Have you ever wanted to learn how to make the adorable cute bento boxes featured on Pinterest or Instagram? Do you want to incorporate Japanese cuisine into your daily diet? Here is a list of 10 Youtubers with English support (captions or description) provided in their videos.
Peaceful Cuisine, or Ryoya Takashima, is a Japanese vegan content creator in Kyoto, Japan. His food videos are all completely vegan, from traditional Japanese food to Western-style desserts. He also vlogs about his travels, and posts helpful DIY videos about pottery-throwing and furniture. In his food videos, he often releases two versions; one with only ASMR and one with music included. With his videos, Takashima promotes a vegan lifestyle and wants to bring peace through food choices.
Tabieats is run by duo Shinichi and Satoshi. They release four videos per week: Tuesday recipes, Wednesday travels, Friday food reviews/challenges/ramen hunts, and Saturday sweet recipes. Most of their content is centered around sharing Japanese culture, such as vending machines, street food, or convenient store-related content. The word ‘tabi’ in Japanese means travel, so this channel covers a lot of Japanese cultural festivals, regional specialties, and interesting places.
Ochikeron is known for her cute bento and character-inspired recipes, such as her Rilakkuma omurice (omelette rice) or Hello-Kitty bento box. Her videos are very family-friendly, since she has two young children. Her motto is “Create, Eat, Happy,” and a lot of her videos have a cute theme. She also creates many vegan and diet-friendly videos for people who have dietary restrictions. She is especially known for recreating famous manga/anime foods as well.
Cooking with Dog features an adorable poodle named Francis, and an equally adorable Japanese chef whose real name is not disclosed. Unfortunately, Francis recently passed away 10 months ago. Nevertheless, this channel still updates once a month with easy Japanese home cooking videos. Cooking with Dog also has a whole section dedicated to Chinese-inspired Japanese foods.
Yao Lam is from Sendai but is currently living with Osaka with her Malaysian husband. Her easy, home-cooking recipes are perfect for 1-2 people. She also has many bento-related videos and Japanese breakfast videos. Her videos feature Chinese, Japanese, and English captions so everyone can learn from her recipes. These recipes can be easily recreated because she uses lots of common Japanese condiments and spices.
Masa used to work in a French restaurant in Japan before moving to Canada to study English and business administration. He currently lives in Taiwan and conducts many cooking classes besides uploading videos on his Youtube and Facebook. He speaks in Chinese in his videos, but there are always English captions provided and his recipes are written in English, Chinese, and Japanese. He uses his professional cooking techniques and skills to explain how to turn basic meals into fancy restaurant-like dishes. He also has many tutorials on cutting vegetables or meat.
The host of Just One Cookbook, Nami, is from Yokohama, but is currently residing in SF, California. She has lots of creative recipes perfect for busy people, such as her instant pot line of dishes. She even has an entire playlist of 14 videos just dedicated to matcha desserts. Her recipes have both traditional Japanese meals as well as new, Western-infused recipes such as the dragon roll or mochi ice cream. Her recipes can easily be incorporated into office lunches for those who are on-the-go.
Jun’s Kitchen is a side channel of Rachel and Jun, a husband-wife duo in Japan. Jun posts occasionally on this channel to share his beautiful creations such as the koi fish sushi above. His videos usually begin with purchasing the ingredients for the dish, then show him preparing the food from scratch, step by step. His adorable cats are always present in the kitchen as well, and he even has fancy recipes just for his cats. He also has a few videos featuring his cats, Haku, Poku, and Nagi.
Japanese Cooking 101 is run by Noriko and Yuko, two Japanese mothers currently living in America. As the title implies, there are many basic videos to explain Japanese ingredients and side dishes. The dishes are perfect for beginners who have never made any Japanese food before, with helpful videos to guide viewers along the way. They have also just released a new cookbook this month, called Simply Bento.
Cook Kafemaru is run by a Japanese middle-aged woman whose name is not revealed. Most of Cook Kafemaru’s creations involve character-inspired bento or desserts, such as the Rilakkuma cupcakes above. There are a variety of desserts and baked goods such as bread, cakes, and cookies. Cook Kafemaru also has a section labeled “I love chocolate,” with a total of 36 desserts all chocolate-flavored, as well as a 24 cheesecake recipes! Cook Kafemaru is definitely worth a watch for dessert-lovers.
There are so many different Youtubers with videos that include English. By watching these videos, you’ll be able to learn the tips and tricks in making Japanese cuisine.