Yakibitashi — Summer Vegetables in a Dashi Bath

Name: Yakibitashi — Summer Vegetables in a Dashi Bath
Yield: Serves 4 as a side
Cuisine: Japanese
Ingredients: A mix of grilling vegetables, cut into bite-sized pieces — we like 1 eggplant, 1 zucchini, ¼ kabocha squash, a handful of green beans, a handful of cherry tomatoes, and a half-pack of maitake mushrooms, but use whatever's good this week; Salt and pepper; Olive oil, enough to coat the pan generously (about ½ inch / 1 cm deep); Broth: 300 ml water · 4 Tbsp soy sauce · 4 Tbsp mirin · 2 Tbsp rice vinegar · 2 Tbsp concentrated (10x) shiro-dashi, or 1 dashi pack; A few shiso leaves, torn, if you have them

July 17, 2026

Hot dashi broth being poured over seared summer vegetables

There's a whole category of Japanese cooking built on a simple trick: cook something hot, then let it sit in something cold. Yakibitashi is that trick applied to summer's best vegetables — eggplant, zucchini, kabocha, whatever's ripe — seared hard in a pan, then bathed in a warm, savory dashi broth while everything cools. By the time it reaches the table, each piece has quietly soaked up more flavor than any dressing could give it in a hurry.

It's better the day after you make it, which makes it one of the few dishes that rewards you for planning ahead.

Serves 4 as a side · about 25 minutes + time to cool

Ingredients

A mix of grilling vegetables, cut into bite-sized pieces — we like 1 eggplant, 1 zucchini, ¼ kabocha squash, a handful of green beans, a handful of cherry tomatoes, and a half-pack of maitake mushrooms, but use whatever's good this week
Salt and pepper
Olive oil, enough to coat the pan generously (about ½ inch / 1 cm deep)
Broth: 300 ml water · 4 Tbsp soy sauce · 4 Tbsp mirin · 2 Tbsp rice vinegar · 2 Tbsp concentrated (10x) shiro-dashi, or 1 dashi pack
A few shiso leaves, torn, if you have them

Summer vegetables cut and ready: eggplant, zucchini, kabocha, green beans, cherry tomatoes, maitake, and shiso

How to make it

Cut the vegetables into pieces you'd want to eat in one or two bites. Pierce each cherry tomato once with a toothpick or skewer, so the skin doesn't burst in the pan.
Warm the olive oil in a wide pan over medium heat. Starting with whatever takes longest to cook through — kabocha, green beans, eggplant — sear each vegetable until it picks up good color, then move on to the next.

Zucchini, eggplant, and green beans searing in a wide pan

While the vegetables cook, bring the broth ingredients to a quick boil in a small pot.
Arrange the seared vegetables in a shallow dish while everything is still warm, and pour the hot broth over them right away, so the heat helps carry the flavor in.
Let it cool at room temperature if you're eating soon, or chill it in the fridge — a few hours is good, overnight is better. Scatter the shiso over just before serving.

Tip

Don't crowd the pan. Vegetables seared with a little space between them pick up real color instead of steaming, and that color is where a lot of the flavor in this dish comes from. Make a double batch — it keeps well in the fridge for several days, and the flavor only gets rounder. In our house this is the side dish that lives in the fridge all week: a little extra of everyone's favorite vegetables, and the table looks brighter every night it appears.

Part of our Weekend Table menu — a small, easy way to feed friends.