What is Japanese Dashi and how can it be used?

Anyone who cooks Japanese food would have quickly found out that dashi is the backbone of Japanese cuisine. From the most basic miso or udon noodle soups, to street food favourites such as takoyaki and okonomiyaki, much of our favourite Japanese dishes begin with a type of flavourful broth, collectively called dashi.

Japanese dashi: different types

1. Ichiban dashi (the primary dashi) or Awase dashi

This is your most common dashi and what most people know as simply, dashi. Made with kombu and katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes, also made from skipjack tuna), this is an intense, all-purpose stock.

Discover everything you need to know about ichiban dashi

Don’t throw out the kombu and katsuobushi when you are done - you can use it again for a less intense but still flavour-and-umami-ful dashi, called niban dashi (up next in the list).

Uses: miso soup, oyakodon (chicken and egg rice bowl), oden (fish cakes), ramen broth

2. Niban dashi (the second dashi)

After the primary dashi comes the second brew dashi, called niban dashi. As the name suggests, this is simply made from the once-boiled kombu and katsuobushi that gets a second life in a milder flavoured dashi.

How to make niban dashi

Add the saved ingredients to cold water and bring to a boil
Remove the kombu just as the water starts boiling and allow the katsuobushi to cook for a further 4 minutes
Turn off the heat and strain

Uses: use this milder dashi where a recipe doesn’t specify an ichiban or awase dashi, but can still benefit from added umami notes. Perfect for stews, marinades, sauces and vegetable dishes where dashi is more of a background component.

3. Kombu dashi

A very simple dashi made just with kombu (dried kelp), this dashi is a vegetarian and vegan friendly stock with a mild taste. Kombu is high in glutamic acid, an amino acid that gives foods their umami taste. (In fact, the word ‘umami’ originated from the flavour of kombu dashi, identified by the Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda in 1908.)

Uses: kombu dashi is great in Japanese dishes that contain seafood, such as clam soup; also for shabu shabu (Japanese hot pot).

4. Shiitake dashi

Shiitake dashi is also made with a single ingredient, in this case, shiitake mushrooms. Any good Japanese pantry should have a bag of dried shiitake mushrooms ready to go (they’re also a common ingredient in Chinese and Korean cooking).

^{Photo Susan Slater - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0}

Vegetarian and vegan friendly, shiitake dashi is made by simply rehydrating the dried mushrooms in cold water for a few hours, or overnight. The soaking liquid is used as the stock, and the hydrated mushrooms can be sliced or chopped to use in the dish you wish to create.

Uses: shiitake dashi can be combined with other stronger dashi stocks. Used for chawanmushi (steamed savoury egg custard), stir-fries, steamed fish and vegetable dishes, udon noodle soup

Some Japanese recipes to get you started

Now you know all about the different types of dashi, why not explore some Japanese recipes to get you started. Try a classic miso soup with tofu, bean sprouts and herbs, or a deep-fried tofu with wasabi, daikon and herbs or explore how to create marinated Japanese chicken wings.