Ozoni is a Japanese soup traditionally enjoyed on New Year's Day. It is believed to bring good luck for the new year! Ozoni is very popular in Hawaii. It's nourishing and delicious. Clear dashi broth is cooked with chicken, mochi, carrots, kamaboko/fishcake, komatsuna, mushrooms, and daikon. Each family has their own version of ozoni, feel free to use what you have available. Enjoy!
Why This Recipe Works
On New Year's Day, we eat ozoni!
Enjoying this soup on January 1st of each year is a Japanese tradition. And growing up in Hawaii (with our wonderful mish mash of all cultures), it also feels very much like a local tradition.
Every family makes ozoni differently. I don't think there is a right or wrong (and there are many different styles of ozoni throughout Japan). The one I share today is more local style and you can find all the ingredients at a Japanese market.
Ozoni is believe to be a lucky dish, so that gets everyone extra excited to enjoy the soup. Second helpings, please ^_^ It's also really nice to have warm and nourishing dish as your first meal of the new year.
The soup base is dashi (you can make dashi from scratch, we usually just use dashi powder). The dashi is flavored with soy sauce and sake. Then we make it a little sweeter by adding chicken thighs and shiitake mushrooms.
We round out the soup with daikon, carrots, and fishcake. Plus a nice leafy green (use komatsuna, mizuna, or spinach). So many textures and colors, it's really beautiful!
The final touch? A big piece of toasted kirimochi! Served hot, of course. Crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy...so stretchy on the inside (this New Year's mochi is very good luck!) Golden, puffy, and a joy to eat.
Ozoni in Hawaii
Ozoni is more of a home cooking dish, and I love seeing everyone share photos of their New Year's ozoni. There are so many different variations from the humble and hearty to the extra fancy. They all look so delicious!
In the last two years, I've seen some restaurants prepare ozoni soup kits to-go. They restaurant prepares all the components so you can just take it home, assemble, and make/heat up your ozoni for New Year's Day breakfast.
In addition to the ingredients that we use for our recipe, I've see ozoni with lotus root, shrimp, cabbage, burdock root and much more. I also see the vegetables cut into all different sizes (and pretty flower shapes). There are so many ways to make ozoni!
Ingredients
Here's what you'll need to make ozoni:
- Boneless chicken thigh
- Dashi
- Soy sauce
- Sake (optional)
- Shiitake mushrooms
- Carrot
- Daikon
- Komatsuna (or mizuna or spinach) - more details on komatsuna below
- Kamaboko (Japanese fishcake)
- Kirimochi - more details on kirimochi below
- Mitsuba (Japanese parsley, optional) - more details on mitsuba below
Let's take a closer look at a few of the specialty ingredients:
Kirimochi
Who doesn't love mochi? ^_^
If you have fresh mochi, you can use fresh mochi for this recipe. But it's still always a very good idea to keep a package of kirimochi at home! From hot pot feasts to shabu nights and little snacks, kirimochi always comes in handy.
Kirimochi is a hard/dried mochi that is shelf-stable (a great pantry food item). Depending on the package size you purchase, there's usually 8-12 pieces of individually wrapped kirimochi in each package. The mochi is rectangular in shape and you have to heat it up before you can eat it.
For this recipe, we want to toast the mochi. Just put in the toaster oven at 375F for 10 minutes, until it's puffy and golden. You can also toast the mochi in a regular oven.
Or you can "toast" it in a pan over the stove. I like to use a cast iron pan over medium-high heat. Cook it for 2 minutes on each side, repeat until the mochi pieces puff up and take on a nice golden color. It's super fun to watch it cook and slowly puff up!
Komatsuna
Komatsuna is Japanese mustard spinach. You'll need to go to a Japanese market for this. But because komatsuna is not always that easy to find, you can replace it with mizuna or spinach for this recipe. Just make sure to get some kind of nice leafy green in there.
When we cook the komatsuna, we blanch it in water for a minute or so. Then drain and squeeze out all the water (try to keep the all vegetables in line, so that it looks pretty when we cut it). Cut it into 1-inch pieces and set aside while you prepare the rest of the dish. We will add the komatsuna to the individual soup bowls before ladling in the soup.
Mitsuba
Mitsuba is Japanese parsley. It's clean and light and almost celery-esque in flavor. You can find many of the other ingredients for ozoni in local and Chinese markets, but you'll have to go to a Japanese market for mitsuba.
If you can find mistuba, please use it for this recipe. It adds a really nice touch.
I usually just chop the mitsuba (like you would regular parsley) and sprinkle it on top of the soup right before serving. But Just One Cookbook has a neat tip: take one whole mitsuba stem and make a loose knot with it. And place that whole stem on top of the soup. So much prettier! You can see my version in the photo below, not perfect but am working on it ^_^
Step by Step Directions
Let's get cooking!
Prepare the chicken.
Pour the dashi into a pot and bring to a gentle boil. Add the chicken pieces and cook on medium-high for 5 minutes.
Skim.
Skim any excess fat off the surface of the soup. The purpose of the step is so that you can keep this a nice and clear soup.
Season.
Season the soup with soy sauce and sake (optional).
Add (some) vegetables.
Add the shiitake mushrooms, carrots, and daikon. Bring the soup a boil, and then quickly turn it back down to a simmer. Let cook for 30 minutes until the daikon is soft and tender.
Prepare the komatsuna (or mizuna or spinach).
While the soup is cooking, prepare the komatsuna (or mizuna or spinach). Quickly blanch the greens in boiling water for 1-2 minutes. Drain, squeeze out excess water and chop the greens into 1-inch pieces Note: there is no need to chop if you're using spinach. Place on a plate or bowl and set aside.
Prepare the kirimochi.
Next, prepare the kirimochi. In a toaster oven, toast each square at 375F for 10 minutes. Keep an eye on the toaster oven and toast just until the mochi is nicely puffed up and golden brown.
Add kamaboko.
Add the kamaboko slices and cook the soup for another 3-5 minutes. We add kamaboko towards the end of cooking because it only takes a few minutes to warm up (the kamaboko comes fully cooked).
Pour.
Gather together four soup bowls. Add a potion of komatsuna into each bowl. Gently pour the soup into the bowls, making sure that every bowl has a mix of all the ingredients.
Top and serve.
Place the toasted kiri mochi in the center. And top with mitsuba (optional). Eat and enjoy!
FAQs and Tips
The prepared, final dish doesn't keep well. You should eat it right away or the kirimochi will get soggy and the mitsuba will wilt.
But you can prepare all the components for the soup 1-2 days in advance. When you're ready to eat, heat up and combine everything before serving.
We usually enjoy ozoni for breakfast on New Year's Day. We enjoy the soup by itself, the perfect way to get the day starts. Also nice to pair with a hot cup of tea, but you don't need any other dishes.
If you have the time, making dashi stock from scratch is wonderful. But on most days we use the ever reliable dashi powder (mix with hot water to get dashi stock). What happens if you don't have dashi powder? Then you can just use chicken stock. It's not very traditional, but it's the lucky spirit of ozoni that counts!
Ozoni Recipe
See below and enjoy ^_^
Ozoni
Ozoni is a special Japanese soup traditionally enjoyed on New Year's Day. It is believed to bring good luck for the new year! Ozoni is very popular in Hawaii. It's nourishing and delicious. Clear dashi broth is cooked with chicken, mochi, carrots, kamaboko/fishcake, komatsuna, mushrooms, and daikon. Each family has their own version of ozoni, feel free to use what you have available. Enjoy!
Ingredients
- 1 chicken thigh, cut into 8 pieces
- 4 cups dashi
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon sake (optional)
- 4 shiitake mushrooms
- 1 small carrot, chopped
- 1 small daikon, chopped
- 1 bunch komatsuna (or mizuna or spinach)
- 12 slices kamaboko (Japanese fishcake)
- 4 pieces kirimochi
- 4 stalks mitsuba (Japanese parsley, optional)
Instructions
- First prepare the chicken. Pour the dashi into a pot and bring to a gentle boil. Add the chicken pieces and cook on medium-high for 5 minutes.
- Skim the excess fat off the surface of the soup (so you can keep this a nice and clear soup).
- Season the soup with soy sauce and sake (optional).
- Add the shiitake mushrooms, carrots, and daikon. Bring to a boil, and then back down to a simmer and let cook for 30 minutes until the daikon is soft and tender.
- While the soup is cooking, prepare the komatsuna (or mizuna or spinach). Quickly blanch the greens in boiling water for 1-2 minutes. Drain, squeeze out excess water and chop the greens into 1-inch pieces (no need to chop if you're using spinach). Set aside.
- Next, prepare the kirimochi. In a toaster oven, toast each square at 375F for 10 minutes. Keep an eye on the toaster oven and toast just until the mochi is nicely puffed up and golden brown.
- Add the kamaboko slices and cook the soup for another 3-5 minutes.
- Gather together four soup bowls. Add a potion of komatsuna into each bowl. Gently pour the soup into the bowls, making sure that every bowl has a mix of all the ingredients.
- Place the toasted kiri mochi in the center. And top with mitsuba (optional). Eat and enjoy!
Notes
- For the kirimochi: if you don't have a toaster oven, you can also toast the mochi in a regular oven. Or you can "toast" it in a pan over the stove. I like to do it on a cast iron pan over medium-high heat. Cook it for 2 minutes on each side, repeat until it's puffy and golden.
Ozoni is something I love. When I lived in Honolulu, we ate ozoni made by my mother every New Year's morning. Then I got transferred to the Mainland because of my job, and I used to make it myself at home each New Years. But then a long stretch happened when we would go to Vegas for New Years and I stopped eating ozoni for about 20+ years. Then covid hit 3 years ago so we didn't go to Vegas for New Years. I made ozoni at home twice, but this past NY I didn't cause I recently made chicken soup.
Your ozoni style is typical of what my Mom used to call "high class" ozoni -- characteristics are clear soup and the ingredients are in big chunks/pieces. "Farmer style" ozoni is what we made. The base is chicken broth made with bone-in chicken, which is then stripped and added back to the soup base. All the ingredients are sliced or chopped thin. Kamaboko, gobo, hasu, carrots, shiitake, and we use mizuna. I normally get mizuna from LA if my son sends it to me, but I cannot get mizuna here in AZ, so I have to use Ah-Choi. Ah Choi is pretty good in ozoni too! And our mochi added to the soup is not grilled first, but simmered in water to soften it, then added to the ozoni.
Oh yeah, we used to also always eat kazunoko for New Years. I love that stuff, but hard to find in AZ. My son made a big bowl of kazunoko konbu for his New Years meal....I was envious.