Five Sharp

Cuisine

Japanese Sunday dinners

Japanese home cooking is not restaurant cooking. It is rice, soup, a main and a couple of small vegetable dishes — a structure so consistent it has a name, and one that makes a balanced dinner almost automatic. The seasoning vocabulary is short: soy, mirin, sake, dashi, miso. Most of the skill is in restraint and in getting the rice right.

8 plans in the Sunday Gallery.

What Japanese plans look like

Most common mains

  • fish6
  • pork2

How they're cooked

  • Grilled3
  • Baked2
  • Breaded & fried1
  • Curry1
  • Pan-seared1

The plans

Want a plan like these for your Sunday?

Five Sharp builds the whole dinner — recipes, timeline and shopping list — around what your household actually eats.