フランス在住の夕食ルーティン

What does おかず mean in Japanese cooking?

In the clip, a Japanese woman living in France contrasts her adopted country’s dinners — usually one simple dish — with the Japanese table, where “何品もおかずが並ぶ” (several okazu line up). Okazu isn’t a minor extra; it’s the fish, meat, or vegetable dish cooked specifically to be eaten with rice, which itself stays plain — a meal built the opposite way around from a Western “protein plus two sides” plate.

Traditional Japanese home cooking is often organized around 一汁三菜 (ichijū-sansai) — “one soup, three okazu” — served alongside a bowl of plain rice. Because rice carries no seasoning, okazu is deliberately salty, sweet, or umami-rich to make each bite of rice satisfying; that’s different from furikake, a topping sprinkled directly onto the rice. The clip’s own weekly lineup (nabe, tomato pasta, mabo tofu) shows how loosely the modern “one dish, whatever’s easy” okazu concept can flex.