Japanese Katsu Curry Recipe with Potatoes, Carrots, and Peas

Katsu curry is one of the meals my household actually asks for, and I cook it at work as well, where the kids get through it faster than almost anything else I put in front of them. The sauce is the whole dish, thick, glossy and mildly spiced, and mine is built from scratch with curry powder, garam masala and a spoon of flour, so there are no roux blocks to hunt down.

It simmers with potato, carrot and a scatter of peas, and I leave them in chunks rather than blending it smooth. The cutlet is chicken breast butterflied into four, breaded in panko and fried separately, then sliced over the rice at the last minute so it stays crisp.

For the sauce on its own, without a cutlet, there is my Japanese Potato Curry. And if you want to change the cutlet, or work out what goes in the sauce underneath it, my Japanese Curry Builder will do the whole thing for you.

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A Closer Look at the Ingredients

Japanese curry is a short ingredient list doing a lot of work, and a few of the choices matter more than they look.

Ingredient Substitutions

• Curry powder - a Japanese blend such as S&B is milder and a little sweeter than a standard British curry powder. Either works. If you are using an Indian curry powder, start with a little less, since they tend to be hotter and more assertive.
• Garam masala - leave it out if you want something closer to a plain Japanese curry. It is not traditional here, and the sauce is perfectly good without it, just less aromatic.
• Chicken stock - vegetable stock swaps straight across and keeps the sauce lighter against all that spice.
• Worcestershire sauce - it is there for the sour, savoury edge rather than for itself. A teaspoon of rice vinegar with a little extra soy does much the same job, and is the swap to make if you need it vegetarian.
• Honey - sugar, mirin or a couple of tablespoons of grated apple all work. Japanese curry is meant to carry a little sweetness, so do not skip it entirely.

Equipment You’ll Need

How to Make Japanese Katsu Curry, Step by Step

1. Start the sauce. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat and cook the onion for five to seven minutes, until it is soft and turning translucent rather than coloured. Add the garlic and ginger and give them a minute or two more. Both burn quickly once the pan is hot, so this is the point to stay with it rather than wandering off.
2. In go the carrots and potatoes. Cut them into pieces you would be happy to meet on a spoon, roughly 2 cm. Plenty of Japanese curry recipes have you grate the vegetables down or blend the sauce smooth at the end; this one does not, and the size you cut them now is the texture you get at the table. Stir them about for five minutes to start them softening.
3. Spices and flour together. Sprinkle the curry powder, garam masala and the flour over everything and stir for a minute or two. Two things happen. The flour loses its rawness, and more usefully the ground spices meet hot fat, which lets their aroma compounds react with one another so they arrive as one curry flavour rather than several separate powders sitting side by side. The fresh garlic and ginger already in the pan help here too, because the moisture they give off stops the dry spices scorching the way they would alone.
4. Add the stock gradually. Pour it in a little at a time, stirring as you go, so the flour disperses instead of seizing into lumps. Once it is all in, bring it up to the boil, drop it back to a simmer, then stir in the soy, the Worcestershire sauce and the honey. Those three are the backbone of the flavour, not garnish: salt, sourness and sweetness in one go.
5. Simmer for fifteen to twenty minutes. Leave it uncovered so it reduces, and stir now and then so nothing catches on the base. It is ready when the vegetables give easily and the sauce coats the back of a spoon. Taste it here and adjust: more soy if it needs salt, a little more honey if it is sharp. If it is thinner than you want, keep simmering; if it has gone too far, a splash of stock brings it back. Some of the body is not coming from the flour at all, since ginger and turmeric are starchy roots and give up some of that starch over a long simmer.
6. Peas at the end. Five minutes is all they need, and adding them earlier turns them grey and flat. Season with salt and pepper, then leave the sauce alone. It will keep thickening as it sits, which is worth knowing before you reduce it any further.
7. Butterfly the chicken. Lay a breast flat, slice into it horizontally almost to the far edge and open it out like a book, then cut the halves apart. Two breasts give you four cutlets. Cooks differ on this: some butterfly and then pound, some skip the butterflying and pound the breast down, and some simply slice it thinner and leave it at that. They all arrive in the same place, somewhere between half a centimetre and two, so use whichever you find easiest. What matters is that each cutlet is an even thickness, and a mallet or the back of a knife will sort out any thick patch. Even beats thin every time, because a cutlet that is fat at one end and thin at the other gives you a dry edge by the time the middle is safe. Season both sides with salt and pepper just before the flour, not earlier: salt sitting on raw chicken pulls moisture to the surface, and a wet surface turns the flour claggy so the coating slides rather than grips.
8. Flour, egg, panko. Beat the eggs with a tablespoon of oil, and do not skip the oil, because it is the single thing that most reliably stops the crumb sliding off in the pan. Three shallow dishes: flour first, shaking the excess off, then egg, then panko pressed on firmly. Too much flour is as bad as too little, since a thick dusty layer gives the egg nothing solid to grip. Panko is coarser and lighter than dried breadcrumbs and gives a crust with more shatter to it. For a thicker coat, go back through the egg and panko a second time. Some Japanese cooks skip the dry flour altogether and whisk the flour, egg and a splash of water into a loose batter to dip the cutlet in instead, which is worth knowing if the coating has let you down before. Either way, rest the coated cutlets for five to ten minutes before they go near the oil. The coating falling off is far and away the most common complaint with katsu, and the oil in the egg plus that short rest are the two things that fix it.
9. Fry at 170C. About 2 cm of oil, one or two cutlets at a time so the temperature does not crash, roughly three minutes with one turn, until deep golden on both sides. Chicken wants 74C in the middle. Without a thermometer, a cube of bread should brown in about a minute. There is a Japanese trick worth learning here too: lift the cutlet with chopsticks and you can feel a faint shudder through them once most of the water inside has cooked off, which is a better guide than colour alone. Frying times are not fixed, and they scale with thickness rather than being arbitrary. Our centimetre cutlets are done in about three minutes; a thick pork chop needs a lower, longer fry, or two fries with a rest between, to cook through without the crumb going too dark. Lift each cutlet out, let the oil run off for a few seconds, then rest it on a wire rack rather than kitchen paper, which traps steam and softens the underside you just worked for. Rest, then slice in single downward strokes rather than sawing.
10. Plate it. Rice down first, curry ladled beside it, the sliced cutlet alongside. Keep the sauce off the crumb. Pour it over and the panko softens inside a minute, which undoes the whole point of frying it, and it is the one thing people most often get wrong with this dish at home.

Recipe Card for Japanese Katsu Curry with Potatoes, Carrots, and Peas

Recipe Card

Japanese Katsu Curry Recipe with Potatoes, Carrots, and Peas

A mild, glossy Japanese curry sauce built from scratch with onion, carrot and potato, spooned over rice with a crisp panko cutlet on top. No roux blocks needed.

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Prep

25 min

Cook

40 min

Total

1 hr 5 min

Serves

4

Per serving

1007 kcal

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4 servings

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Equipment I Use

Large PotFrying panKitchen ThermometerCooling Rack

Ingredients

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For the curry sauce:

2 tbsp vegetable oil 1 large onion, finely chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 inch piece of ginger, minced 2 medium carrots, peeled and diced 2 large potatoes, waxy potatoes such as Charlotte, Maris Peer or new potatoes 2 tbsp curry powder, Japanese-style or mild curry powder 1 tbsp garam masala 10 g Plain flour 475 ml Chicken or vegetable stock 1 tbsp soy sauce 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce 1 tbsp honey or sugar 75 g frozen peas Salt and pepper to taste

For the katsu cutlets:

2 Large chicken breasts, about 600 g, butterflied into 4 cutlets 40 g Plain flour, for coating 2 Eggs, beaten with 1 tbsp of oil 150 g Panko breadcrumbs 500 ml Vegetable oil, for frying Salt and pepper, for the cutlets

To serve:

300 g Short-grain or jasmine rice, uncooked, about 75 g a head

Instructions

Tap a step to tick it off as you cook.

1

Prepare the base

Heat the vegetable oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the chopped onions and sauté until they are soft and translucent, about 5-7 minutes. Add the minced garlic and ginger, and cook for another 1-2 minutes until fragrant.

2

Cook the vegetables

Add the diced carrots and potatoes to the pan. Stir and cook for about 5 minutes, allowing the vegetables to start softening.

3

Add spices and flour

Sprinkle the curry powder, garam masala and the 10 g of flour over the vegetables. Stir well to coat everything and cook for a minute or two. The point is not just to cook the flour out: frying ground spices in fat lets their aromas react with each other, so they taste like one spice blend rather than several separate powders.

4

Make the sauce

Gradually add the 475 ml of stock, stirring constantly to keep it smooth. Bring to the boil, then drop to a simmer and stir in the soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and honey.

5

Simmer and thicken

Let the sauce simmer gently for 15 to 20 minutes, until the vegetables are tender and it coats the back of a spoon. Stir now and then so nothing catches. Start the rice and the cutlets while it simmers, since the sauce holds well and the cutlets do not.

6

Add peas

Add the frozen peas to the sauce and cook for another 5 minutes until they are heated through. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

7

Prepare the cutlets

Butterfly each chicken breast: slice into it horizontally almost to the far edge and open it out like a book, then cut the two halves apart to give you four cutlets. Pound any thick patches with a mallet or the back of a knife until each one is an even centimetre thick. Even matters more than thin - a cutlet that is thick at one end and thin at the other cooks unevenly and dries out at the edges. Season both sides with salt and pepper just before coating.

8

Coat the cutlets

Beat the eggs with a tablespoon of oil. Set out three shallow dishes: flour, then the egg, then the panko. Dip each cutlet in flour and shake the excess off, then the egg, then press it firmly into the panko on both sides. Rest the coated cutlets for 5 to 10 minutes before they go anywhere near the oil. The oil in the egg and the rest are the two things that stop the crumb sliding off in the pan.

9

Fry the cutlets

Heat the oil to 170C in a deep frying pan or saucepan, about 2 cm deep. Fry the cutlets one or two at a time so the oil does not lose heat, about 3 minutes, turning once, until deep golden on both sides. Chicken wants to reach 74C in the middle. Lift each one out, let the oil drip off for a few seconds, and rest on a wire rack rather than kitchen paper, which traps steam and softens the underside. Slice after resting, not before, in single downward strokes.

10

Serve

Spoon the rice onto each plate, ladle the curry sauce beside it and lay the sliced cutlet alongside. Keep the sauce off the crumb: poured over, panko softens within a minute, which is the whole reason the cutlet was fried crisp.

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Chef’s notes＋

• Serve the curry beside the cutlet, not over it: sauce poured over panko softens the crumb within a minute. Sauce on the rice, cutlet alongside or on top.
• Rice: allow 75 g of uncooked short-grain or jasmine rice a head, cooked while the sauce simmers.
• Thickness: the sauce thickens as it sits, so stop while it still falls off the spoon. Loosen with a splash of stock if it goes too far, or simmer uncovered a little longer if it is thin.
• Make it gluten free: rice flour in place of the plain flour, at about three quarters of the weight, and check the soy and Worcestershire sauces, which both usually contain wheat.
• The sauce keeps better than the cutlet: fry cutlets to order and store any leftover sauce separately.

Nutrition per serving＋

1007 kcalProtein 49.3 gCarbs 118 gFat 36.5 gSat fat 3.8 gFibre 8 gSugar 10 gSodium 1066 mgServing 640

Japanese Katsu Curry Recipe with Potatoes, Carrots, and Peas · https://chefsbinge.com/japanese-katsu-curry-recipe-with-potatoes-carrots-and-peas/

Storing, Reheating and Freezing

Treat the two halves differently, because they keep differently. Cool the sauce and get it into the fridge within two hours, where it holds for three days and is arguably better on the second. Reheat it gently until it is piping hot the whole way through, loosening it with a splash of stock or water, since it thickens considerably as it sits.

Cutlets are a different matter. They are at their best within minutes of leaving the pan and there is no reheating that gives you back the crust you had. If you do have one left, an oven or air fryer at around 180C for a few minutes is far better than a microwave, which steams the crumb soft. Fry cutlets to order and keep any spare sauce rather than the other way round.

The sauce freezes well for up to three months and is worth making a double batch of for exactly that reason. Freeze it without the cutlet, thaw overnight in the fridge and reheat gently. Potato can go a little grainy after freezing, which bothers some people and not others.

What to Serve With Katsu Curry

🍽 Rice is not optional here, and short-grain Japanese rice or a plain jasmine is what you want rather than anything long and fluffy. Beyond that, the classic partner is a pile of very finely shredded raw cabbage, which is what comes with tonkatsu in Japan and does the same job here: cold, crisp and plain against a rich sauce. My salad builder will put one together if you want a dressing on it. A spoonful of fukujinzuke, the red pickled radish relish, is the other thing you will see on the plate in Japan, and it is worth seeking out.

FAQ for Japanese Katsu Curry with Potatoes, Carrots, and Peas

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A Few Words from the Chef

Some people want the sauce smooth, blended down until it is all one thing. I like it with texture, so the potato stays in soft chunks, the carrot keeps a little bite and the peas burst. That is why the vegetables go in the way they do here, and why I leave them alone once they are in.