Japanese Kitchen Tools I Actually Use Every Day (9 Essentials)
When people ask me what equipment they need to cook Japanese food at home, my honest answer is: less than you think. Most Japanese home cooking is done with a regular frying pan, a saucepan, and a sharp knife. But there’s a small handful of specialty tools that, once you have them, transform how easy and how well Japanese cooking goes. They’re not nice-to-haves — they’re the difference between “this is fiddly” and “this is part of my weekly routine.”
This is the list of the 9 Japanese kitchen tools I actually reach for every week in my own Kyushu kitchen. Some are uniquely Japanese (tamagoyaki pan, nanbu tekki rice pot, zaru strainers). Some are modern conveniences that have quietly taken over the Japanese home kitchen (electric pressure cooker, air fryer, sous vide circulator). Every one of these earns its place — I use all of them in the recipes on this blog.
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1. Electric Pressure Cooker (電気圧力鍋)
The single piece of equipment that has changed Japanese home cooking the most in the last decade. An electric pressure cooker turns dishes that traditionally take 30–60 minutes of attentive simmering into 5–10 minute “dump everything in and walk away” operations. Nikujaga, kakuni, Japanese curry, simmered daikon, oden — all of them become easy weeknight options.
I use an Iris Ohyama PC-MA4, which is one of the most popular models in Japan. It has built-in presets for Japanese standards — white rice, curry, simmered dishes (nitsuke), kakuni, oden, nikujaga — so you literally press a button labeled “肉じゃが” and walk away. Any Instant Pot-style cooker will do the job; look for one with at least 4L capacity if you cook for a family of 2–4.
Recipes that use it: Japanese curry rice, nikujaga.
2. Air Fryer (ノンフライヤー)
The newest tool in my kitchen, and the one I’ve used most this year. Japanese home cooking has a lot of frying in it — karaage, wings, korokke — and an air fryer handles a surprising amount of it with a few sprays of oil instead of a pot of oil to heat, strain, and throw away. In Japan they’re usually sold as non-fryers (ノンフライヤー), and they’ve become a common sight on Japanese kitchen counters.
Mine is a COSORI TurboBlaze with a 6-liter basket — wide enough to cook a whole batch of karaage or eight chicken wings in a single layer, which is what really matters for getting things crisp. It won’t replace deep-frying for everything (wet batters like tempura just drip through the basket), but for anything coated in potato starch or panko, or for reheating fried food so it’s crisp again, it’s become my default.
Recipes that use it: air fryer karaage, salt and pepper chicken wings, yaki onigiri, sweet potato chips.
3. Sous Vide Immersion Circulator (低温調理器)
Not traditionally Japanese, but Japanese cooks have embraced sous vide as a way to make restaurant-quality tonkatsu, chashu pork, and roast beef at home. The technique is simple: seal the food in a bag, cook it in a precisely temperature-controlled water bath for an hour or more, then finish with a quick sear or fry.
The transformation in tonkatsu is real — the pork stays juicy and barely-pink at the center because it was cooked to exactly 63°C before frying. The panko crust then needs only 3 minutes in the oil to brown, instead of risking overcooking the meat. Once you try it, you won’t go back.
Recipes that use it: sous vide tonkatsu.
4. Tamagoyaki Pan (卵焼き器)
A small, rectangular, low-walled pan designed specifically for making tamagoyaki — the Japanese rolled omelette. The rectangular shape is what gives the omelette its distinctive log shape, and the small size makes it easy to control the rolling motion.
You can make tamagoyaki in a round pan, but it’s awkward and the result never looks right. A tamagoyaki pan is cheap and lives on a peg in my kitchen for daily use — it also doubles as a small pan for cooking single fried eggs, slices of fish, or small portions of anything else.
Recipes that use it: dashi tamagoyaki, spam onigiri.
5. Nanbu Tekki Rice Pot (南部鉄器ご飯鍋)
This is the one piece of equipment in my kitchen that visitors always ask about. Nanbu tekki is a traditional cast iron from Iwate Prefecture in northern Japan, made the same way for nearly 400 years. The rice pot version is exactly what it sounds like — a thick-walled cast iron pot designed specifically for cooking rice on a stovetop or open flame.
Most Japanese home cooks use a rice cooker (more on that below) for daily rice — it’s faster and easier. But on weekends and for special meals I cook rice in nanbu tekki, because the result is genuinely different. The thick iron walls give incredibly even heat, the heavy lid traps steam under high pressure, and the iron releases trace minerals into the water that subtly enrich the flavor. The rice comes out with that distinct slightly-glossy, almost-chewy quality you get at proper Japanese restaurants.
Some people use a donabe (Japanese clay pot) for this purpose. I prefer nanbu tekki because it’s nearly indestructible — clay pots can crack from thermal shock; cast iron just keeps going for generations. It also works as a small Dutch oven for stews and simmered dishes.
6. Japanese Mandoline & Grater (スライサー・おろし金)
The Japanese love thin, even slices and matchsticks of vegetables — cabbage shredded into hair-fine threads for tonkatsu, daikon shredded for sashimi garnish, julienned carrot for kinpira. A Japanese-style mandoline slicer makes this trivially easy and is dramatically safer and faster than a knife for these jobs. For cabbage specifically, a dedicated cabbage peeler like the Cabepi Max shaves it into the hair-fine, fluffy threads served at tonkatsu restaurants.
The other essential is a Japanese grater. I use a “oni-oroshi”-style coarse grater (the textured one in the photo) for grating ginger, garlic, and especially daikon — the daikon comes out with a fluffy, slightly chunky texture that’s perfect for grating over agedashi tofu or hamburg. A fine ceramic grater (oroshigane) is what most Japanese cooks have for ginger and wasabi.
Recipes that use them: kinpira gobo, sweet-and-sour pork stir-fry, and any tonkatsu plating with shredded cabbage.
7. Strainers and Zaru (ザル)
A flat-bottomed strainer used constantly in Japanese cooking — for rinsing rice, draining noodles, draining tofu, holding blanched vegetables, draining minced onion. I have a small collection in different sizes, plus a traditional woven bamboo zaru for serving cold soba.
The flat-bottomed stainless steel zaru is what I reach for every day. The wide mouth and flat shape let liquid drain quickly and let you spread out ingredients to dry — much more useful than a deep Western colander for Japanese cooking tasks. The small mesh skimmer is great for skimming foam off simmered dishes and lifting tempura out of oil.
8. Rice Cooker (炊飯器)
If you eat Japanese rice more than once a week, you want a Japanese-style rice cooker. Yes, you can cook rice in a pot on the stove (or in your nanbu tekki, see above). No, the result will not be as consistent as a proper rice cooker, no matter what you do. Japanese rice cookers produce perfect rice with no attention required — set it before dinner, walk away, come back to perfect rice ready to serve.
Mine is an IH induction model from Iris Ohyama. The “fuzzy logic” / “IH” models genuinely cook better rice than basic ones (more even heat, better moisture control), but even an entry-level rice cooker is enough to get you good results. A basic 3-cup model suits a couple; 5–10 cup for a family.
Used in: every rice-based recipe on this blog — gyudon, oyakodon, Japanese curry, spam onigiri.
9. Japanese Santoku Knives and a Sharpener (三徳包丁・包丁研ぎ)
The santoku (“three virtues” — meat, fish, vegetables) is the most popular all-purpose kitchen knife in Japan. Shorter and thinner than a Western chef’s knife, with a flatter edge profile, it’s particularly good for the push-cut and slicing motions that dominate Japanese vegetable prep.
I keep three in rotation: a larger one with a wooden handle for vegetable prep, a mid-size all-stainless one for general use, and a smaller one for delicate work. You absolutely don’t need three — one good santoku will handle 95% of your Japanese cooking.
Quality Japanese knives are made from harder steel than Western knives, which means they hold a much sharper edge for longer — but they need careful sharpening (a whetstone or pull-through sharpener, not a steel) and they don’t tolerate hard food like bones. A mid-range santoku from a brand like Tojiro, Mac, or Misono will outperform much more expensive Western knives.
Keeping Them Sharp
If you buy good Japanese knives, you need to sharpen them — it’s not optional. A dull Japanese knife isn’t just frustrating; it’s actually more dangerous than a sharp one because it slips off ingredients instead of cutting cleanly. The good news is that a basic pull-through water sharpener takes 30 seconds and keeps your knives in great shape between proper whetstone sessions.
I use a Verdun water double sharpener — a Japanese-made pull-through with two stages (coarse + fine) designed for double-bevel knives (which most Western santokus are). It sits next to my cutting board and I run my knives through it before any serious prep. Whetstones give a better edge if you have the patience to learn them, but a pull-through is hard to beat for everyday maintenance.
Honorable Mentions
A few more things worth having on your shelf as you get deeper into Japanese cooking:
- Kitchen scissors — used far more in a Japanese kitchen than in a Western one. They come out for spring onions, for trimming edamame pods, for cutting up seafood, for opening packets, and for anything fiddly where a knife would be slower. Mine sit in the drawer next to the knives and get reached for almost as often.
- Saibashi (long cooking chopsticks, 菜箸) — long wooden chopsticks for turning frying foods, flipping fish, lifting noodles, mixing eggs. Cheap and surprisingly versatile.
- Fine ceramic grater (oroshigane) — for ginger, wasabi, garlic. A coarse Western box grater is too rough.
- Suribachi (Japanese mortar) — for grinding sesame seeds for goma-ae and other dishes.
- Bamboo sushi rolling mat (makisu) — only if you make sushi rolls regularly.
What You Don’t Need
A quick note on tools that get a lot of attention but aren’t actually necessary for Japanese home cooking:
- Tempura pot / oil thermometer — a regular deep saucepan and an instant-read thermometer (or just dropping a bit of batter to test) work fine.
- Dedicated wok — Japanese cooking uses flat-bottomed frying pans, not woks. A regular nonstick pan is all you need.
- Multiple specialty knives — Japanese professionals use a deba (fish knife) and yanagiba (sashimi slicer), but for home cooking a single santoku is enough.
A Starter Setup
If you’re building a Japanese kitchen from scratch, the order I’d buy these is:
- Rice cooker — the highest daily impact.
- One good santoku knife + a pull-through sharpener — every recipe benefits.
- Tamagoyaki pan and saibashi — cheap, dramatic difference for daily Japanese breakfast/bento.
- A stainless zaru — cheap, and makes rinsing rice, draining, and prep dramatically easier.
- Electric pressure cooker or air fryer — the big weeknight time-savers.
- Japanese mandoline and grater — once you cook more, you’ll want them.
- Nanbu tekki rice pot and sous vide circulator — for once you’re in deep.
Pair this with the seasonings from my 10 essential Japanese pantry staples, and you have a working Japanese kitchen — ready to make almost every recipe on this blog.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Japanese kitchen tools should I buy first?
A santoku knife and a fine grater (oroshigane) will change your everyday cooking more than anything else on this list. After that, a good strainer. The big appliances are conveniences, not requirements.
Do I need a special tamagoyaki pan?
No, but it makes rolled omelettes much easier and neater. A small round non-stick pan produces the same tamagoyaki with untidy ends, which you can trim. If you make tamagoyaki weekly for bento, the pan pays for itself in frustration saved.
Is a Japanese rice cooker worth it?
If you eat rice several times a week, yes. Japanese rice cookers manage soaking, heating, and steaming automatically and keep rice properly for hours. That said, rice cooked in a heavy pot with a tight lid is every bit as good — it just needs your attention for 20 minutes.
Do I need an otoshibuta (drop lid)?
No. An otoshibuta is a small lid that sits directly on the food in the pot, so a little simmering liquid bubbles up and covers everything. It does make simmered dishes better, but you don’t need to buy one: I don’t own one myself. I just lay a piece of aluminum foil or a sheet of paper towel directly on the food, and it does the same job.
Where can I buy Japanese kitchen tools?
Japanese and wider Asian grocery stores usually have a small housewares section with graters and strainers at low prices. For knives and appliances, buying online is generally easier outside Japan. I’ve linked the items I use throughout the article, or the closest US equivalent where mine isn’t sold there.