Mixed mushroom donburi (rice bowl)

Have you ever heard of or tried donburi? Donburi is a typical Japanese comfort meal – steamed rice topped with tofu, cooked vegetables, meat, or seafood and served with crunchy salad on the side. Of course, the recipe I am sharing today will be a meat-free version – vegan, mixed mushroom donburi, a really delicious simple recipe.

Let’s get started!

Combine all the dressing ingredients in a small bowl and mix well.

Peel and julienne a medium-sized carrot. I don’t have a julienne peeler and am too lazy to chop so I used a spiraliser instead. It does the trick perfectly and saves me lots of extra work chopping! 😁😁😁

Wash the bean sprouts, add them to a pan and cover with water. Boil them on a high heat for 1-2 minutes. You only want them lightly cooked with a bit of crunch still.

Rinse the cooked bean sprouts in ice-cold water and drain through a sieve. If they’re still too wet, squeeze them gently with your hands to make sure you get all the water out.

Finely chop the spring onion and gather together all the topping ingredients.

Place 1/2 of rice in each serving bowl, top with the watercress, julienned carrot, and beans sprouts.

I usually use Japanese rice for authenticity, but occasionally I do use ready-cooked rice pouches as they’re so convenient and hassle-free. You can also replace with brown rice for more nutritional value.

Now it is time to cook the mushrooms! All we need to do is slice the mushrooms and mince the garlic. I use mixed mushrooms (oyster, chestnut, shiitake, and shimeji brown mushrooms) to enhance the dish’s flavour, but you can also replace these with chestnuts mushroom if you can’t find the variety in your local grocery store.

Heat the oil in a large, non-stick frying pan, add the minced garlic and fry until golden.

Add the mushrooms, 1/2 teaspoon of dark soy sauce and a tablespoon of the dressing we made earlier, and stir-fry for 4-5 minutes. Once the mushrooms have become tender and most of the sauce has evaporated, turn off the heat.

Top the bowls with the mushrooms and sprinkle over a pinch of sesame seeds and a handful of chopped spring onion.

Finally, mix the dressing with the rest of the sesame seeds and spring onion. Drizzle over the donburi just before eating. Enjoy!

One of the reasons the dressing is served separately here is because everyone has very different tastes. For example, King probably uses double the amount of dressing that I do. By serving it separately people can choose how much dressing they add.

Also, the longer the salad soaks in dressing, the darker and droopier the leaves become. I love my donburi staying pretty and colourful. ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

This is one of my favourite donburi recipes; savoury and tender mushrooms with refreshing salad all in one bowl. It’s a super quick and easy meal that you can throw together any day of the week.

Let me know if you try out this recipe. You can leave a comment below, or take a picture, tag it with #k33_kitchen and share it on Instagram! I’d love to see what you come up with. Cheers, hope you enjoy my recipes!