Japanese Dry Curry Rice

Featured Comment

Absolutely delicious and so easy to make

★★★★★
– Embee

Do you like Japanese-style curry? Curry from scratch is hard work, and even store-bought roux means a simmer you cannot skip. For anyone stuck there on a weeknight, dry curry is my answer.

You make Japanese curry the way you make a stir-fry. The smell of curry powder rising from the frying pan. Sweetness and tang from ketchup and Worcestershire sauce. A richness that keeps you reaching for more rice. Make it once, and you will find it easier than you thought, almost too easy. Want a night like that?

Dry curry

Recipe Snapshot

What is it? Japanese dry curry comes from Japan’s Western-style cooking. Ground meat seasoned with curry powder, ketchup and Worcestershire sauce cooks until hardly any liquid remains, and is eaten with white rice.
Flavor profile: First comes curry powder toasted in fat, fragrant and gently hot. Ketchup and Worcestershire sauce follow with a round sweet tang, and white rice evens out the bold seasoning.
Why this recipe works: Curry powder and flour bloom in the fat before any liquid, so the curry turns fragrant fast, never dusty or lumpy. No simmer, just a little bouillon cooked off, weeknight-ready.
How to make it: Fry the aromatics, ground meat and vegetables, coat them in the powders, then add seasonings and bouillon and cook the liquid nearly away. One frying pan, no special tools.
What to expect: This curry takes about 25 minutes, 15 at the stove, once the rice is cooked. The one catch is when to stop, neither too loose nor too dry. Watch the bubbles and how the liquid moves when you shake the pan.

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What Is Japanese Dry Curry?

Dry curry is a yoshoku (Japanese Western-style) curry of ground meat and finely chopped vegetables, stir-fried with curry powder until the liquid cooks off and served alongside rice. Quick and made for white rice, it turns up at family dinners or coffee-shop lunches.

Dry does not mean no water. A little liquid goes in and cooks off by the finish. Keema is named for its ground meat and can stay saucy. Dry curry is named for its low moisture and belongs to Japanese-style curry, apart from the sauceless Indian curries sold as dry curry on English menus.

The origin of dry curry

Japan’s dry curry is said to trace back to the galley of the Mishima Maru, a Nippon Yusen (NYK Line) ship on the European route. Its dinner menu for April 9, 1911 lists “Lobster & Dried Curries”. Company lore says the dish was made for passengers who had lost their appetite on the long, hot voyage, though Nippon Yusen itself says the story rests on crew recollections, with no written record to settle it. The ground meat is said to come from the same galley, where beef came aboard in blocks and the tough cuts went through the grinder. The English phrase dry curry, for curry without gravy, already appears in a British book from 1804. The word was already there. What Japan is said to have made is the shape of this plate.

Why dry curry means different plates across Japan

In Japanese, dry curry is not the name of a single plate. The same name can point to 3 dishes. One is the ground meat plate in this recipe. Another is curry-flavored fried rice. The third is curry pilaf, raw rice stir-fried with curry powder and the other ingredients, then cooked. Which one you picture tends to split by region. In Kanto, many people picture the ground meat plate, and in Kansai, many are said to picture pilaf or fried rice.

How I make it, and why

Dry curry is not a showy dish. The classic coffee-shop finish is a fried egg or a soft-boiled egg with chopped parsley. I wanted a plate pretty enough for a cafe menu, so I add color. Red and green bell peppers go into the mix, and on top go an onsen tamago (a soft hot-spring egg), chopped green onion, and sliced red chili.

Dry Curry Ingredients

Ingredients needed to make dry curry on a white background with labels. From top to bottom, left to right: ground pork, Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, soy sauce, red wine, onion, button mushrooms, chicken bouillon powder, Japanese curry powder, bell peppers, carrot, bay leaf, ginger, butter.

Japanese curry powder: If you can, go for the red tin from S&B, though it is not a must. Outside Japan it sells as S&B Oriental Curry Powder, still in that red tin, and you can find it at Asian grocers, Korean supermarkets and online. That said, the curry powder already in your pantry will still make a great plate. If you would like to blend your own, I have a recipe for a Japanese curry spice blend made from 18 spices.
Japanese-style Worcestershire sauce: Built on fruit and vegetables like apples, tomatoes and onions, it tastes sweet and has a little body. Bull-Dog is the standard brand in Japan, and the bottle I keep at home is Kagome.
Ground beef and pork: I use ground beef and ground pork mixed half and half, and you can shift the ratio to suit your taste. Japanese meat counters sell this exact mix as aibiki. If you cannot find it, buy ground beef and ground pork separately and mix them, or simply use just the beef or just the pork.

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Substitution Ideas

Japanese curry powder → British or Madras curry powder: If the curry powder in your cupboard is a British or Madras blend, it will do the job. It runs hotter than the red tin and has less of the turmeric aroma you get from curry at a Japanese coffee shop, so start with less than the recipe card calls for.
Japanese Worcestershire sauce → Lea & Perrins: Lea & Perrins works too. On its own its sharp edge stands out, so use a little less, then stir in a pinch of sugar, a little ketchup or a spoonful of unsweetened applesauce to round it off and bring it closer to the Japanese style.
Japanese Worcestershire sauce → Chuno sauce: Chuno (medium-thick) sauce is a little sweeter and thicker than Japanese Worcestershire, and that extra body makes it a natural fit for this dish. It is also the go-to everyday sauce in homes across eastern Japan.
Ground beef and pork → Ground pork or ground beef alone: Ground pork on its own cooks up softer, thanks to its fat.
Red wine → Sake and water: If you have no red wine, thin some sake with water and add a little sugar.
Bell pepper or mushrooms → Seasonal vegetables: Swap in whatever vegetables are in season where you live.

Substitutions that I don’t recommend:

Garam masala instead of curry powder: Garam masala is there to add aroma at the very end. Use it as the only seasoning and the plate ends up tasting like a different dish.

How to Make My Dry Curry Rice

If you prefer to watch the process in action, check out my video of this dry curry recipe!

Before you start (Mise en place):

Start the rice before anything else. It takes longer than the curry, so leftover or frozen rice is what keeps tonight’s plate at 25 minutes.
Finely chop the garlic, ginger, onion and carrot.
Dice the bell pepper and slice the mushrooms.
Have the chicken bouillon ready, and combine it in one container with the red wine, ketchup, soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce.
Chop the green onions and slice the dried red chili into thin rings. If you want an onsen tamago (soft hot-spring egg) on top, make it ahead. It is optional.

Ingredient prep for dry curry: sliced button mushrooms, diced carrot, diced bell peppers, finely diced ginger, garlic and onion, and sauce mixed in a glass measuring jug.

Youtube video — If you are cooking the rice for the side without a rice cooker, you can follow the pot method step by step in this video.

Equipment Notes

To develop this recipe, I used a 30cm carbon steel wok.

STEP

Fry the aromatics and the filling

i. Heat a frying pan over medium-high and melt the butter.

ii. Add the ginger, garlic and onion, and stir-fry until fragrant.

frying onion, garlic and ginger in a pan

iii. Add the ground meat, mushrooms, bell pepper and carrot, and stir-fry until the meat is cooked through.

Frying ground beef/pork and vegetables with aromatics in a frying pan

STEP

Coat with the powders, then cook off the liquid

i. Add the curry powder and all-purpose flour, and toss until the buttery filling is evenly coated all over.

Ground meat and vegetables seasoned with curry spices

ii. Pour in the bouillon mixture and drop in the bay leaf.

iii. Cook until the liquid is almost gone, stirring now and then so nothing catches on the bottom.

Where to stop

The bottom of the pan, the bubbles and the liquid tell you when to stop. Push the filling aside with your spatula. Once no liquid pools where it was, small bubbles start popping up, and the liquid stays put when you shake the pan, that is your cue.

STEP

Season and plate

i. Sprinkle in the salt and pepper, mix well, then take out the bay leaf and turn off the heat.

ii. Divide the cooked rice among plates and spoon the dry curry next to it.

iii. Scatter the chopped green onions and red chili rings over the top, and, if you like, finish with an onsen tamago or a soft-boiled egg.

dry curry with rice topped with green onion, chili and green onion on an oval-shaped white plate with beige rim

Serving size

If you follow the default recipe, it will yield 2-3 servings.

Tips for the Best Japanese Dry Curry

Let the pan decide when you stop, and leave the clock out of it. Cooking off the liquid has no set number of minutes, so watch the pan and stop cooking it down once the liquid is almost gone.
Season with salt and pepper once the liquid is gone, and go a little strong. While there is still liquid in the pan, the water makes everything taste flatter than it really is. A spoonful on its own should taste a touch too strong, which turns out just right next to white rice.
Pour in the liquid as soon as the curry powder has coated the filling. The fat is there to pull the aroma out of the powder, and leaving the powder in it too long only scorches it.

On a quick one-pan plate like this, the call you make in those last few minutes is exactly what you end up tasting.

Storage & Meal Prep

Fridge: Cook it down, cool, and keep airtight for about 2 days. Wet batches spoil faster.

Freezer: Freeze portions flat in bags, air pressed out, about a month. Add egg and green onions at serving.

Meal prep: Good for bento. Eaten cold, it sits alongside the rice.

Reheating: Warm in a pan over medium with a splash of water, stirring, until the bottom shows. Microwave covered and stir once.

What to Serve With Dry Curry

Creamy Corn Potage (Japanese Corn Soup)
Yamitsuki Lettuce Salad
Fukujinzuke (Japanese Curry Pickles)
Sunomono Cucumber Salad

Japanese Dry Curry Troubleshooting

Why is my dry curry still wet and loose?

If liquid pools where you push the filling aside, some of the bouillon mixture or the water from the onion is still in the pan. Leave the lid off, turn the heat to medium-low and keep your spatula moving until you can see the bottom of the pan.

Why does my curry taste dusty and raw?

Pale specks of powder and a floury smell mean the curry powder was never fried in fat. Push the filling to one side, add a little oil to the empty spot, fry the curry powder there for about 30 seconds, then fold everything back together.

Why does my dry curry taste thin?

A thin taste while liquid is still in the pan usually comes from water that has not cooked off yet, far more often than from too little salt. Before you reach for the salt, cook it down until the liquid is almost gone. If it still tastes thin after that, adjust with salt.