By Yoshi | Japan Unveiled
In Japan, winter has a specific sound.
It is the sound of a clay pot simmering on a gas burner at the centre of a low table, with six or seven people seated around it — the specific low bubbling that indicates the broth is at the correct temperature, not boiling vigorously (which would make the broth cloudy and the delicate ingredients tough) but simmering gently, with the specific intermittent bubble-and-release that allows the ingredients to cook through without overcooking.
The sound is accompanied by a specific smell: the accumulated, complex, layered aroma of a broth that has been cooking ingredients for the past thirty minutes — the specific mineral depth of the dashi base, the specific sweetness of the cabbage and the leek, the specific richness of whatever protein has been cooked in it. By the end of a nabe dinner, the broth has absorbed and concentrated the flavour of everything that has been placed in it, and the specific smell of this accumulated broth is one of the most winter-specific sensory experiences in Japanese domestic life.
Nabe (鍋) — literally “pot,” but by extension the specific shared hot pot meal that is Japan’s primary winter social eating format — is not merely a cooking method. It is a specific social form, a specific seasonal ritual, and a specific expression of the Japanese understanding that the best meals are eaten together, from a shared vessel, in a shared space, with shared warmth.
What Nabe Is
At its most basic, nabe is a communal meal in which ingredients — vegetables, protein, tofu, noodles — are cooked at the table in a shared broth and eaten as they are ready. The specific pot is placed at the centre of the table over a portable heat source (historically a charcoal brazier; now typically a portable gas burner or an electric induction plate), and each person at the table adds ingredients as they like, cooks them in the simmering broth, and retrieves them with chopsticks or a specific ladle.
The communal quality of nabe — everyone reaching into the same pot, everyone contributing to the same meal, the pace of the eating set collectively by the group rather than individually by each person — is the specific social form that makes nabe the meal of winter gatherings, of family New Year dinners, of the specific close-friend dinner that the heat of winter makes feel especially necessary.
The variety of nabe styles is one of the most specific expressions of Japanese regional food culture. Every region of Japan has developed specific nabe preparations using specific local ingredients and specific local broths, and the range of nabe styles available in Japan is broader than most people outside the country realise. I want to describe the most important of these styles in enough detail that their specific characters are legible.
Yose Nabe: The Everything Pot
Yose nabe (寄せ鍋 — “gathered pot”) is the most flexible and most home-friendly of the major nabe styles — the preparation in which various ingredients are simply placed in a seasoned broth without specific constraints on what those ingredients should be. The specific beauty of yose nabe is its flexibility: it accommodates whatever proteins, vegetables, and other ingredients are available, in whatever combination the cook feels like preparing.
The standard yose nabe broth is a light soy sauce and sake seasoned dashi — mild enough to allow the specific flavours of the individual ingredients to come through, but savoury enough to season everything cooked in it. The ingredients: typically a selection of seafood (clams, shrimp, crab, and various fish), chicken, napa cabbage, leek, mushrooms (shiitake, enoki, shimeji), tofu, and shirataki noodles.
Yose nabe is the nabe that most Japanese households make at home most frequently — the accessible, forgiving, endlessly variable preparation that accommodates whatever the refrigerator contains and whatever the season makes available. It is also the preparation that most clearly expresses the nabe’s fundamental philosophy: that a shared pot, simmered slowly with good ingredients in good broth, is one of the simplest and most satisfying of all meals.
Mizutaki: The Pure Chicken Pot
Mizutaki (水炊き — “water cooking”) is the nabe preparation that is most strikingly different from the flavour-forward styles, and that represents the most refined expression of the specific Japanese understanding that the best flavour comes from the highest quality ingredients cooked as simply as possible.
The specific character of mizutaki: the broth is initially plain water or very lightly seasoned dashi — no soy sauce, no salt, no mirin. Chicken pieces (bone-in, which is essential — the bones provide the specific collagen and the specific mineral depth that makes the broth valuable) are simmered in this plain liquid for an extended period, typically thirty minutes to an hour before the other ingredients are added. Across this simmering, the chicken releases its specific flavours into the water, gradually transforming it from plain liquid to a specific light but deeply flavoured chicken stock.
The eating convention: ingredients cooked in mizutaki are dipped in ponzu (the citrus-soy dipping sauce) before eating, with finely grated daikon, sliced green onion, and yuzu zest as condiments. The ponzu provides the seasoning that the unseasoned broth does not — the ingredients are cooked in flavour-free liquid and seasoned individually at the moment of eating.
The specific excellence of mizutaki is in the quality of the chicken and in the specific broth that the long simmering produces. A mizutaki made with genuinely high-quality chicken — the specific jidori (地鶏 — free-range chicken) varieties whose specific flavour comes from a genuinely natural diet and genuinely extended raising period — produces a broth of extraordinary depth from the simplest possible preparation. The broth, drunk at the end of the meal after the other ingredients have been consumed, is the specific highlight of good mizutaki.
Chanko Nabe: The Sumo Wrestler’s Pot
Chanko nabe (ちゃんこ鍋) is the nabe preparation that is most specifically associated with a specific Japanese institution: the sumo stable (beya), the communal training and living environment in which sumo wrestlers live, train, and eat together.
The specific role of chanko nabe in sumo culture: it is the primary meal of the sumo stable, eaten by all wrestlers together after the morning training session. The preparation is always abundant — designed to support the specific caloric requirements of wrestlers who need to maintain the specific body weight that sumo competition requires — and is typically made by the lower-ranking wrestlers as one of their specific household duties.
The specific character of chanko nabe: it is a protein-rich preparation that typically includes chicken (on the grounds that chickens walk on two legs, as a sumo wrestler must — a horse or cow that walks on four legs would symbolically represent falling in sumo), various vegetables, tofu, and whatever else is available in the specific stable’s kitchen. The broth is typically a soy-based chicken stock. The preparation is substantial enough to be genuinely filling for large men eating to build body mass, and flavourful enough to be enjoyed as a meal rather than merely consumed as fuel.
Chanko nabe has spread from the sumo stable to the general restaurant market, with specific chanko restaurants (many of them opened by retired sumo wrestlers) serving the preparation to the general public. The chanko nabe restaurant experience is one of the more specific examples of a food tradition crossing from a closed institutional context into the broader food culture — and the specific abundance of the preparation, which was designed to feed athletes rather than ordinary diners, makes it a distinctively satisfying restaurant experience.
Kimchi Nabe: The Korean Import That Japan Made Its Own
Kimchi nabe (キムチ鍋) — hot pot using kimchi (Korean fermented cabbage) as the primary seasoning ingredient of the broth — is one of the most widely consumed nabe styles in contemporary Japan and one of the clearest examples of the specific Japanese capacity for adapting neighbouring food cultures into distinctly Japanese preparations.
Korean kimchi was introduced to Japan through the specific historical and demographic connections between the two countries, and the Japanese encounter with kimchi’s specific flavour — the lactic acid fermentation, the specific heat of the gochugaru (Korean red pepper), the specific umami of the fermented vegetables — produced immediate enthusiasm among Japanese consumers who found in it a flavour complexity that was different from anything in the Japanese fermentation tradition.
The Japanese adaptation of kimchi into nabe broth: Korean kimchi is placed in a kombu or chicken dashi base, which dilutes and integrates the kimchi’s flavour into a broth that is simultaneously spicy (from the kimchi’s pepper content), sour (from the kimchi’s lactic fermentation), and deeply savoury (from the dashi and the kimchi’s fermentation compounds). The result is different from Korean kimchi jjigae — the Korean version of kimchi hot pot — in the same way that all Japanese adaptations of Korean cooking are different from their originals: lighter in body, more dashi-forward, less intensely fermented.
The Nabe Bugyō: The Hot Pot Magistrate
No description of Japanese nabe culture is complete without addressing the specific social phenomenon of the nabe bugyō (鍋奉行 — “hot pot magistrate”) — the person at the nabe table who takes it upon themselves to manage the cooking of the shared pot.
The nabe bugyō is a specific Japanese social type: the person who cannot simply eat from a shared pot without taking responsibility for the management of that pot. They watch the broth temperature, adding ingredients in the specific order that optimises the cooking sequence. They retrieve cooked items and distribute them to other diners. They skim the surface of the broth to remove the foam that rises as proteins cook. They add water or broth as needed to maintain the correct liquid level.
The nabe bugyō is simultaneously helpful and potentially tyrannical, depending on the degree to which they impose their management on people who would prefer to cook their own ingredients at their own pace. Japanese popular culture has developed a specific gentle awareness of the nabe bugyō type — the person whose genuine care for the shared cooking experience tips slightly into controlling behaviour — that is expressed through specific comedy sketches, specific social media commentary, and specific knowing recognition when the nabe bugyō’s behaviour becomes particularly pronounced.
The nabe bugyō is, at their best, the person who ensures that the shared meal is managed well — that the broth does not boil too hard, that the delicate ingredients are not overcooked, that everyone at the table has something to eat at each stage of the meal. This is a genuine service to the group, and the best nabe bugyō perform it without imposing on others’ autonomy.
The Shime: How the Nabe Ends
The shime (〆 — the ending) of a nabe meal is, as I described in the shabu-shabu article, the final preparation that uses the enriched broth that remains after the main nabe eating is complete.
The nabe broth after a full meal has become something genuinely extraordinary: the specific accumulated flavour of every protein, every vegetable, every piece of tofu that has been cooked in it across the evening has produced a liquid of considerable complexity and depth. To eat the shime is to consume the concentrated essence of the entire meal in one final preparation.
The specific shime preparations for different nabe styles: zōsui (雑炊 — rice porridge) for most styles, in which cooked rice is added and simmered until it has absorbed the broth; rāmen noodles for specific hearty nabe styles; udon for the lighter styles; or, for the simplest and most traditional shime, a beaten egg added to the remaining broth and stirred gently to produce a specific egg-and-broth custard that is drunk from the bowl like soup.
The shime is the nabe’s final gift to the people who have eaten it — the specific reminder that nothing of value has been wasted, that the evening’s accumulated flavour has been fully consumed, that the winter dinner is now truly complete.
— Yoshi 🫕 Central Japan, 2026
Enjoyed this? You might also like: “Shabu-Shabu and Sukiyaki: Japan’s Two Great Hot Pot Traditions” and “Japanese Comfort Food: 10 Dishes That Heal the Soul After a Hard Day” — both available on Japan Unveiled.
