A very popular Japanese street food called Takoyaki! It is also known as “octopus balls”. It is a light and savory snack to eat on the go. Super quick and easy recipe on how to make takoyaki at home.
What Is Takoyaki?
Takoyaki is a super popular street food in Japan and at Japanese festivals. Takoyaki means grilled octopus in Japanese but many people also call it as “octopus balls”. The main ingredients in Takoyaki is the octopus. Besides the octopus, Takoyaki is also made of batter mixed with tempura bits, green onion, pickled ginger and topped with sauce. It is a light snack that you can eat on the go!
What Is Takoyaki Sauce?
Takoyaki sauce is a mildly sweet and savoury brown sauce that is drizzled on top of takoyaki. It is mainly made of Worcestershire sauce and adds a nice umami kick to it. If you had okonomiyaki sauce before, takoyaki sauce tastes similar to it.
How To Make Takoyaki Without A Pan
It is very difficult to make proper takoyaki without a takoyaki pan because the batter is liquid and you need a pan or mold to create the ball shape. However some have tried making the batter thicker so that it can form a ball shape to deep fry since deep frying it would help maintain its form.
How To Make Takoyaki Golden Brown
When you are making takoyaki, you may wonder why your takoyaki does not have the golden brown colour to it. Allowing your takoyaki cook longer definitely helps however a better way for the colour to show is to brush takoyaki sauce on the takoyaki while you are cooking it. It will make your takoyaki more golden brown and adds extra flavour to it.
How To Make Perfectly Rounded Takoyaki
The key step in making your takoyaki perfectly round is to flip them continuously and add extra batter if it is needed to fill in some empty space. Once you pour the batter, let it cook until the outer layer solidifies and then rotate it so that it is vertical and add a bit more batter. You should then keep flipping the takoyaki and it will slowly form a round shape.
Do not worry if you are struggling to make them round because plating them will cause the bottom to flatten out eventually. You can cheat by hiding the less rounded side face down towards the plate and it will still look perfect!
Pro tips – In this takoyaki recipe, we recommend not adding too much batter or else your takoyaki will be full of batter and less of all the other fillings. Have a good balanced ratio between batter and the other fillings such as octopus, tempura bits, pickled ginger, and green onion.
Takoyaki Alternatives (Octopus Substitutes)
If you do not want to use octopus in your takoyaki, you can also use these as alternatives:
- Shrimp
- Squid
- Bacon
Takoyaki Ingredients
Batter
- All purpose flour
- Baking powder
- Soy sauce
- Egg
- Dashi stock or water
Takoyaki Ingredients
- Boiled octopus (tako) tentacle
- Green onions
- Fried tempura bits (tenkasu)
- Pickled ginger (beni shoga)
- Dashi powder
- Oil
Toppings
- Takoyaki sauce
- Japanese Mayo
- Dried seaweed flakes (aonori)
- Bonito flakes (katsuoboshi)
Check out our takoyaki recipe below for full details!
Where To Buy Takoyaki Ingredients
The best place to find all the ingredients you need is at any of your local Japanese stores. If you are in Vancouver, BC, we love going to Fujiya to shop for all our ingredients for Japanese food.
Other Japanese Recipes That You May Like:
Takoyaki Recipe
Ingredients
Batter
- 60 grams All purpose flour
- 1 tsp Baking powder
- 1/2 tsp Soy sauce
- 1 Egg
- 170 ml Dashi stock (or water) Dashi stock would make the batter more flavorful but water works too.
Takoyaki Ingredients
- 1 boiled octopus (tako) tentacle
- 2 Green onions
- 10-15 grams Fried tempura bits (tenkasu)
- 1-2 Tbsp Pickled ginger (beni shoga)
- 1-2 Tbsp Dashi powder
- 1-2 Tbsp Oil
Toppings
- Takoyaki sauce
- Japanese Mayo
- Dried seaweed flakes (aonori)
- Bonito flakes (katsuoboshi)
Instructions
Batter
- Add flour, egg, soy sauce, baking powder, and dashi stock (or water) into a large bowl and mix well with a whisk until the batter does not have clumps of flour. Adding dashi stock would make the batter more flavorful but water can substitute.
- Optional – Pour batter mix through a sieve to separate the flour clumps from the batter. Throw away flour clumps.
Prep Work
- Cut the octopus into about 1 cm cube size.
- Dice the green onions and picked ginger.
Cooking
- Turn on takoyaki maker and set it to medium heat. Brush oil on the takoyaki maker pan.
- Use a ladle and pour in the batter until it almost fills up to the top of the hole.
- Add 2-4 octopus pieces to each hole.
- Sprinkle green onion, pickled ginger, fried tempura bits, and dashi powder evenly on each hole.
- Use wooden skewer sticks to flip the takoyaki. Continue to flip them over and over until it becomes round. Add extra batter if needed.
- Brush oil and takoyaki sauce on the takoyaki and continue to flip them until golden brown.
Toppings
- Plate the takoyaki and garnish with takoyaki sauce, mayo. Sprinkle some dried seaweed and bonito flakes for the finish.
