Vegan🌱Simmered Potato and Soy Meat Packed with Ginger Flavor "Nikujaga"

【Vegan🌱Simmered Potato and Soy Meat Packed with Ginger Flavor "Nikujaga"】 

Vegan Soy Meat Nikujaga by piggyinkitchen

Nikujaga is one of the most popular Japanese home-cooking dishes. The original nikujaga is made of beef, potatoes and onions. To make it vegan friendly, I substituted beef with soy meat which is protein loaded. Although I usually don't relay on soy meat products since mostly it contains artificial additives or some kind of chemicals which makes it unhealthy for us, I thought I would need soy meat beef for this dish since it's so difficult to immitate the beef texture and its appearance unfortunatelly. 

This is what I used as meat substitution☟

I admit that this soy meat does smell like soybeans, which is not what I want in this dish. But don't worry! There's one thing that you can do to hide that smell!

KEY POINT

  Cook soy meat alone with sake, mirin and soy sauce in advance!

That's all!
This is actually the same method that I used to apply to real meat when I was non vegan so the strong animal smell faded away. I found that this helps a lot for soy meat too! :) So if you find your meat substitute a bit smelly, then it's worth trying it out!

This is another important thing you should do. Soak your potatoes in water for a couple of hours. This helps remove bitterness.

Mmmmm
Stir fry enough until onions color brown :)

Vegan Nikujaga Meal by piggyinkitchen

Ta-da😍😍😍
Looking perfect😍😍😍

Now are you getting hungry for this nikujaga? 😍

This is the recipe card for you!
Enjoy your Japanese meal time!

Simmered Potato and Soy Meat Packed with Ginger Flavor "Nikujaga"

INGREDIENTS (4-5 Servings)
4 potatoes, chopped,  soaked
1 onion, sliced
1 cup soy meat
Avocado oil
1 tablespoon sake
3 tablespoons mirin
2 tablespoons maple syrup
4 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon ground ginger

[Kombu Stock]
3 pieces kombu
7 cups water

INSTRUCTIONS

1. In a large bowl, put kombu and water to soak overnight.
2. In a pot, heat avocado oil and add soy meat and stir fry over the medium heat.
3. Turn off the heat, and put immediately 1 tablespoon sake, 1 tablespoon mirin and 2 tablespoons soy sauce into the pot, then keep stiring being careful not to burn since the pot is still hot.
4. When cooked, set aside in a bowl or plate.
5. Pour avocado oil into a large pot.
6. When the oil gets heated, add in onion and stir fry over the medium heat until golden brown.
7. Add in soaked potatoes and cooked soy meat and mix well.
8. Pour Kombu stock without kombu sheets, sake and mirin into the pot.
9. Turn the heat to medium high.
10. Cook until potatoes soften.
11. Add in maple syrup and turn the heat to medium heat to simmer for approximately 10 minutes.
12. Add in soy sauce and cook for another 10 minutes.
13. When water evaporates to half, taste it.
14. Adjust taste to your liking.
15. Turn off the heat.
16. Add in ginger, and stir.
17. Enjoy!

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NOTES
◎Soak potatoes for at least 2 hours in advance.
◎Pre-cook soy meat in advance.
◎Add ginger after the heat is off to prevent aroma for escaping due to overcooking.

I hope you like my Japanese-life dish as much as I do!
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to leave me a comment below or directly contact me! I'm happy to help you out!

Thank you,

-piggyinkitchen-