Japanese Omelet: Tamagoyaki

Breakfast and lunch and snack, Oh My!

Hi Friends,

Following our feature of Sonoko Sakai earlier this week (read it here if you haven’t already), we’re bringing you a recipe for one of the most ubiquitous dishes in Japanese cuisine: tamagoyaki. Translating literally to 'grilled egg,' tamagoyaki is a Japanese omelet made by rolling together several very thin layers of fried beaten egg until you get a long log shape, which is then sliced to reveal beautifully coiled cross-sections. It’s delicate, soft, slightly sweet, and a GREAT way to get protein into yourself or your kids.

The dish is prepared in a rectangular omelet pan specifically designed for making tamagoyaki, and we recommend that you not attempt to make this until you’ve gotten your hands on one. A nonstick version is pretty essential here, especially for novices, but nonstick tamagoyaki pans that are not made with Teflon or PFAS-type coating are few and far between, so we’ve linked the pan we use and love in the recipe below.

Fanny first learned how to make tamagoyaki in a cooking class led by Sonoko and, needless to say, having an expert coach her through it proved incredibly helpful. It’s quite easy after you get the hang of it, but we HIGHLY recommend checking out a couple YouTube videos to help you understand the technical aspects of the undertaking before you start. This video and this video are especially helpful. If you’re stubborn and insist on foregoing any specialized equipment, watch this video on how to use a round pan instead.

Inspired by Sonoko, this version of tamagoyaki switches up the ingredients used to season the omelet, which has made it one of our kids’ favorite things to eat at virtually any time of day. It’s especially good, we’ve found, in a lunchbox as it hangs out pretty contentedly at room temperature.

Fanny + Greta