Grandma Ariko's Sweet and Savory Soboro Donburi

One of my favorite bentos from childhood: sweet and savory ground meat, fluffy scrambled eggs, blanched veggies, and rice — a nostalgic, home-cooked favorite in Japan.

Soboro donburi is a rice bowl topped with sweet and savory crumbled meat, scrambled eggs, and vegetables. The term “soboro” refers to the Japanese method of cooking ground meat, fish, or eggs into small, crumbled pieces. This colorful and flavorful dish is quick, easy, and perfect for busy weekday dinner or a bento (lunchbox). Plus, it’s budget-friendly—something I appreciated when I was in college!

Soboro donburi was one of my mom’s staple lunches, and I was always thrilled to open my lunchbox and find it at school. She made it with ground chicken, scrambled eggs, and blanched snow peas or green beans, all served on top of rice. (My mom used chicken, but pork or turkey works great too.)

Note: This is supposed to be ‘sweet’ but you can cut down slightly the amount of sugar if you want.

Serve 4

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Ingredients

• 6~8C cooked rice

For egg soboro

• 4 eggs

• 2 tbsp sake

• 2 tbsp mirin

• 1 tbsp sugar

• 1 tsp dashi powder

• 2 tsp vegetable oil

For chicken soboro

• about 2~3 tsp vegetable oil

• 3/4~1 lb ground chicken

• 2 tbsp sugar

• 2 tbsp low sodium soy sauce (preferably usukuchi)

• 1 tbsp sake

• about 1 tsp ginger, peeled and finely chopped or grated

For snow peas

• about 1C snow peas, blanched and sliced

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Instructions

For egg soboro:

1. Add all the egg soboro ingredients to a medium bowl and stir with long cooking chopsticks (or a fork if you don’t have them) until the sugar is completely dissolved.

   

2. Heat oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat and pour the egg mixture into the pan. Stir constantly with chopsticks, then break it up into fine, crumbled pieces with a spatula. (Note: My mom said to scrape the cooked egg off the bottom of the pan constantly so it stays bright yellow rather than turning golden brown.) Remove from the heat and set aside.

   

For pork soboro:

1. Mix sugar, soy sauce, sake, and ginger in a bowl. Set aside.

   

2. Heat oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add ground chicken and cook for 3~4 minutes (the chicken doesn’t need to be thoroughly cooked at this point).

   

3. Add the soy sauce mixture and cook until most of the liquid evaporates, breaking up the chicken into fine, crumbled pieces with a spatula. Remove from the heat and set aside.

   

Assemble:

1. Serve rice in individual bowls and top with egg soboro, snow peas, and chicken soboro, arranging them in three separate lines.

   

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