What Did Kids Eat for Lunch in Japan? | Japanese School Lunch

I’m recreating a nostalgic Japanese school lunch from my childhood! 😊 I currently work in a Japanese school lunch kitchen, so I wanted to recreate some of the school lunch dishes I remember growing up with. Today’s menu: 🍝 Soft noodles with meat sauce 🥣 ABC soup 🥗 Japanese-style coleslaw In Japan, school lunch is served at school and is designed to provide children with a balanced meal. One of today’s dishes is something called “soft noodles” (soft-men). They were once a familiar part of Japanese school lunches, especially from around the 1960s through the 2000s. They’re different from regular pasta or udon, and they’re not commonly served in school lunches anymore. Since authentic soft noodles can be hard to find, I’m using microwaveable cooked udon as a substitute. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🍝 ① Soft Noodles with Meat Sauce Ingredients ・3 portions soft noodles or udon ・200 g ground pork ・1 onion ・1/2 carrot ・50 g mushrooms ・A little garlic ・200 g canned chopped tomatoes ・150 ml water ・3 tbsp ketchup ・1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce ・1 tsp chicken or vegetable bouillon powder ・1 tsp sugar ・Salt, to taste ・Black pepper, to taste ・1 tbsp all-purpose flour Instructions 1. Finely chop the onion, carrot, and mushrooms. 2. Sauté the ground pork, vegetables, and garlic. 3. Add the flour and cook for a little longer. 4. Add the canned tomatoes, water, and seasonings. 5. Simmer for 15 minutes. 6. Serve over soft noodles or udon. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🥣 ② ABC Soup Ingredients ・40 g ABC pasta ・40 g bacon ・1/2 onion ・1/3 carrot ・100 g cabbage ・600 ml water ・2 tsp chicken or vegetable bouillon powder ・Salt, to taste ・Black pepper, to taste Instructions 1. Cut the bacon and vegetables. 2. Sauté the bacon, onion, and carrot in a pot. 3. Add the water and bouillon powder, then simmer. 4. Add the cabbage, and ABC pasta. 5. Cook until the pasta is tender. 6. Season with salt and black pepper to taste. ABC-shaped pasta always brings back memories of school lunch. I used to look for my favorite letters in my soup. 😄 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🥗 ③ Japanese-Style Coleslaw Ingredients ・200 g cabbage ・30 g carrot ・50 g corn ・1 tbsp vinegar ・2 tsp sugar ・1 tbsp vegetable oil ・Salt and black pepper, to taste ・1 tbsp mayonnaise Instructions 1. Thinly slice the cabbage and carrot. 2. Place them in a microwave-safe container. 3. Microwave at 600W for about 4 minutes, until softened. You can also boil the vegetables instead of microwaving them. 4. Cool the vegetables in cold water. 5. Squeeze out as much water as possible. 6. Mix the dressing ingredients in a separate bowl. 7. Add the vegetables and corn, then mix well. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ What was your favorite school lunch growing up? It doesn’t have to be Japanese school lunch — I’d love to hear about your favorite childhood school lunch from anywhere in the world! 😊 If you try making any of these recipes, let me know in the comments! Thank you so much for watching, and I’ll see you in the next video! #JapaneseSchoolLunch #JapaneseFood #JapaneseRecipe #SchoolLunch #SoftNoodles #JapaneseFoodRecipe #ABC​Soup #SchoolLunchRecipe