Chef Takumi
Chikin Raisu (チキンライス, ketchup chicken rice)
This is the ketchup rice under omurice, but it stands on its own: chicken, onion, butter, and rice cooked until every grain is red-gold and separate.
Culinary Explorer
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Napolitan (ナポリタン, ketchup spaghetti)
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Napolitan is yōshoku honmono: soft spaghetti, ketchup cooked until glossy, onion and green pepper, ham, butter, and a kissaten plate that asks for Tabasco at the table.
Main Dishes
Japanese
Weeknight
Quick Meal
Comfort Food
10 min
Active Time
15 min cook•25 min total
Yield2 servings
Ketchup is the ingredient people mistrust here, so let's be plain about it. Napolitan is not pretending to be Italian pasta. It belongs to yōshoku, the Japanese way of taking Western dishes into the home kitchen and making them answer to Japanese appetite. That makes it honmono, not a joke with red sauce.
The one detail that decides it is cooking the ketchup. If you only squeeze it over hot noodles, it tastes sharp and raw, like a bottle left open on the counter. Let it hit the skillet with onion, pepper, and ham, and the acidity softens, the sweetness deepens, and the sauce turns glossy enough to cling. Butter goes in at the end because its milk fat rounds the tomato and gives the noodles that wet shine a kissaten plate should have.
Use ordinary spaghetti and don't chase firmness too hard. Napolitan wants noodles a shade softer than Italian pasta, because this dish grew around the texture of cafe spaghetti, not bronze-die severity. Rinse or oil the cooked noodles if they must wait, then fry them hard enough that sauce and pasta become one thing. It is quick food, weeknight food, and comfort food, but it still has a method. The method, not the menu, is what makes it sit properly on a Japanese table.
Napolitan is strongly associated with Hotel New Grand in Yokohama, where chef Shigetada Irie is said to have developed a tomato-sauce spaghetti after World War II, influenced by spaghetti eaten by American occupation forces. The ketchup-heavy version spread through kissaten, Japan's coffee shops, especially in the Shōwa period, where it became a standard plate served with grated cheese and Tabasco. Its name points not to a strict Neapolitan recipe, but to the Japanese naming habit that attached foreign place names to new yōshoku dishes.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
dried spaghetti
Quantity
200g
neutral oil
Quantity
1 tablespoon
onion
Quantity
1/2 medium
thinly sliced
green bell pepper
Quantity
1 small
thinly sliced
ham
Quantity
4 thin slices
cut into short strips
button mushrooms (optional)
Quantity
4
thinly sliced
ketchup
Quantity
1/3 cup
Worcestershire sauce
Quantity
1 teaspoon
soy sauce
Quantity
1 teaspoon
reserved pasta cooking water
Quantity
2 tablespoons, plus more as needed
unsalted butter
Quantity
1 tablespoon
fine salt
Quantity
for the pasta water
freshly ground black pepper
Quantity
to taste
grated Parmesan-style cheese (optional)
Quantity
for serving
Tabasco (optional)
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| dried spaghetti | 200g |
| neutral oil | 1 tablespoon |
| onionthinly sliced | 1/2 medium |
| green bell pepperthinly sliced | 1 small |
| hamcut into short strips | 4 thin slices |
| button mushrooms (optional)thinly sliced | 4 |
| ketchup | 1/3 cup |
| Worcestershire sauce | 1 teaspoon |
| soy sauce | 1 teaspoon |
| reserved pasta cooking water | 2 tablespoons, plus more as needed |
| unsalted butter | 1 tablespoon |
| fine salt | for the pasta water |
| freshly ground black pepper | to taste |
| grated Parmesan-style cheese (optional) | for serving |
| Tabasco (optional) | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •Large pot for boiling spaghetti
- •Wide skillet or frying pan
- •Tongs
- •Warm wide plate, preferably the kissaten-style brown ceramic plate
Instructions
- 1
Boil the spaghetti
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook the spaghetti until just past firm, about one minute longer than the package's al dente timing. Napolitan wants a softer noodle because it will be fried in the skillet and should bend easily into the sauce. Reserve a small cup of the cooking water, then drain well.
If the noodles will sit for more than a few minutes, toss them with a few drops of oil. Kissaten cooks often work with rested noodles, and that slightly drier surface helps the ketchup cling. - 2
Cook the vegetables
Heat the oil in a wide skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until it softens and turns translucent at the edges, about three minutes. Add the green pepper, ham, and mushrooms if using, and cook until the pepper smells sweet and the ham edges take on a little color. This short frying wakes up the vegetables and keeps them from tasting raw under the ketchup.
- 3
Fry the ketchup
Push the vegetables and ham to one side of the skillet. Add the ketchup to the bare metal and let it sizzle for thirty to sixty seconds, stirring it in place until it darkens slightly and looks glossy. This is the first secret. Cooking the ketchup drives off its raw acidity and turns it from a condiment into a sauce.
Don't scorch it. You want a deeper red and a sweet tomato smell, not a brown paste stuck to the pan. - 4
Season the sauce
Stir the ketchup through the vegetables, then add the Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, and two tablespoons of pasta water. The Worcestershire gives a faint spiced edge, and the soy sauce brings salt without making the dish taste plainly of soy. The pasta water loosens the sauce so it can coat the noodles instead of sitting in clumps.
- 5
Toss and gloss
Add the drained spaghetti and toss with tongs until every strand is coated and the sauce tightens around the noodles, one to two minutes. If the skillet looks dry before the pasta is coated, add another spoonful of pasta water. Turn off the heat and fold in the butter until the noodles shine. Butter last keeps its fragrance and gives the sauce a round finish.
- 6
Plate and serve
Mound the Napolitan with a little height on a warm plate, leaving room around the edge. Grind black pepper over the top and serve with grated cheese and Tabasco at the table. The cheese and Tabasco are not decoration; they are part of the kissaten grammar, added by the eater in the amount that makes the plate their own.
Chef Tips
- •Use the green pepper. Its slight bitterness is what keeps the ketchup from becoming childish, and the color matters on the plate. Red sauce, green pepper, pale onion, pink ham, white cheese: the five-color logic does its quiet work even here.
- •Ham is the standard home choice. Wiener sausages are also common in Japan, sliced on the bias and fried with the vegetables. Bacon changes the dish with smoke and fat, so use it only knowing you've moved away from the usual plate.
- •Cook in a wide skillet, not a small saucepan. Napolitan needs contact with the hot pan so the ketchup fries and the noodles take on the sauce. Crowding turns it into dressed spaghetti, and that's not the same thing.
- •Tabasco belongs on the table. Add it after plating, not in the skillet, so its sharpness stays bright against the sweet sauce.
Advance Preparation
- •The onion, green pepper, ham, and mushrooms can be sliced up to one day ahead and kept covered in the refrigerator.
- •For the kissaten texture, the spaghetti can be boiled a few hours ahead, tossed lightly with oil, cooled, and refrigerated. Bring it near room temperature before frying so it warms evenly in the skillet.
- •Napolitan is best eaten as soon as the butter is folded in. Leftovers keep one day refrigerated, but reheat them in a skillet with a spoonful of water, not in a dry pan.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 410g)
Calories
625 calories
Total Fat
18 g
Saturated Fat
6 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
12 g
Cholesterol
35 mg
Sodium
1350 mg
Total Carbohydrates
93 g
Dietary Fiber
5 g
Sugars
15 g
Protein
23 g
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