Japanese Squid with Butter and Soy Sauce (Ika Bata Shoyu)
Squid rings cooked in butter with a splash of soy sauce and mirin, with maitake mushrooms and spring onion. It takes about fifteen minutes, and roughly two of those are the squid actually cooking — which is the entire difficulty of this dish. Squid is tender for about a minute, and then it’s rubber.
Butter and soy sauce together is a combination that surprises people outside Japan, but it’s completely standard here. It goes on corn, on scallops, on potatoes, on rice. On squid it works especially well because squid itself is mild — the butter gives it richness and the soy sauce browns in the pan into something savory and slightly toasted.
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Fifteen minutes, one pan. Most of that is cutting vegetables.
- Two seasonings. Soy sauce and mirin. The butter does the rest.
- Supermarket squid is fine. I used a tray of pre-cut rings and tentacles, which is how most people here buy it.
- It goes with beer and it goes with rice. Equally at home as an izakaya dish or a weeknight main.
What is Bata Shoyu (Butter Soy Sauce)?
Bata shoyu (バター醤油) is butter and soy sauce used together as a single flavor, and it’s one of those pairings that Japanese cooking arrived at and most Western cooking didn’t. Butter isn’t traditional in Japanese food at all — it came in with Western cooking in the Meiji era — but soy sauce turned out to go with it remarkably well.
What’s happening is that soy sauce hitting a hot buttery pan browns fast, and the amino acids in it react with the milk solids in the butter. You get a savory, slightly nutty, almost toasted flavor that neither ingredient has on its own. You’ll find the same combination on grilled corn at summer festivals, on scallops, on baked potatoes, and stirred through hot rice.
It’s also why this dish doesn’t need much else. There’s no garlic and no stock — just butter, soy sauce, and a spoon of mirin for a little sweetness and shine.
Ingredients (Serves 2)
| Ingredient | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Squid | 200 g / about 7 oz | Rings and tentacles, cleaned |
| Maitake mushrooms | 1/2 pack | Torn into bite-size pieces |
| Spring onion (naganegi) | 1 | Cut diagonally, 5 mm thick |
| Butter | 20 g | Used in two halves |
| Neutral oil | 1 tsp | |
| Sake | 1 tbsp | For the squid, drained off |
| Soy sauce | 2 tsp | |
| Mirin | 1 tsp | |
| Ichimi togarashi | To taste | To finish |
The seasoning is only two things, so both should be decent: a real brewed Japanese soy sauce and true hon-mirin rather than “mirin-style seasoning.” Both are on my list of Japanese pantry essentials.
About the Squid
I bought a small tray of squid already cut into rings with the tentacles included — an ordinary supermarket item here, and there’s no reason to clean a whole squid for a weeknight dish. Frozen squid rings work too; thaw them and pat them very dry first, because water in the pan will steam the squid instead of searing it.
Don’t use the pre-breaded calamari sold for deep frying — that’s a different product for a different dish.
About the Mushrooms
Maitake (舞茸) is sold as hen-of-the-woods in English. It has frilly, layered clusters that you tear apart with your fingers rather than cut, and it browns better than most mushrooms — the thin edges crisp slightly in the butter. Shimeji or sliced shiitake both work if you can’t find it.
How to Make Japanese Squid with Butter and Soy Sauce
Step 1: Rub the Squid with Sake, Then Drain
Put the squid in a bowl, add the sake, and turn it over so every piece is coated. Leave it a minute or two, then drain it thoroughly and pat it dry.
This is a standard Japanese step with seafood and it does two things: the alcohol takes the edge off any fishy smell as it evaporates, and it very slightly firms the surface. The draining matters as much as the sake. Wet squid steams and goes tough.
Step 2: Cut the Vegetables and Mix the Sauce
Cut the spring onion diagonally into pieces about 5 mm thick — the diagonal cut gives more surface area, so it softens and sweetens faster. Tear the maitake into bite-size clusters with your hands.
Mix the soy sauce and mirin in a small bowl now. It’s a tiny amount of liquid and it goes in during the last thirty seconds of cooking, so there is no time to measure it later.
Step 3: Fry the Spring Onion, Then Add Butter and Mushrooms
Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat and cook the spring onion until it starts to soften and pick up color at the edges. Then add half the butter (about 10 g) and the maitake, and stir-fry briefly — a minute or so, just until the mushrooms have taken on the butter and started to brown.
Step 4: Push the Mushrooms Aside and Cook the Squid
Move the mushrooms and onion to one side of the pan, add the rest of the butter to the empty side, and put the squid in there.
The reason for separating them is timing. The mushrooms want longer and the squid wants almost no time at all — if you mix everything together you end up either with raw mushrooms or with rubbery squid. Giving the squid its own patch of hot buttered pan means you can watch it.
Cook the squid until it just turns from translucent to opaque white. That’s it. On a hot pan it takes under a minute, and the rings will curl slightly as they go. The moment they’re white all over, move on.
Step 5: Sauce In, Heat Up, Done
Pour the soy sauce and mirin over everything, turn the heat to high, and toss it together for about thirty seconds to drive off the liquid. You’ll hear it change — the sizzle sharpens as the water goes and the soy sauce starts to brown in the butter, which is exactly the point.
Take it off the heat while the pan still looks glossy rather than dry. Plate it and sprinkle ichimi togarashi over the top — the red chili flakes in the photos. It’s optional, but a dish this rich benefits from a little heat.
Tips and Variations
- Undercook the squid rather than overcook it. If you’re unsure, take it off early — carryover heat in the pan finishes it. Rubbery squid can’t be fixed.
- Dry the squid properly. The single most common reason this comes out watery instead of browned.
- Butter in two stages. The first half flavors the mushrooms, the second half is fresh butter for the squid. Adding it all at once means it’s browned past its best by the time the squid goes in.
- Add garlic if you want it less Japanese and more izakaya-Western. A clove, sliced, with the spring onion.
- Scallops or shrimp work in exactly the same method, with the same warning about overcooking.
- A squeeze of lemon at the table cuts the butter nicely.
What to Serve It With
This is izakaya food that happens to work as dinner. It’s rich, so everything around it should be plain.
- Rice and miso soup. The butter-soy sauce left in the pan is very good over rice.
- A cold vegetable side to cut it — kiriboshi daikon or goma ae green beans.
- Beer, honestly. If you’re making a few small plates, it sits well next to salt and pepper chicken wings.
Storing and Reheating
Honestly, eat it the day you make it. Squid that has been cooked, cooled, and reheated goes noticeably tougher, and reheating is the one thing this dish can’t survive — there’s no way to warm it through without cooking the squid a second time.
If you do have leftovers, they keep a day in the fridge and are better eaten cold, straight from the container, than microwaved. Don’t freeze it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you keep squid from getting rubbery?
Cook it either very briefly or for a very long time — anything in between is tough. For a stir-fry like this, “very briefly” means under a minute on a hot pan: the moment the flesh turns from translucent to opaque white, it’s done. Squid also toughens if it goes into the pan wet, because it steams instead of searing.
What is bata shoyu?
Butter and soy sauce used together as a flavor combination, extremely common in Japanese home cooking. The soy sauce browns in the hot butter and turns savory and slightly nutty. You’ll find it on corn, scallops, potatoes, mushrooms, and stirred into plain rice.
Can I use frozen squid?
Yes. Thaw it completely in the fridge, then pat it very dry — frozen squid holds a lot of water and that water is what stops it browning. Otherwise treat it exactly the same. Frozen rings are a perfectly normal thing to cook with.
Why rub the squid with sake first?
It reduces any fishy smell as the alcohol evaporates, and slightly firms the surface. It’s a routine Japanese step with seafood. Drain it off properly afterward — the sake has done its job and you don’t want the extra liquid in the pan.
What can I use instead of maitake?
Shimeji, sliced shiitake, or even ordinary button mushrooms. Maitake browns particularly well because of its thin frilly edges, but any mushroom that holds its shape in a pan will do the job.
Is this the same as calamari?
Same animal, different dish. Calamari in English usually means squid rings battered and deep-fried. This is squid seared in a pan with butter and soy sauce — no coating at all, and the texture is soft rather than crisp.
Japanese Squid with Butter and Soy Sauce (Ika Bata Shoyu)
Ingredients
Method
- Put the squid in a bowl with the sake and turn it over to coat. Leave for a minute or two, then drain thoroughly and pat dry. Wet squid steams instead of searing and goes tough.
- Cut the spring onion diagonally into 5 mm pieces and tear the maitake into bite-size clusters. Mix the soy sauce and mirin together in a small bowl now – there is no time to measure once the pan is hot.
- Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat and cook the spring onion until it softens and colors at the edges. Add half the butter (about 10 g) and the maitake, and stir-fry about 1 minute until the mushrooms start to brown.
- Push the mushrooms and onion to one side of the pan. Add the remaining butter to the empty side and put the squid in there. The mushrooms need longer than the squid, which is why they are kept separate.
- Cook the squid until it just turns from translucent to opaque white – under a minute on a hot pan. The rings will curl slightly. Do not cook it further.
- Pour the soy sauce and mirin over everything, turn the heat to high, and toss for about 30 seconds to drive off the liquid and let the soy sauce brown in the butter. Take the pan off while it still looks glossy rather than dry.
- Plate and sprinkle ichimi togarashi over the top. Serve immediately.
