Best Mitarashi Dango Recipe Step By Step Guide

Back in my kitchen, I tested about a dozen iterations, including different blends of rice flour, different grilling methods, and different ratios of sauce ingredients. After all my experimentation, this is my favorite way of preparing Mitarashi Dango at home.

Why This Recipe Works?

Making this dango recipe with 100% shiratamako (glutinous short-grain rice flour) gives them the best soft yet springy texture (see the ingredient list for a more detailed explanation). Grilling the Mitarashi Dango on a ripping hot cast iron skillet lends a nice toasty flavor to the dumplings while making this easy to make at home. Using a blend of invert sugar and brown sugar to sweeten the Mitarashi Dango Sauce provides an earthy flavor while giving it a lip-gloss shine.

Ingredients for Mitarashi Dango

Glutinous rice flour - There are two major categories of Japanese rice. Short-grain rice (粳米 - uruchimai) and short-grain glutinous rice (もち米 – mochi gomé). Rice flour milled from short-grain rice is called joushinko flour(上新粉), and rice flour milled from glutinous short-grain rice falls into two categories shiratamako flour (白玉粉) and mochiko flour (餅粉). Shiratamko is dry-milled, while mochiko is wet-milled. For this Mitarashi Dango recipe, you want to use shiratamako. Due to the high price of glutinous rice in the past, some recipes call for a blend of joushinko and shiratamako (sometimes called dangoko); however, there is no longer a huge price difference, and I prefer the chewy texture of dango prepared with 100% shiratamako. You should be able to find it in Japanese supermarkets or online. Salt - I like to season my dango with a bit of salt to help bring out the umami of the rice and meld the taste of the dango with the sweet and savory sauce. Mirin - Real mirin is brewed from whole grain glutinous rice, which lends a ton of amino acids that add umami to the sauce. Unfortunately, most mirin is fake and made with alcohol, corn syrup, and flavor enhancers. If you can’t find real mirin, I recommend substituting a 50:50 mixture of sake and sugar. Invert sugar - I like adding an invert sugar such as rice syrup (maltose), corn syrup, or honey because it adds extra shine to the sauce. Unrefined sugar - This not only adds sweetness to the sauce, but it also adds an earthy caramel flavor. Any finely ground brown sugar such as kokutou, Demerara, or Muscovado will work. Soy sauce - I like using a high-quality soy sauce like this one, but any dark Japanese-style soy sauce such as Kikkoman will work. Starch - The starch thickens the sauce. I recommend using either kudzu starch or potato starch. These both form a more translucent gel than cornstarch, and they don’t get gummy as they chill.

How to Make Mitarashi Dango

Set a large pot of water on the stove and turn the heat on to bring it to a boil. Soak some bamboo skewers in water to hydrate them. This will keep them from scorching while making the dumplings easier to skewer. Add the shiratamako and salt to a large bowl and whisk them together. Next, pour the water over the flour and whisk it to evenly hydrate the flour. I usually do this with chopsticks because the small surface area of the sticks prevents the dough from sticking to them. Once you have evenly hydrated crumbles in your bowl, use your hand to knead the dango dough into a smooth, even mass. In Japan they say the texture should be like your earlobe. You may need to make minor adjustments in the amount of water or rice flour due to differences in the moisture content of the rice flour and the temperature and humidity of the room you are making the dango in. If the dough is too sticky, add a bit more shiratamako. If the dough is too crumbly and doesn’t form a solid mass after a few minutes of kneading, add a teaspoon of water and knead it in. Repeat if necessary. To portion and shape the dango, I recommend using a scale. Each ball should be about 9.5 grams or ⅓ of an ounce. The other option is to roll the dough into a rope and divide it into 16 pieces. Then you can roll the dough into spheres between the palms of your hands. Once the water is boiling, carefully roll the dango balls into the water and cook undisturbed for a minute. Once the outer surface of the dumplings has set, stir them to ensure they’re not sticking to the pot. Let these cook until they rise to the surface (a total of 3-4 minutes). When the dumplings are all floating, set a timer for 2 minutes. Once the timer is up, use a slotted spoon to transfer the dango into a bowl of cold water (don’t use ice water) to chill them and drain the dango. Pierce the center of each dumping with a skewer and thread 4 dumplings onto each stick.

How to Grill Mitarashi Dango

After the dango have been boiled and skewered, the next step is to brown them, and there are a couple ways to do this.

Traditional Way

The traditional way of browning Mitarashi Dango is to grill them over a shichirin (七輪). This is a Japanese-style ceramic grill heated using binchoutan (備長炭), special hardwood charcoal that emits very little smoke. The skewers of dango are placed on a mesh metal grill until they’re lightly charred on one side and then flipped to grill the other side.

Modern Ways

Here are 3 modern ways I’ve tried to achieve browning on the dango, and I’ve listed them in my order of preference.

How to Glaze Mitarashi Dango

Once the dango skewers have been grilled, the final step is to glaze them to give them their tawny mirror finish. The sauce tends to thicken more once cooled, but you also don’t want to have the sauce reduce too much and get gloppy, so the trick is to have the sauce components mixed in the pan and to start boiling the sauce to thicken it once you’ve begun grilling the dango balls. This will ensure they finish up at about the same time, so you can spoon the glistening glaze over your hot Mitarashi