News On Japan

Thrifty recipes popular amid high vegetable prices

Sep 03, 2020 (NHK) - The operator of a Japanese cooking-video website has been putting extra effort into offering recipes for consumers who want to cut costs amid soaring vegetable prices.

The website Kurashiru started featuring budget vegetable recipes on Tuesday. It offers those using vegetables available at reasonable and fairly stable prices, such as pea and bean sprouts, Japanese mustard spinach, and okra.

Recipes using seasonal vegetables including tomatoes and eggplant are usually popular in summer. But they haven't attracted many viewers lately because vegetable prices were high last month.

The site's operator plans to put out more recipes that use pre-chopped and frozen vegetables available throughout the year at steady prices.

On Wednesday, it made a video showing how to make fried noodles with a thick sauce using pre-chopped vegetables.

Viewers commented that the featured recipes are a big help, since vegetables are costly.

Furuta Richika, a marketer at the company, says the number of web searches for pea and bean sprout recipes is increasing. She said she hopes to provide more ideas that meet the needs of viewers looking to make inexpensive meals.

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