This is the next big thing to add to your breakfast rotation menu.

Our Japanese-language reporter Go Hatori has been experimenting with different ways of using oatmeal. He successfully made a tasty rendition of fried rice using instant oatmeal in place of rice, which got him thinking, “What if I made a rice bowl with oatmeal instead of rice, too?”

Thus inspired the recipe of “curry oatmeal”, a spinoff of traditional Japanese curry-don, or curry served over rice. It’s pretty simple to make, and you might have many of these ingredients already on hand! Here’s what Go used to make one serving.

● Oats (30 grams/1.1 ounces, approximately 5 tablespoons)
● Thinly sliced pork (90 grams/3.2 ounces, cut into bite-sized pieces)
● Leeks (2 pieces about 3 inches long)
● Green onions for garnishing
● 1 egg
● Concentrated mentsuyu soup base
● Curry powder (1 teaspoon)
● Cayenne pepper (as you like)

You can also add in whatever curry toppings you’d like, but you should at least use these basics to get the same results as Go.

Step 1

Create a broth to cook the oats in by making 200 milliliters (about 0.8 cups) of mentsuyu soup. To do this, mix the mentsuyu concentrate with water in a two-to-eight or one-to-nine ratio depending on how strong of a soup taste you want.

Step 2

Cut your leeks lengthwise. An easy way to do this is to cut each one in half, then cut those halves into halves, then cut those halves into halves, and so on. You can mix up the sizes for an interesting texture, too.

Step 3

Add your mentsuyu soup, leeks, and pork to a pot and start to bring it to a boil.

Step 4

Once the heat cooks the pork a bit, add your oatmeal in an unceremonious plop.

Step 5

Stir occasionally, then add in your teaspoon of curry powder.

Step 6

This is the point where you can sprinkle in some cayenne pepper if you like your curry spicy. Go went for a full four shakes because he is the baddest oatmeal maker we know.

Step 7

Let the mixture boil for three minutes to reduce the water content a bit.

Step 8

Once it’s thickened to your liking, remove from heat and serve it up. If you cook it a certain way, you can even get a delicious, slightly charred texture!

Step 9

Garnish it with green onions and an egg (raw or cooked, your choice), and then it’s time to eat!

When Go tried his creation, he thought it looked just like curry-don, but it tasted a bit soupy texture-wise, in a good way. He liked that the oats added some thickness without having to use a thickener like potato starch.

If this is something you want to add to your breakfast or lunch menu on the regular, Go recommends freezing your ingredients! He actually used frozen pork and leeks for this recipe, both of which hold up pretty well in the freezer. The only purely fresh ingredient he used was the green onions, and even those are optional.

So next time you’re tired of the same old sweet oatmeal or you just want to mix up your breakfast menu, try this out! It might even be better than Himeji almond toast.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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