How to Make Tempura Batter: Japanese Tempura Batter Recipe

Tempura is a Japanese dish consisting of vegetables or seafood lightly battered and deep fried until crispy. The technique was likely brought to Japan in the sixteenth century by the Portuguese and has since become a staple of Japanese cuisine. Tempura is typically served with tentsuyu, a dipping sauce made from soy sauce, mirin (cooking wine), and dashi (fish broth), plus shredded daikon radish and ginger for stirring into the sauce.

To make the best tempura batter, you want to minimize gluten formation, which causes batter to become tough and bready. You can accomplish this in four ways:

1. 1. Try club soda. Although you can make a delicious tempura batter using just flour, egg yolks, and water, some recipes substitute some or all of the water with club soda or vodka. Both vodka and club soda are less readily absorbed by the flour, so the batter will be more aerated than batter made with water alone.
2. 2. Keep the batter cold. Adding ice cubes to your tempura mixture will also slow the flour’s absorption of water, since water can’t be absorbed in its solid state.
3. 3. Master your timing. Have the flour measured out beforehand, but wait until the very last moment (while the oil is heating up for tempura) to combine the dry and wet ingredients. This will prevent the gluten from relaxing and forming a more bread-like batter.
4. 4. Use chopsticks. To avoid overmixing the batter, swap a whisk for four chopsticks held together with the pointy ends down. Use a mashing—not stirring—motion until the batter has the consistency of heavy cream with plenty of unmixed lumps of flour. This should only take about 30 seconds.

The type of flour you use for tempura can affect the end result. Most tempura batter is made with wheat flour. Cake flour has a lower protein content and therefore less gluten than all-purpose flour, making it a better choice for tempura—but both options will work. Rice flour is a gluten-free alternative to wheat flour that still yields a crispy coating.

These ten ingredients make for some of the most popular types of tempura:

1. 1. Onions: Dip onions in tempura batter to make light, crispy onion rings.
2. 2. Sweet potatoes: Try Japanese mountain yam or regular sweet potatoes.
3. 3. Mushrooms: Mushrooms have a chewy texture and meaty flavor that’s a great alternative to chicken or other meat in a tempura bowl. (In Japan, meat is considered too heavy for tempura.)
4. 4. Eggplant: Eggplant tempura is a less greasy alternative to fried eggplant.
5. 5. Carrots: Root vegetables, such as carrots, should be thinly sliced on the diagonal for tempura.
6. 6. Shiso leaves: When you deep-fry delicate shiso leaves, be sure to dredge just one side of the leaf to prevent curling.
7. 7. Lotus root: This crunchy vegetable is a popular tempura option.
8. 8. Squash: You don’t need to peel summer or winter squash, such as pumpkin or kabocha, for tempura. Simply cut the squash into thin slices.
9. 9. Broccoli: Broccoli florets add delightful texture to a basket of tempura.
10. 10. Seafood: Shrimp tempura is one of the most popular iterations of this dish, but you can also use prawns, scallops, eel, squid, clams, or even filleted fish.