Japanese Potato Curry

Check out my recipe for delicious Japanese potato curry. It is super easy to make, with a simple homemade roux instead of shop-bought curry cubes, and it is one of those dishes that you will keep coming back to.

The potatoes do most of the work, so the kind you buy matters more than anything else in the pot. Waxy potatoes like Charlotte or Yukon Gold hold their shape in the thick sauce, while floury ones collapse into it.

My Japanese Curry Builder will scale it and adapt it if you want a different protein, more heat or a thicker sauce, and it goes past this recipe into keema and dry curry too.

Want it heartier? Lay a crispy breaded cutlet on top and you have katsu curry.

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Why is this Japanese Potato Curry so good?

First of all, it’s budget-friendly. The ingredients are simple, affordable, and easy to find, making this dish gentle on the wallet without sacrificing flavour.

The vegetables are the focus here. The default uses beef stock for depth, and one swap makes it fully vegetarian: vegetable stock with a spoonful of miso. Either way the stars are tender potatoes, carrots and a silky sauce that coats them.

Most importantly, this curry stays true to the Japanese style: mild, savoury, and comforting rather than fiery. It’s the kind of dish you can enjoy any day of the week, especially when you want something warming and familiar.

What are the Best Potatoes for Japanese Curry?

Use a waxy potato. Varieties like Charlotte, Yukon Gold or new potatoes hold their shape through a long simmer and take on the sauce instead of falling apart. Floury potatoes such as Maris Piper or Russet break down, cloud the curry and thicken it past the point you want. That is the whole decision, and it comes down to starch.

Best Potatoes for Japanese Curry

When choosing the best potatoes for Japanese curry, waxy or all-purpose varieties are ideal because they maintain their shape and provide a creamy texture. Here are some great options:

• Charlotte - A popular waxy variety in UK with a smooth texture and subtle sweetness, making it an excellent choice for Japanese curry. It holds its shape well while soaking up the curry flavours. These are my favourite!
• Yukon Gold - Often sold as gold potatoes or yellow potatoes in US shops. A great balance between waxy and starchy, making it perfect for Japanese curry. It holds its shape but also absorbs the flavours of the curry well.
• Red Potatoes - These have a firm texture and thin skin, preventing them from breaking down in the sauce.
• New Potatoes - Their waxy nature helps them stay intact while cooking, giving a smooth bite.
• Dutch Cream - A buttery, creamy potato that works beautifully in Japanese curry.
• Kennebec - An all-purpose potato that holds up well but is slightly fluffier than waxy varieties.

Potatoes to Avoid for Japanese Curry

As potatoes mature, they accumulate more starch while losing moisture. Starchy potatoes, like Russet or Maris Piper, break down easily when cooked, making the curry overly thick and grainy. While they can be used, they won’t provide the best texture for Japanese curry.

Now you have your potatoes, the full method is in my recipe card below. And if your curry ever tastes flat, it is almost always the onions rather than the spice, which I go through in my lesson on cooking onions.

Equipment You’ll Need

Ingredient Substitutions

• Gluten free Swap the plain flour in the roux for rice flour and use about a quarter less of it, since rice flour thickens harder. Worth knowing that Japanese curry powder is normally wheat free on its own. It is the shop-bought roux blocks that carry the flour, which is exactly why making your own solves the problem.
• No coconut cream Double cream or whole milk will do the job, though you lose the faint sweetness. Plain water thins it too far. If you use coconut milk instead of cream, hold back a little of the stock, because milk is thinner and you are about to thicken the pot anyway.
• Vegetarian and vegan Vegetable stock with a tablespoon of miso stirred in, which puts back the savoury weight the beef stock was carrying. Swap the honey for maple syrup or a little more mirin and the whole dish is vegan, since the roux is only oil and flour.
• No mirin A teaspoon of caster sugar dissolved in a tablespoon of rice vinegar gets close. Dry sherry works at a push, but add it earlier so the alcohol cooks off.
• Curry powder Ordinary Madras or a mild curry powder from any supermarket is fine, and plenty of readers outside Japan cannot get a Japanese blend at all. If yours is a hot one, start at half and taste.
• Sweet potatoes for waxy Perfectly good, and they hold together well. Leave the honey out if you use them, because they bring more than enough sweetness of their own.

How to Make Japanese Potato Curry, Step by Step

Full quantities are in the recipe card below. This is the walkthrough, with the reasoning behind each step, so you know what you are looking for rather than just following instructions.

1. Start the base. Two tablespoons of rapeseed oil into a medium pot over a medium heat.Use a pot rather than a shallow pan: half a litre of stock is going in here shortly and you want the depth.
2. Sweat the onions and celery. Three diced onions and half a finely chopped celery stick, eight minutes on medium. Let them go soft and translucent first, then take them a little further until they just start to colour.You want a little gold, not deep brown. Take them all the way and the curry turns darker and roastier than the mild Japanese style.
3. Add the carrots and potatoes, and let them take some colour. Turn the heat up a little, add the diced carrots and potatoes, and fry until the edges start to brown, adding a splash more oil if the pot looks dry. Use a waxy variety of potato and cut it big, around five centimetres, which is bigger than feels right.People skip this step, but it builds the savoury flavour a mild curry needs.On the potatoes: waxy potatoes hold their shape through 25 minutes of simmering. Floury ones like Maris Piper or King Edward break down and make the sauce cloudy and grainy. Small pieces fall apart too, so a waxy potato is wasted if you dice it like a stew. Sweet potatoes work, but they cook faster, so keep an eye on them.
4. In with the stock, soy and mirin. Five hundred millilitres of beef stock, a tablespoon of dark soy and a tablespoon of mirin. Go carefully with salt at this point, and taste at the end, not now.The dark soy gives the sauce its colour and a deeper savoury taste than ordinary soy. With the stock and the dark soy, there is already plenty of salt in the pot.To keep it vegetarian: use vegetable stock with a tablespoon of miso stirred in. The miso gives back the savoury taste the beef stock was carrying. Without it the curry tastes thin.
5. Simmer until tender. Bring it to the boil, drop it to a simmer and leave it for 20 to 25 minutes, until a knife goes into the potato with no resistance. Sweet potatoes will get there sooner.
6. Make the roux while that simmers. Heat three tablespoons of oil in a small frying pan, add the sliced garlic and cook until it browns, then stir in the curry powder and the plain flour. Keep the heat low and give it a minute, until you have a thick, fragrant paste.This is the step that makes the recipe. Curry cubes are handy, but they are expensive and full of additives, and the roux takes about three minutes: it is just flour, fat and curry powder. The minute on a low heat cooks out the raw flour taste, and you decide how hot and how salty it is.
7. Coconut cream and honey. When the vegetables are where you want them, stir in 200ml of coconut cream and a teaspoon of honey, bring it back to the boil and turn the heat off. Skip the honey if you went with sweet potatoes.Coconut milk is too thin and would loosen a sauce you are about to thicken. Sweet potatoes are sweet enough on their own.
8. Stir the roux through to thicken. Take the pot off the heat before the roux goes in. Stir it through until it is completely smooth, then put the pot back on a low heat and let it tick over for a good ten minutes, stirring. Taste it, adjust the seasoning, and serve over short grain rice with sliced green chilli.Roux added to a boiling pot seizes into lumps. Off the heat it melts in smoothly, but it only dissolves. The thickening happens in those ten minutes on a low heat, and skipping them is the usual reason a homemade curry comes out thinner than the shop-bought kind.If it is still looser than you like, let it bubble uncovered for a few minutes, or cook a little more roux in the pan and stir that in. Do not tip dry flour straight into the pot, it will go lumpy.Make it ahead: it is better on the second day, because a night in the fridge lets the spice settle into the sauce.

Video Recipe for Japanese Potato Curry

Recipe Card for Japanese Potato Curry

Recipe Card

Japanese Potato Curry

My Japanese potato curry: waxy potatoes that hold their shape, a curry roux made from scratch and beef stock for depth. Swap the stock for vegetable stock with a spoonful of miso and it is genuinely vegetarian. This is the recipe the Japanese Curry Builder is anchored to.

★★★★★ 5 from 13 votes · Rate this recipe

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Prep

10 min

Cook

45 min

Total

55 min

Serves

4

Per serving

418 kcal

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4 servings

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Build your own Japanese curry: pick the protein, the heat and the roux

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Equipment I Use

Medium sized potHybrid Non Stick Frying Pan

Ingredients

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2 Carrots, (300g) medium sized, diced or roll cut 2 Large waxy type potatoes, (700g) (or 2 medium sized sweet potatoes) 3 Small onions, finely chopped 4 Garlic cloves, sliced ½ Celery stalk, finely chopped 500 ml Beef stock, (for purely vegetarian version use vegetable stock with 1 tbsp of miso) 200 ml Coconut Cream, (Much better for curry than coconut milk) 4 tsp Curry Powder 2 tbsp Plain flour 1 tbsp Dark Soy Sauce, (More robust flavour than standard soy sauce. Season to taste: more soy, or a thick sweet soy, makes the sauce darker) 1 tsp Honey, Skip if using sweet potatoes 1 tbsp Japanese mirin 5 tbsp Rapeseed oil, for frying (or any vegetable oil) 1 Green chilli, sliced for garnish 200 g Short grain rice, to serve for 4 people

Instructions

Tap a step to tick it off as you cook.

1

Preheat the Pot

Begin by heating the oil in a medium-sized pot, keeping the rest back for the roux.

You need2 tbsp Rapeseed oil of the 5

2

Sweat the Onions and Celery

Add the diced onions and the finely chopped celery to the pot. Sweat on medium heat for 8 minutes until soft and translucent, then give them a little longer until they just start to colour. Some gold, not a deep brown.

You need3 Small onions½ Celery stalk

3

Brown the Main Veggies

Turn up the heat slightly and add the diced carrots and potatoes to the pot. Fry until the vegetables start to brown. You may need to add a little bit more oil at this step.

You need2 Carrots2 Large waxy type potatoes

4

Add the Stock, Soy and Mirin

Next, pour in the beef stock, the soy sauce and the mirin. Stir to combine.

You need500 ml Beef stock1 tbsp Dark Soy Sauce1 tbsp Japanese mirin

5

Simmer the Vegetables

Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat and let it simmer until the vegetables are soft and tender, around 20-25 minutes (If you’re using sweet potatoes, the cooking time might be shorter).

6

Prepare the Curry Roux

While the vegetables are cooking, prepare the curry roux (or use shop-bought curry roux blocks and skip this step). In a small frying pan, heat the rest of the oil and add the sliced garlic. Cook until the garlic is browned, then add the curry powder and the flour. Cook on low heat for a minute to combine.

You need3 tbsp Rapeseed oil the rest4 Garlic cloves4 tsp Curry Powder2 tbsp Plain flour

7

Coconut Cream and Honey

Once the potatoes and carrots are cooked to your desired texture, add the coconut cream and the honey to the pot. Bring to a boil and then turn off the heat.

You need200 ml Coconut Cream1 tsp Honey

8

Thicken and Serve

Stir in the curry roux until it has completely dissolved, then put the pot back on a low heat and let it simmer gently for a good ten minutes, stirring now and then. Off the heat only dissolves the roux; the thickening happens over that simmer. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Serve over rice with sliced green chilli. Perfect with my cabbage kimchi or cucumber kimchi.

You need200 g Short grain rice1 Green chilli

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Chef’s notes＋

• Sweet potato: swap some or all of the potatoes for sweet potato, and leave the honey out if you do.
• Adding protein: cubed tofu or tempeh, both of which take the sauce on well.
• Peas: 100 g of green peas, stirred in near the end.
• Roux consistency: more flour for a thicker curry, less flour or more stock and coconut cream for a looser one. This is the dial that decides the texture.
• Herbs and aromatics: chopped coriander over the top at the table, and a bay leaf or two in with the simmer.
• Other vegetables: peppers, mushrooms and courgettes all work. Grill them first and add them late, or they go to mush.
• Storage: better the next day. Airtight in the fridge for up to 3 days, and loosen with a splash of water or stock when you reheat.
• Best potatoes: waxy, so they hold their shape. Charlotte, Maris Peer, Jersey Royals, Yukon Gold or Red Bliss.

Nutrition per serving＋

418 kcalProtein 7 gCarbs 58 gFat 20 gSat fat 9 gFibre 7 gSugar 9 gSodium 630 mgServing 500 g

Japanese Potato Curry · https://chefsbinge.com/japanese-potato-curry/

Check out my other Recipes:

Kakushiaji: the Japanese Secret Ingredients

Japanese home cooks have a word for the thing they add that nobody is meant to notice: kakushiaji, the hidden taste. Ask on any Japanese curry forum what goes in and the same three answers come back, and they are more interesting than they sound.

• Instant coffee The most commonly named of the lot. Half a teaspoon of instant stirred in with the roux darkens the sauce and adds a roasted bitterness that stops the sweetness running away with it. It does not taste of coffee. If you want the near black colour of a Kanazawa style curry, coffee plus a splash of red wine is how it is done.
• Grated apple Half an apple on the fine side of a grater, in with the onions. Standard in most Japanese recipes and the reason boxed curry tastes faintly fruity. My card uses a teaspoon of honey instead, which does a similar job more quietly, so treat the apple as an alternative rather than an addition unless you want it noticeably sweeter.
• Dark chocolate Two or three grams, no more, stirred in after the roux has melted. It rounds the edges off the spice rather than making anything taste of chocolate. Easy to overdo, so start smaller than you think.

A word of warning that comes up again and again from people who have tried this: pick one, not all three. The commonest complaint about heavily sweetened curries is a single ingredient taking over, and it is nearly always because someone added a sweetener on top of a sweetener and then did not reduce the sauce enough to bring it back.

Troubleshooting

• If it will not thicken, put it back on a low heat and stir for a good ten minutes. Flour needs heat and time to do its work, and the usual causes are too little roux, too much liquid, watery vegetables, or honey and grated apple added too late, which is explained below. A tablespoon of flour slaked in cold water will rescue it if it is still loose.
• If it tastes flat, the answer is almost always the onions rather than the spice. Sweating them properly, soft and translucent first and then barely golden, is what carries the whole dish. I go through it step by step in my lesson on cooking onions. Failing that, my card is deliberately mild at four teaspoons of curry powder, so add another teaspoon or two if you want it assertive.
• Too hot for children? Stir a splash of milk and a little honey into their bowl rather than watering down the whole pot. Milk works because the casein in dairy binds to the compounds that make heat register. Oat and other plant milks will not do the same job.

Variations and What to Do with Leftovers

• Curry udon The classic second day dish. Loosen the leftover curry with dashi or stock until it pours, and serve it over thick udon noodles. Better with a slightly thinner sauce than you would want over rice.
• Curry doria Leftover curry spooned over rice in an ovenproof dish, cheese on top, under the grill until it blisters. Not remotely traditional Japanese cooking and completely worth it.
• With a cutlet on top A breaded cutlet turns it into katsu curry, which is the version most people meet first.
• Japanese pickles Fukujinzuke, the sweet red soy pickled daikon and lotus root, and rakkyo, pickled Chinese onions, are what actually turns up beside curry in Japan. A sharp mouthful between spoonfuls does the same job a chutney does with an Indian curry.
• Make the roux ahead The roux keeps on its own, which is worth knowing given it is the only fiddly part. A month in the fridge in a sealed jar, or three to four months in the freezer. Make a double batch while the pan is out.

Storing, Freezing and Reheating

Curry keeps in the fridge for three days and genuinely improves for the first two of them. Cool it quickly, in a shallow container rather than the pot it cooked in, and get it covered and cold rather than leaving it to sit out.

Freezing needs one piece of care that most curry recipes will not mention, because most curries are not built on potatoes. Potato frozen in sauce turns spongy and dry once thawed. The cells rupture, the water leaves, and what comes back is grainy in a way no amount of reheating fixes.

The fix is simple enough. Lift the potatoes out before the curry goes into the freezer and either eat them within the few days or mash them and freeze them separately, where the texture no longer matters. The sauce itself freezes very well for a month. Boil fresh potatoes when you come to serve it, drop them into the reheated sauce, and nobody will know the difference.

Reheat gently in a pan rather than blasting it. The sauce is flour thickened, so it will thicken further as it stands and may want a splash of water or stock loosening it back to where you had it.

FAQ for Japanese Potato Curry

What’s the difference between Japanese curry and Indian curry?

Japanese curry is milder, slightly sweet, and has a thicker, stew-like consistency due to the roux. Indian curry uses more spices, has a thinner sauce, and can be much spicier. Japanese curry also tends to be sweeter due to the use of apples or honey.

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A Few Words from the Chef

My partner introduced me to Japanese curry and I fell for it on the first spoonful. This potato version of kare raisu came out of an evening when there was no beef in the house, and it has been on our table ever since. It is delicate and mild, yet full of flavour and comfort, exactly the sort of food I want on a quiet night in. If you make it, leave a comment and tell me whether it wins you over the way it won me over.