Kakiage Vegetable Tempura Recipe Crispy Vegan Japanese Fritter

Why This Recipe Works?

Instead of making the batter separately and mixing it together, I toss the vegetables in flour and then add the liquid. This one-step process prevents overmixing. Using cold club soda aerates the batter while limiting the development of gluten. This gives the Kakiage a light crispy texture. Shaping the fritters on a spatula prevents the batter from pooling and creates a delicate lattice of lightly coated vegetables.

Ingredients for Kakiage Tempura

Vegetables - I like to use onions, plus a colorful mix of seasonal vegetables to make my Kakiage. The onions provide a wonderful natural sweetness when fried, and the other vegetables give it a fun mix of textures, tastes, and colors. Since it’s summer right now, I used carrots and green beans, but I also like to use veggies like burdock, sweet potatoes, or kabocha in the fall. Mushrooms - Since this Vegetable Kakiage doesn’t include any seafood, I usually like to add some flavorful mushrooms to boost umami. I used maitake mushrooms for this recipe, but other umami-packed mushrooms such as enoki, shiitake, or porcini work well. Cake flour - Gluten forms when glutenin molecules link together with gliadin in the presence of water to form a viscoelastic matrix. Put another way, when you add water to flour and agitate it, it makes it stretchy and chewy. This is good for bread and noodles, but these aren’t characteristics you want for tempura. That’s why you want to use a low-protein flour like cake flour as it’s going to have less glutenin and gliadin. All-purpose flour will work in a pinch, but you really need to be careful not to over mix it, or it will get tough. Club Soda - I recommend using cold carbonated water to make tempura batter because of the aeration it provides. If you don’t have any, regular water will work as well, but be sure the water is ice cold, as low temperatures inhibit the development of gluten in the flour.

How to Make Vegetable Kakiage Tempura

Once the batter is mixed, you need to fry it immediately, so start by adding one and a half to two inches of vegetable oil to a heavy-bottomed pot. Make sure the pot is deep enough so the oil doesn’t go over halfway up the sides. Preheat the oil to 355 degrees F, or 180 C. Line a wire rack with a few sheets of paper towel to drain the fried tempura. Add all of the vegetables to a bowl and then mix in the cake flour to coat the vegetables while breaking up any clumps of onion. When the oil is up to temperature, measure the club soda and pour it over the vegetables and flour. Stir everything together to make a batter, but do not overmix it. It’s okay if there are some lumps of flour left. Shape the tempura-batter coated vegetables into a patty on a wide spatula. I usually find it helpful to scoop some of the mixture onto the spatula and then use chopsticks to stack some vegetables on top. Lower the kakiage into the hot oil using the spatula and then use chopsticks or a second spatula to scrape the vegetables off of the first spatula. Make additional fritters until you run out of room in the pot. Fry the vegetable tempura until it’s crisp enough on one side to flip it over. Continue frying it until the other side is crispy. This took about 5 minutes in total for me. When the kakiage is done, let it drain well as you pull it out of the oil with tongs, and then place each fritter on the paper towel-lined rack to continue draining. To serve the kakiage, line a plate with a folded sheet of paper or a paper towel. Place the fritters on top of the paper. I like serving vegetable kakiage with umami salt and lemon wedges, but you can also serve it with tentsuyu.