thinly against the grain. This makes it possible to cook the meat for such a short time and yet still have it come out tender. If you're friendly with your local butcher, you can try asking them to cut it for you on a meat slicer, or you can lightly freeze the beef and then use a very sharp knife to slice it into sheets that are about 1/16 of an inch thick (~1.4mm).
- Onion - I've tried many different types of onions here, including Welsh onions and leeks, but I always return to plain old yellow onions. That's because they tend to hold their shape the best. Juicer varieties, such as sweet onions, tend to turn to mush when you cook them for too long, and red onions discolor, taking on an unappetizing grey appearance.
- Dashi stock - Dashi forms the base for the gyudon sauce, infusing the beef with loads of umami, along with a mildly smoky flavor from katsuobushi. You can check out my tutorial to learn how to make dashi from scratch, but you can also make it from powdered dashi granules or dashi packs, which can be found in most Asian supermarkets or online.
- White wine - White wine adds a subtle fruitiness, enhancing the sweetness of the onions while balancing the richness of the beef with acidity. It's also said to be the secret ingredient in Yoshinoya gyudon sauce. I like using a sweet wine like Riesling or Gewurztraminer because it's closer in taste to the wine that would have been available in Japan a century ago.
- Sake - Sake is rich in amino acids, so it's widely used in Japanese cuisine as a natural way to add umami to food. You can read more about selecting sake here, but it doesn't need to be expensive. Mirin would be a suitable substitute, but you can skip the sugar if you use it. If you can't find either where you live, the best substitute will be water for the liquid and a pinch of MSG for umami.
- Soy sauce - Soy sauce is the primary seasoning ingredient in gyudon sauce, adding salt and umami. If you want a gluten-free alternative, look for Tamari shoyu, which is soy sauce brewed using just soybeans and salt.
- Sugar - Sugar balances the saltiness of the soy sauce and the acidity of the wine, creating a harmonious gyudon sauce. I like using evaporated cane sugar for its flavor, but any sweetener like brown sugar or maple syrup will work.
- Cooked Rice - To make this a donburi (Japanese rice bowl), you need cooked rice to serve it on, and in Japan, we always use Japanese short-grain rice.
How to Make Gyudon
To prepare the gyudon sauce, add the dashi stock, sweet white wine, sake, soy sauce, evaporated cane sugar, and sliced onions to a pan and heat the mixture to a boil. Lower the heat to a gentle simmer and let the onions cook until they're translucent. This will take about three minutes.
Next, stir in th beef and cook it with the onions and sauce until tender. Because the beef is sliced very thinly, the fat will dissolve, and any tough connective tissues will break down into gelatin, rendering the beef super tender.
When the beef is tender, serve up your cooked rice in a few large bowls and then use a ladle to serve the beef with its rich sauce over the rice. Garnish your gyudon with your favorite toppings and serve.
Serve it Beef Bowl With
While purists tend to prefer their Gyudon unadorned, I like adding toppings such as beni-shoga (red pickled ginger), green onions, shichimi togarashi, and toasted sesame seeds, which contribute layers of texture and taste. In Japan, beef bowls are often topped with a raw egg yolk, but I would not recommend this unless your certain your eggs are safe to eat raw. A safer option is to use Onsen Tamago or "hot spring egg". This is the Japanese name for a sous vide egg. It's cooked in its shell at 145.5 degrees F for about 45 minutes, which renders the egg white soft and custardy while thickening up the yolk and giving it a rich, buttery texture.
As for sides, I recommend making some Japanese pickles such as Asazuke or my Beer and Wasabi Cucumbers. Serve it with a steaming bowl of miso soup, and you've got yourself a meal from a gyudon shop in Japan.
FAQ
Gyudon literally means "beef rice bowl," and it's a type of donburi made with thinly shaved beef and onions simmered in savory-sweet dashi broth. Because the beef is sliced paper-thin, it releases its flavor into the broth and becomes tender quickly. The combination of beef and broth gets poured over a bowl of hot rice and topped with various condiments.
Gyudon descends from a dish called Gyunabe, a beef hot pot dish popularized in Tokyo following the Meiji Restoration. As train networks expanded around Japan in the later half of the 19th century, serving gyunabe over rice became a popular on-the-go meal and in 1899, Eikichi Matsuda opened his first Yoshinoya location at the Nihonbashi fish market (the precursor to Tsukiji). Yoshinoya and their beef bowl went on to become one of the most popular fast food chains in Japan.
Yoshinoya's lead as the largest beef bowl chain carried on for over a century until 2004 when the BSE scare (and the ensuing ban on US beef in Japan) caused them to replace their iconic beef bowl with a pork bowl. For context, this would be akin to McDonald's halting sales of hamburgers in the US and replacing them with chicken burgers.
As stocks of cheap US beef disappeared, Yoshinoya's competitors Matsuya and Sukiya responded by sourcing beef from other countries, but Yoshinoya stubbornly refused to compromise on quality and price, sticking with pork until the ban was lifted over two years later. While some consumers simply switched brands, some loyal Yoshinoya fan's went to the lengths of visiting the chain's foreign locations to enjoy their beloved Gyudon. Today, Yoshinoya is the second largest beef bowl chain in Japan behind Sukiya.
Gyudon is a 2-syllable name and the correct pronunciation is (read the italicized parts):
gyu like bug you
don like donut
Other Japanese Beef Bowls
- Tanindon (beef and egg bowl)
- Chaliapin Steak Don
- Roast Beef Don
- Gyunabe Don
- Taco Rice
📖 Recipe
Units
Ingredients
For beef bowl
- 1 cup dashi stock
- 2 tablespoons sweet white wine (such as Riesling or Gewürztraminer)
- 2 tablespoons sake
- 2 ½ tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons evaporated cane sugar
- 250 grams beef (very thinly sliced)
- 100 grams onion (~½ large onion, thickly sliced)
- 400 grams cooked short-grain rice
For garnish
- sesame seeds (optional)
- 1 scallion (chopped, optional)
- benishōga (pickled red ginger, optional)
Instructions
- Add 1 cup dashi stock, 2 tablespoons sweet white wine, 2 tablespoons sake, 2 ½ tablespoons soy sauce, 2 teaspoons evaporated cane sugar, and 100 grams onion to a pan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
- Turn down the heat to maintain a simmer and cook the onions until they're mostly translucent (about 3 minutes)
- Add 250 grams beef, and turn down the heat to a gentle simmer. Cook, stirring regularly, until the meat is tender (about 10 minutes). Adjust salt.
- Serve the beef over 400 grams cooked short-grain rice divided between 2-3 bowls. Be sure to drizzle the remaining gyudon sauce over the beef and rice. Garnish your Japanese beef bowl with sesame seeds, 1 scallion, and benishōga to taste.
Bkhuna says
Just when I was wondering what I'm gonna make for dinner tonight, this recipe pops up. I'm giving it five stars because I've made it before and I'll make it again and again.
I've been wondering about making it with extra juice and serving it over udon. It sounds like a good idea.
Thanks for your great web page.
Marc Matsumoto says
Glad the timing was good! If you made it with extra sauce and paired with udon, I'd imagine it would end up a bit like this: https://norecipes.com/beef-udon/ 😉
Anna says
Where to buy sake and how to make dashi stock? I really love gyudon so I want to try your recipe Thank you
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Anna, I have a recipe for dashi here: https://norecipes.com/how-to-make-dashi/ and where you can buy sake will depend on where you live. If you live in the US, you can order it online from Tippsy.
patricia gallego says
Very good
Marc Matsumoto says
Thanks Patricia! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
MARY says
Can I use shiro dashi with this recipe? I didn’t realize there was different types of dashi, want to make sure if I can use what I have and still get the same flavor result.
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Mary, dashi just means "soup stock" in Japanese so just like there are different kinds of soup stock in western cuisine there are many different kinds of dashi. Shirodashi is usually a bottled concentrate which includes seasonings like salt, mirin, soy sauce, etc already mixed in. The idea is that you can use it as a convenient seasoning without adding other ingredients. You can certainly use it for this recipe, but you'll most likely need to dilute it with water and you'll also need to reduce the amount of salt and seasonings accordingly.
Mary ann says
Can I use mirin instead of white wine?
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Mary Ann, it will make it sweeter, but sure!
Jon says
Hey Marc! Made this for the family tonight and it was great. The meat was a little tough but I think that was because the butcher didn't quite get it thin enough and, even though it was boneless short rib, perhaps it could have been a little more marbled. Who knows, though, might have been the cooking time (which I didn't time particularly precisely). The onions were the star of the dish for me; they absorbed every flavor in the pot.
However, I got a bit too much meat at the butcher. Any suggestions for a second dish to make with my remaining pound of ~1/8th inch-thick boneless short rib?
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Jon, I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it. The toughness was most likely the thickness of the meat, you can try to cook it for a little longer to compensate (though you may need to add more liquid). As for what you can do with the rest of the meat, how about Nikujaga? https://norecipes.com/quick-nikujaga-recipe/
Gogogramma says
Hi Marc, can I use thinly sliced beef sold for sukiyaki?
Emily says
I love that the history of the dish is explained here!!! It really helped me, as a reader, feel a sense of belonging/understanding while making the dish. Thank you so much!
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Emily, I'm so glad you enjoyed it. I spend a bit of time researching these so it's good to hear that the extra effort is appreciated. My goal is to give a bit more context and I'm glad it did that for you! Thanks for stopping by to share!
Roberta Churchill says
What are best cuts of beef for this?
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Roberta, I go over the cuts of beef under "THE BEEF" section above, but if you're trying to replicate Yoshinoya go with short plate, my personal preference is shortrib.
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Sylvia, glad to hear you enjoyed it! Yea, I'm surprised gyudon (or donburi in general) haven't caught on more in the west.
Sylviaroldan83@gmail.com says
Just tried this recipe for the first time and it is exactly like yoshinoya! Thank you for this recipe - Sydney seems to lack this dish and now I can make it from home ?
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi John, are you talking about Yoshinoya? If so, they're usually pretty quick in Japan, it's never taken more than a few minutes for the food to show up.
john tan says
Hi marc, this is such a simple and nice recipe.but i was just wondering,
1)how long did you have to wait for a bowl of gyudon, was it a quick service like mcdonalds?(they microwaved it and serve or maybe over a steambath to keep it warm?) or did u had to wait like 15-20 mins? (cooked freshly).
Lisa Sakabu says
Thanks! While we live near LA, it takes at least an hour to get to the closest Japanese market so I was hoping to do it myself. I think maybe we'll take a field trip & buy pounds of it to freeze in individual servings! This sounds like just what Ojiichan wants!
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Lisa, if you live near a Japanese market, beef cut for "sukiyaki" works perfectly for this. Also if they have "kiriotoshi" (scraps), it tends to be cheaper and since these slices don't have to be perfect, it works great for this. Beef for "shabbu shabbu" also works, but I think it's too thin. If you don't have a Japanese market near you you can partially freeze your beef, which will make it much easier to slice paper thin using a meat slicer or even a sharp knife.
Lisa Sakabu says
How do you get paper thin beef? I tried & it was too thick for my Ojiichan
yoyo says
buy a steak and slice it very thin, if you put it in the freezer for awhile first its easier to slice
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Joseph, I'm so glad to hear you enjoyed this and thanks for the birthday wishes. For the dashi, a medium strength dashi is fine since you get a lot of flavor from the beef, but there's certainly nothing wrong with using a potent dashi. As for the sake, I use the same rule for sake as wine. There's no need to buy something super expensive (since most of the subtle nuance will be lost when heat is applied), but don't cook with something you wouldn't drink (like "cooking sake", which is often flavored grain alcohol with salt).
Joseph Kirchgraber says
Hi Marc,
I just wanted to say that this is one of the best meals I have ever had in my life. It's easy to make and since I live in NYC, the ingredients weren't hard to get. I have a feeling people don't make this because the ingredients aren't easy to buy in supermarkets. I made it without the sake, sesame seeds, scallions, benishoga and had to substitute brown sugar and it was still amazing. I'm headed to the supermarket and getting the rest of the ingredients after posting.
I'm sure these questions don't matter too much considering it was great but is there a certain type of saki you recommend? Also, you don't suggest the potency of katsuobushi for the dashi. I used 20g and it worked great.
Thanks for sharing this!
If anyone is reading this, hop on amazon and order the ingredients to make this! You will not be disappointed!
PS Happy Birthday Marc, I know it was a few weeks ago. Hope you had a great one!
Joseph Kirchgraber says
Thanks Marc!
guest says
The mirin and sake give it sweetness, no sugar needed in my opinion. ^_^
Marc Matsumoto says
This should feed 2 people, unless you're very hungry.
Marc Matsumoto says
Gyudon is just one of those dishes that's cooked until the meat is well done. It gives the chance for the juices and sauce to thicken into a glaze. That said, I'm all about experimenting with food, so if you want to give it a try cooking it a little less, give it a go and let us know how it turned out.