The most important ingredient and main staple of all Japanese food is rice. It’s such an important part of Japanese meals that the Japanese word for rice, gohan, is also used as the same word to refer to any meal in general. Most Japanese eat rice daily, and if it’s not an ingredient already included in the main dish, then it is usually served with the meal as a side dish. The following list includes some of the most common rice dishes found in Japan:

Onigiri

Onigiri are balls of rice, which are often wrapped in nori, or seaweed, and contain a salty or sour filling in the center. Popular fillings include umeboshi, or pickled plums, salted salmon, tuna, and even miso. Onigiri is a popular snack that is available at most convenience stores in Japan.

Sushi

Unlike the rice used to make Onigiri, which is only slightly salted, the rice used to make sushi is actually mixed with vinegar. There are many different types of sushi, but the vinegared rice is common to them all. In nigirizushi, ingredients, such as raw fish or seafood, are placed across the top of a block of vinegared rice. In makizushi, or roll sushi, the rice and other ingredients, often fish, are placed on a sheet of seaweed, rolled into a cylindrical shape, and then sliced into smaller pieces. Temaki, Chirashi, Gunkan, Inari, and Oshizushi are all other types of sushi that are popular in Japan.

Donburi

Donburi is basically nothing more than a single, large bowl of cooked rice with some other food and sauce added on top of it. The different types of donburi available are defined by the type of topping included with the meal.

Popular donburi dishes include:

Tamagodon (egg and sauce over rice)
Katsudon (fried pork, onion, and egg over rice)
Oyakodon (simmered chicken, egg, and onion on rice)
Tendon (tempura shrimp and vegetables on rice)
Gyudon (beef and onion on rice)
Unadon (grilled eel over rice)

Kare Raisu

Kare Raisu, or Curry Rice, consists of cooked rice topped with a curry sauce. Though the dish is not native to Japan, it was introduced to the country over a century ago and has grown to be one of its most popular dishes. It is not as spicy as its Indian counterpart.

Chahan

Chahan is basically stir-fried rice, originally introduced from China. It tends to be lighter in flavor and style than the Chinese version, though it contains many of the same ingredients, such as peas, egg, carrots, and pork.

Kayu

Kayu is a type of rice congee, or porridge, which often consists of nothing more than water and rice, though sometimes egg is added to thicken the mixture. The gruel is very watery, with an average water to rice ratio of about five to one, making it a perfect meal for infants or sick people, since it can be easily digested.

Ochazuke

Ochazuke consists of hot green tea or dashi poured over cooked white rice and often includes other ingredients, such as umeboshi or tsukemono. A previous meal’s leftover rice is often used to make a dish of Ochazuke.