What Is Omurice
Omurice, or Omuraisu as it’s pronounced in Japan, is a portmanteau of “Omelette” and “Rice.” It’s unclear where the dish originated, but in Japan, Omurice is considered yōshoku(western food), and it was probably created around the turn of the last century when western-style cafes became popular. There are even some restaurants that specialize exclusively in omurice, but it’s also a favorite in home cooking.
Although everyone makes it a little differently, the omelette is usually stuffed with chicken rice, which is fried rice that’s made with chicken and seasoned with ketchup. This gives it a vibrant red color and savory sweet taste, that’s the trademark flavor of this dish.
As for the egg, classic styles of omurice were made into an oval shape and wrapped in a thin layer of egg, but these days, many people ditch the thin papery egg for a luscious blanket of soft scrambled eggs on top.
Omurice Components
Omurice is comprised of two main components, and can also be sauced. Here’s what’s inside each of them.
Chicken Rice
Although it’s called “chicken rice,” the predominant flavor here is ketchup, which makes it the perfect sweet and tangy contrast to the creamy egg on top. For my omurice, I like using a homemade ketchup because the spices make for a more interesting flavor profile, and it’s a little less sweet than the store-bought stuff. That being said, if you’re looking for that classic taste, the bottled stuff is the way to go. On the flipside if ketchup isn’t your cup of tea, don’t worry, you can make omurice using any kind of fried rice.
Although I almost always advocate using chicken thighs over breast meat, this is one of the rare exceptions where I feel like breast meat works better. Just be careful not overcook it, or it will get tough.
Other than that, I like to brown some onions to get a little more flavor into the rice. I also add some oyster sauce as a more flavorful alternative to soy sauce; this helps balance out the sweetness of the ketchup with plenty of umami. Some people also like to add other vegetables to their chicken rice like carrots and peas, which is fine, but I think they’re unnecessary unless you’re trying to get your kids to eat more vegetables. I usually serve this with a side salad.
Omelette
The omelette is more about the cooking technique than the ingredients, but I do like to use eggs with very vivid yolks so that the omelette turns out nice and golden. I also add a bit of cream, which ups the richness to balance out the acidity of the rice. If you’re really looking for something over the top, try adding some grated cheese to the eggs.
Sauce
Although omurice is usually just sauced with ketchup, it’s sometimes also served with a more flavorful sauce such as the sauce from Hayashi Rice (Omuhayashi – オムハヤシ) or Japanese Curry (Omukarei – オムカレー), or Meat Sauce (Omumeato – オムミート). For the last one, you could even do away with the rice and add spaghetti, which turns it into Omusupa (オムスパ). As you can see, there’s a lot of opportunities to get creative here.
How to Make Omurice
Making chicken rice is pretty straight forward. I start by marinating the chicken in a bit of soy sauce to ensure it’s well seasoned. Then I brown some onions before throwing the chicken in and stir-frying it. The trick to not having chewy chicken in your omurice is to add the rice before the chicken is fully cooked through. I usually go in with the rice as soon as I can’t see any raw sides on the chicken. This gives you plenty of time to get the rice nice and caramelized without turning the chicken into boot leather. Once the rice is heated through I, add the ketchup and oyster sauce and stir-fry until the sauces start caramelizing around the rice. Then you can load the rice into a mold and invert it onto a plate. I usually leave the mold on the plate until my eggs are done, to help keep the rice warm.
The trickier part is the omelette, but using this technique, anyone should be able to get an awesome creamy blanket of egg with big fluffy curds that are just barely held together. The first thing is to use a non-stick pan; this is a must to get the egg out of the pan cleanly.
Once you’ve melted the butter in the pan, add the egg and give them a few seconds to set up at the bottom. Then you just gently scramble them while shaking the pan, which redistributes the uncooked egg as you break up the curds. I usually take the omelette off the heat once there are no big pools of egg left, as carryover cooking will thicken the remaining egg into a rich, creamy sauce. But before you take the pan off the stove, blast it with heat for a few seconds which will vaporize any liquid between the egg and the pan, making the egg slide easily out of the pan.
Decorating Omurice
Although the soft scrambled eggs aren’t quite as smooth of a canvas to paint on, you can still do fun shapes such as stripes, hearts, stars, or faces using ketchup in a squeeze bottle.
Ingredients
For Chicken Rice
- 150 grams chicken breast ~1/2 breast, cut into 1/2-inch dice
- 1 teaspoon soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 100 grams onion ~1/2 small onion, finely minced
- 300 grams cooked white rice 2 loosely packed cups
- 2 tablespoons ketchup
- 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
- black pepper to taste
For Omelette
- 3 eggs
- 1 tablespoon cream
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 tablespoon butter
Steps
For Chicken Rice
- Marinate the chicken in the soy sauce while you prepare all the other ingredients.
- Break the eggs into a bowl along with the cream and salt. Whisk together until the mixture is uniform in color.
- Add the vegetable oil and onions to a frying pan over medium-high heat and saute the onions until they're tender and just starting to brown.
- Add the chicken and stir-fry until you don't see any raw sides anymore.
- Add the rice, and break it up with a spatula so that it heats through evenly.
- Once the rice has been warmed through, add the ketchup and oyster sauce, and stir-fry until the rice is an even color and the ketchup is just starting to caramelize. Season with black pepper to taste.
- Plate the rice. You can use a bowl as a mold to give it a round or oval shape.
For Omelette
- Heat a small 8-inch non-stick frying pan over medium heat until moderately hot. Add the butter and swirl to melt and coat the pan evenly.
- Add the eggs, and cook until the bottom layer of eggs are set (the bottom will start turning opaque).
- Gently stir the eggs, while shaking the pan to resettle the uncooked egg.
- Turn up the heat to high for a few seconds to make the egg easier to slide out of the pan (the egg should slide around the pan easily when shaken).
- Position the pan over the plated rice and gently slide the egg out of the pan onto the rice.
- Garnish with ketchup and parsley to taste.
This is the way I like my omurice, with a thicker softer omelette rather than the thin overcooked shell version!
Tried Omurice in Japan and love it. Been looking for the recipe and finally found it here. However 1 Question. The omurice i tried had brown sauce served over it. What is that sauce and how is it prepared?
Thanks.
A bit late but probably demiglace sauce
worked in tokyo for a while as a chef and this was one of our chef’s meals for lunch in the afternoon.Yours makes me hungry can not wait to prepare it. thank you
probably bulldog fruit and veg sauce or okonomiyaki sauce
Hi Shannen, you probably had Omuhayashi. It’s omurice with hayashi sauce poured on top. Here’s the recipe: http://norecipes.com/blog/hayashi-rice-recipe/
hello 🙂 i was so excited to see that you added this recipe but i have a tiny problem. i’m currently on a dairy free diet for some months and i wondered if there was a good alternative to the heavy cream. i live in a small town where it is not easy to find…well, anything. any suggestions to produce the same fluffy omelette?
The cream is in the egg is to add richness. Alternatives would be coconut cream, or pureed silken tofu if you can find either one. It will still be good without the cream, it just won’t be as rich and creamy.
I love love love omurice. This was my mum’s go to dish for dinner when she couldn’t be bothered cooking. Such comfort food.
Wow such a simple recipe! I’m a big fan of your website and have been itching to try one of your recipes. The only thing that puts me off is that most of them calls for exotic ingredients I may never use again.. Not this though! Definitely trying it soon.
very easy for my sisters, i am now a fan.
Omurice is one of favorite childhood dishes (but no chicken or carrots added)! My mom would make the traditional omelet. As an adult, I use the lazy method. I just add in a couple cooked scrambled eggs after frying the rice with ketchup. Will have to give yours a try. When I have mentioned “ketchup” rice to my friends, I get the Ewwww reaction and I always tell them they don’t know what they are missing. It’s comfort food to me.
All your food pictures look very beautiful and delicious! My husband loves omurice! I think he will be thrilled to know that I have found this recipe. Need to try it next week. Thanks!
When I saw this it reminded me of that scene from “Tampopo”. I just love movies revolving around food like this. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-GFimGcYJw
Delicious! I didn’t have time sadly to make your ketchup so I mixed ketchup with a little bit of Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce and sugar. This was such a good recipe! I liked the texture of the egg!
Is it okay to fry the chicken?
I’m not sure I understand your question. Do you mean to use fried chicken? If so, that should be fine, but you way want to remove the breading on the outside of the chicken.
Hey
I tried your recipe yesterday. I made it twice, because my husband and myself like to eat. It was delicious! Never ate such a fluffy egg. As ketchup I used one flavored with curry and other spices. It was great. Thank you for this recipe.
Hey
I tried your recipe yesterday. I made it twice, because my husband and myself like to eat. It was delicious! Never ate such a fluffy egg. As ketchup I used one flavored with curry and other spices. It was great. Thank you for this recipe.
I really liked your recipe.. it was really delicious..evn though I am a Maldivian I really loved it.. 😀 this one has really forced me to visit this website often.. thnks for the lovely recipe
I LOVE YOU OMURICE PECIPE
HAHAHAHAHA
YES
LOL LOLY
Wow quite a sophisticated recipe here, looks nice!! I learned how to make it from a bunch of Japanese friends I had who roomed together. They just fried up a bunch of onion and any kind of meat — we even used spam LOL. Then cooked the rice and added that, threw in a bunch of ketchup, and then moulded it all together. We also added tons of cheese on top!!!!! Then fried up the egg and blanketed the cheese/omurice mould with it, and garnished with ketchup. I was hooked on this ever since haha. I’ll have to give all… Read more »
can i use a normal non flavored coffee creamer
I don’t drink coffee so I don’t know what’s in coffee creamer, but if it contains cream and doesn’t have sugar or flavorings, it should be fine.
I love omurice , thanks for the recipe ^^
Lots of times they put Demi glacé sauce on too! Oishi!
It should be Demi-glacé sauce
Can you cook the egg until it isn’t “wet”? I can’t handle runny eggs at all but have always wanted to try this!
Hi Jo, you can obviously cook it however you like, this is just how I do it.
That’s great! I know that sometimes things are cooked a certain way for a reason and just wanted to be sure ^_^
On some of the YouTube videos they cook the egg in such a way that when they place it on top of the rice, they cut it down the middle in which a mountain of moist eggs emerge, draping the side of the rice. I’ve only seen these in restaurants, not at home. Can this be done at home and if so, how are the eggs cooked that the outside is firm, but the inside is moist? It looks so yummy.
I’m not sure I’ve seen this before, but if you make the eggs like described above and instead of sliding it out of the pan (with the moist side up), you flip it onto the rice, you would end up with the firm part on the outside and the moist part on the inside.
That’s impressive. I think the answer is LOTS of practice. I certainly wouldn’t be able to do that. He’s partially scrambling the eggs, but then folding it in half (like an omelette) and then sealing it shut while the inside is still very runny. The trick is in the way he is tossing the pan. The dropping action creates a 0-g environment in the pan, which for a brief moment allows the egg to float, allowing him to rotate it without breaking it. The motion is actually pretty similar to what’s used to make dashimaki tamago (which is said to… Read more »
I’m so going to try making this. It looks delicious. Thanks! ^^
This is so good! I wish we had omurice shops where I live.
Thanks for the recipe, I love the blog.
Do you know how to make the sweet seaweed filling found in some onigiri, I think I have seen mention of it as a kombu filling, but I have no idea how to get thick kombu into a sweet and edible texture.
Hi Lou, it could be konbu, but usually konbu is more salty than sweet and comes in either squares or strips. If it was more like a paste, it’s most likely nori. This is made by taking fresh nori (not the paper thin dried kind) and cooking it with soy sauce, sugar and mirin until it forms a thick paste. If you can’t get fresh nori where you live you could in theory use the dried sheeted type (though I’ve never tried this myself), but it takes a ton of nori to make just a little paste, so I think… Read more »
It looks like “nasi goreng” in my country (Indonesia) 🙂
Hello! Can we use mayonnaise instead of ketchup?
Hi Yuki, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of using mayo in chicken rice and I don’t really like mayonnaise personally, but if you like mayo then give it a try.
Can I add some cabbage?
Thanks for the recipe Marc! It really taste good 🙂 I modified the recipe a bit and here’s my version 🙂
Looks great, what’s the ball on top?
It’s the mixed rice, I have shaped it into a ball… It’s like a sneak peak of what’s inside the mountain of egg. I have also topped it with the catsup that was used for my mixed rice.
This looks so good! Going to try this now~ ^ ^
Looks simple and fun. Just one question.
I’ve heard alot of people say that normal ketchup really doesn’t do the trick and sometimes the sweetness of fx. Heinz ketchup ends up ruining the flavor.
Is there any way to maybe spice up your ketchup beforehand to balance the incredible sweetness alot of store bought ketchups have?
If so which spices would you recommend?
Hi Bellystraw, in a classic omurice the rice is supposed to be sweet since it is made using ordinary ketchup. Although it’s not traditional I like my omurice more spicy which is why I use homemade ketchup (recipe here: http://www.pbs.org/food/fresh-tastes/homemade-savory-ketchup/ ). You could also substitute tomato paste for the ketchup which would make it less sweet while retaining the tomato flavor.
Thanks for your advice!
Can the heavy cream be replaced with milk or lactose free milks?