Katsudon is one of my favorite chicken and rice dishes. It is extremely similar to oyakodon, except you use a piece of chicken katsu instead of water cooking the chicken. Another really popular way to make this is with a pork cutlet instead of chicken.
Chicken Katsu for katsudon
There are 3 main components to making the perfect chicken katsu. The chicken, breading, and frying.
Chicken:
Personally, I decided to use chicken breast because I am able to flatten it and make it more even than other cuts. Chicken thighs won’t look as even but will stay juicier.
Another very popular protein to use is a pork cutlet. Pork loins can be smashed and flattened even more even than chicken breast.
Breading:
With the breading, there are three stations, a corn starch, egg wash, and panko bread crumbs.
Initially, you want to coat completely into he corn starch. This will make the surface of the chicken cutlet more dry and easier to absorb more egg wash. The more egg wash that sticks onto the chicken, the better the panko bread crumbs will stick onto the chicken.
Panko bread crumbs are more crunchy and absorb less oil than regular bread crumbs. These breadcrumbs are essential to getting the perfect katsu.
Frying
Frying the chicken is simple, but there are a few tips and tricks to make it is perfectly golden.
- Make sure your oil is hot enough before adding the cutlet into the oil. This will allow the breadcrumbs to stick onto the chicken better.
- After flipping, if you see spots on your cutlet that are lighter than others, baste the lighter parts with the oil and it will darken much more.
Dashi broth in katsudon
Dashi or chicken stock is important as a base of flavor for this dish. If you don’t have any type of stock then you can just use water but I would highly recommend using one of these two. Dashi specifically adds a very umami flavor to it, almost similar to miso soup. This works extremely well with the rice. How I make my dashi stock is by mixing dashi powder in boiling water. Dashi powder are concentrated granules of dashi which look like this:
Katsudon
Ingredients
Chicken Katsu
- 1 large chicken breast
- ½ cup corn starch
- 1 large egg (egg wash)
- 1 cup panko bread crumbs
Broth
- 1 small yellow onion
- ½ cup dashi or chicken stock
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp mirin
- ½ tbsp sugar
- 2 large eggs (beaten)
- 1 stalk green onion
Instructions
- Cut your chicken breast in half and flatten using the back of your knife.1 large chicken breast
- Season with salt then coat in corn starch, egg wash, and panko in that order. Make sure there are no wet spots.½ cup corn starch, 1 large egg, 1 cup panko bread crumbs
- Fry in a shallow layer of oil at 350F for 3 minutes each side or until golden brown. Season immediately after with salt.
- In a small pan add sliced onion, dashi/chicken stock, soy sauce, mirin, and sugar. Let it simmer for 2 minutes.1 small yellow onion, ½ cup dashi or chicken stock, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp mirin, ½ tbsp sugar
- Add 2 beaten eggs and cover with a lid for 1 minute.2 large eggs
- Slice chicken katsu into strips and place on top of the eggs along with green onions for 30 seconds to soak in the broth.1 stalk green onion
- Plate on top of rice and enjoy
If you enjoyed this one, check out some more amazing rice bowls here:
