Japanese Cooking with Kids: 50 Kid-Tested Recipes to Make Together!

2025 Gourmand Cookbook Award Winner! — Children: Asia & Family Cookbooks

Kid-friendly Japanese meals you can make together and get everyone to enjoy eating healthier!

Japanese Cooking with Kids is the perfect way for you and your kids to learn about Japanese cooking while having fun in the kitchen — and to get them excited about eating healthy meals. Some of these dishes may even become their new favorites!

These 50 kid-tested recipes for ages 8 to 14 get "two thumbs up" and empty plates every time. They include:

• Ever-popular Rice Dishes like Onigiri Rice Balls, Sushi Rice in Tofu Pockets and Chicken and Egg Rice Bowls
• Flavors from the Sea including Japanese Seaweed Sprinkles on Popcorn and Tuna Salad Sushi Rolls
• Classic Japanese Favorites like steamed Gyoza Potstickers and Miso Ramen Noodle Soup
• Cute Bento Lunch Boxes with Octopus-shaped Hot Dogs and delicious Japanese-style Fried Chicken
• Delicious Desserts and Drinks like Strawberry Soy Milk, Glazed Mochi Balls and Green Tea Matcha Tea Cakes
• And so much more!

Each chapter in this book contains a fun, hands-on activity like counting to ten in Japanese while washing your hands, growing your own green onions or making your own chopstick rests! In addition to preparing delicious Japanese recipes, kids will learn the basic principles of Japanese cuisine — eating foods that are in season, and only eating until you feel 80% full—to help you live a healthier life.

Japanese Cooking with Kids will give you and your family a whole new perspective on food and eating—the Japanese way!

Debra Samuels has written about food for over three decades. After owning and operating a successful catering firm in the 1980s called "Eats Meets West" she developed the popular "Kids Are Cooking" series on food, culture and nutrition for Boston's Children's Museum. Samuels worked for many years as a food writer and food stylist for The Boston Globe. She has written extensively about Italian, Indian, Korean and Japanese cuisines, with a particular focus on the latter. In 2020, she was awarded the John Thayer Award from the Japan Society in Boston, which recognizes outstanding contributions to understanding and friendship between the U.S. and Japan. Samuels leads the program content and curriculum development for TABLE FOR TWO USA. Currently, she travels around the country teaching hands on workshops on bento, the Japanese lunchbox. She is the author of Tuttle Publishing's My Japanese Table, and co-author of The Korean Table.

Mayumi Uejima-Carr became the president of TABLE FOR TWO USA following work with Accenture and Eli Lilly pharmaceutical company and earning an MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University. With TABLE FOR TWO USA, she has developed a program to provide healthier school meals for children in the U.S. She was a delegate to the US-Japan Leadership Program (2017-18).

Yumi Komatsudaira is a recipe developer, food stylist, culinary instructor and President of K-Seaweed—a leading ocean greens provider. She is the author of Japanese Superfoods.