Japanese food can seem complicated when your reference point is a sushi chef's knife work or an elaborate restaurant meal. Everyday home cooking in Japan often starts with rice and a few simply prepared dishes, each with a short ingredient list. Once you know a handful of seasonings and techniques, you can put together a meal with surprisingly little work.

That's the approach behind my easy Japanese recipes. Soy sauce, sake, and mirin turn up again and again; a quick simmer or a glaze reduced in the pan does much of the cooking. Learn how these familiar ingredients behave, and the simple Japanese recipes below become easier to cook and adapt to what's in your fridge.

Easy Weeknight Dinners

These are for the nights when it's late and everyone's hungry, and every one of them is on the table in half an hour or less. I usually prefer the fiery Sichuan original these days, but there's something comforting about the milder, sweeter Japanese mapo tofu, and it's a great one if you're feeding kids.

Rice Bowls and Fried Rice

Got leftover rice? The garlic fried rice gives it the toasty flavor of hibachi rice using an ordinary frying pan, and the shrimp rice bowl tosses garlic butter shrimp with sake and soy sauce and spoons it over rice you've already cooked, all in about 15 minutes.

Noodles and Japanese-Style Pasta

If you're Italian, you may want to avert your eyes, because two of these are spaghetti the way Japan likes it: ketchupy napolitan and the silky butter and soy sauce pasta you'll find in home kitchens all over Japan. When the heat and the cicadas arrive, there's cold somen: whisper-thin noodles with a dashi dipping sauce.

Sides and Soups

Kani salad is the thing everyone quietly finishes first at a sushi restaurant, and mine comes together in 15 minutes with nothing hotter than a kettle of water for the glass noodles. On a cold night, the tonjiru is so loaded with pork and vegetables that it's practically dinner on its own with a bowl of rice.

Bento, Breakfast and Snacks

Tuna mayo went from a 7-Eleven newcomer in 1983 to what's now said to be Japan's favorite onigiri filling, and it's still the one to pack for lunch. I've always had a soft spot for egg sandwiches, but Japan's tamago sando, all savory-sweet egg salad and pillowy milk bread, hits differently.

Easy Japanese Desserts

I visited the Kyoto tea house credited with creating mitarashi dango's sweet soy glaze, then tested about a dozen versions at home before landing on this chewy one. For something even easier, coffee jelly lets you eat your coffee instead of drinking it, and a fruit sando is the kind of sandwich a kid would make if you told them they could put anything in it.

More Easy Japanese Recipes