Nabe: The Japanese Hot Pot That Brings Families Together

By Yoshi | Japan Unveiled

There are foods that you eat alone. There are foods that you eat with people. And then there are foods that require people — that cannot be fully themselves without a table of human beings gathered around them, with chopsticks and shared bowls and the specific warmth of a meal that is cooked and eaten communally, in the same pot, at the same time.

Nabe (鍋) is the last kind.

The word means, simply, “pot” — the clay or cast iron pot placed at the center of the table on a portable gas burner, filled with broth, into which ingredients are added and cooked gradually over the course of the meal. Everyone at the table adds ingredients, removes cooked items, replenishes the broth, passes things to each other. The meal is the cooking as much as the eating. The act of gathering around the pot and doing this together is, in Japan, one of the defining experiences of winter.

I want to tell you about nabe. About what it is, what it contains, and why it matters beyond its considerable deliciousness.

The Structure: What Nabe Actually Is

Every nabe has three essential components: the broth, the ingredients, and the shime — the finishing course.

The broth is the foundation and the soul of the nabe. It defines the character of the meal and everything cooked in it will absorb its flavor. The major broth types:

Kombu dashi — a clear, delicate broth made from dried kelp, used in shabu-shabu and lighter nabemono. The most refined and the most versatile.

Miso broth — a richer, more assertive base, particularly associated with Sapporo-style nabe and the cold climates of northern Japan where richness is seasonal wisdom.

Soy sauce broth — shoyu based, cleaner than miso, used in many regional styles including Tokyo’s standard nabe.

Kimchi broth — spicy, fermented, deeply savory, absorbed from the Korean kimchi jjigae tradition and now entirely naturalized in Japanese winter cooking. Kimchi nabe is one of the most popular nabe varieties in contemporary Japan.

Milk or soy milk broth — a modern innovation that has become widely popular: creamy, mild, excellent for vegetables and chicken.

Sukiyaki broth — sweet soy sauce, mirin, and sugar, more a sauce than a broth. Sukiyaki occupies its own distinct category within nabe culture.

The ingredients vary by regional style and household preference but typically include: thinly sliced meat (beef in sukiyaki and shabu-shabu, pork in many other styles, chicken in tori nabe), tofu (momen firm tofu or silken, depending on the style), a variety of vegetables (napa cabbage being the most essential — its leaves soften and absorb the broth magnificently, its stems retain a pleasant crunch), mushrooms (shiitake, enoki, shimeji, maitake), konjac noodles (shirataki), and fish cakes (kamaboko, chikuwa) in many regional styles.

The order of addition matters. Dense items — tofu, root vegetables — go in first. Leafy vegetables and delicate items go in later. The cook at the table — often whoever is seated nearest the burner, which carries its own mild social significance — manages the timing.

The shime — literally “the closing” — is the final act of the nabe meal, and it is the moment many Japanese people privately consider the best part. When the main ingredients have been eaten, the broth remaining in the pot has become an extraordinary concentrated essence of everything cooked in it — richer, more complex, carrying the flavors of the meat and vegetables and tofu that preceded. This broth is too good to discard.

Into this broth goes either rice, to make zōsui (a thick rice porridge), or noodles — udon, ramen, or soba — to make the most satisfying final course of the meal. The shime is the reward for having eaten well. The soup that the meal made.

The Major Nabe Varieties

Shabu-shabu (しゃぶしゃぶ) — named for the sound the thin-sliced meat makes when swished through the broth — is the most elegant nabe. Paper-thin slices of premium beef (or pork) are held with chopsticks and passed briefly through the kombu broth — three to five seconds for the thinnest cuts — just enough to cook through while remaining tender. The dipping sauces are the co-stars: ponzu (citrus soy sauce) for the beef, sesame sauce for a richer alternative.

The appeal of shabu-shabu is the marriage of quality ingredients and restraint — the brief cooking time means the quality of the meat is fully expressed rather than transformed. Good shabu-shabu uses very good beef. The broth is almost incidental at the beginning; by the end of the meal, it is remarkable.

Sukiyaki (すき焼き) — the sweet-savory nabe of celebration. Thin-sliced beef is cooked in a sweet soy sauce broth alongside tofu, napa cabbage, shirataki noodles, and green onions, then dipped in raw beaten egg before eating. The raw egg may alarm visitors unfamiliar with Japanese egg safety standards, but Japanese raw eggs are safe to eat — see my article on why Japanese eggs taste different — and the egg coating adds a richness that transforms the already rich sukiyaki into something genuinely extraordinary.

Sukiyaki is a celebratory food — historically expensive enough that it was reserved for special occasions, and still carrying that association in Japanese food culture. A sukiyaki dinner is, in Japan, a statement about the occasion and the people present.

Oden (おでん) — the most accessible and most democratic nabe. A mild dashi broth containing a variety of items that simmer together over long periods: daikon, konjac, fish cakes, tofu, potatoes, octopus, eggs. Each item absorbs the broth differently over hours of simmering. The daikon, in particular, cooked until it can be cut with the back of a spoon, is one of the most quietly satisfying foods in the Japanese winter repertoire.

Oden is sold at convenience stores, at yatai street food stalls, at oden-ya specialist restaurants. It is the nabe that requires the least ceremony — you can eat it from a paper cup at a convenience store counter at midnight in December and it will still warm you completely.

Chanko nabe (ちゃんこ鍋) — the traditional food of sumo wrestlers, now available at restaurants around sumo training stables in Tokyo and elsewhere. A protein-rich, high-calorie nabe containing meat, tofu, and vegetables in a chicken and soy broth. The eating of chanko is, in sumo culture, itself a ritual — consumed in specific order according to stable hierarchy, in quantities that would amaze the ordinary diner.

Kimchi nabe (キムチ鍋) — the spicy, fermented, deeply warming option that has become one of the most popular nabe varieties in modern Japan. The kimchi provides acidity, heat, and complexity. Pork belly is the classic meat pairing. The broth, by the time you reach the shime, has become one of the most flavorful cooking liquids available in a Japanese kitchen.

Nabe as Social Technology

I said at the beginning that nabe requires people. I want to say something more specific about why.

The nabe table is a space of enforced intimacy. Everyone is oriented toward the same center. Everyone participates in the same activity. The cooking is shared — whoever is nearest the burner tends the heat, manages the additions, fishes out cooked items for the person who is furthest away. The eating is simultaneous — you do not wait to serve everyone before eating, because the items cook at different times and should be eaten hot.

This social structure produces a specific quality of conversation. The attention is partly on the pot and partly on each other, which is a more comfortable ratio for many Japanese people than the full-face-to-face intensity of a restaurant meal. The activity of the cooking — adding ingredients, watching the broth, managing the order of additions — provides natural breaks in conversation that relieve the pressure to perform constant engagement.

It is, in other words, a format designed for people who find pure social interaction without a shared activity slightly taxing. Which is a description of many Japanese people, and many people in general.

In Japan, nabe is a winter constant for most families. The portable gas burner is brought out in October and put away in April. The specific nabe style varies — some weeks kimchi, some weeks shabu-shabu, some weeks whatever vegetables needed to be used — but the ritual of gathering around the pot remains.

Nabe at Home: What You Need

The equipment is simple. A clay pot (donabe) or a cast iron pot. A portable gas burner. Chopsticks and small individual bowls for dipping sauces. The ingredients, which are available at any Japanese supermarket in nabe-ready form throughout autumn and winter — premixed broths in packets, vegetable sets designed specifically for nabe, thinly sliced meat in the correct cut.

The barrier to entry is essentially zero. This is, perhaps, the deepest reason for nabe’s persistence as a Japanese institution: it asks almost nothing of the cook beyond the gathering of ingredients and the presence of people to eat it with.

The people are the ingredient that cannot be purchased ready-made.

They are also the most important one.

— Yoshi 🍲 Central Japan, 2026

Enjoyed this? You might also like: “Izakaya: Japan’s Greatest Social Institution” and “My Top 5 Comfort Foods After a Long Day of Work” — both available on Japan Unveiled.