How to Choose a Donabe | Size, Glaze, First Use and Care

A donabe keeps cooking for about a minute after you take it off the flame.

Thick clay is slow to warm and just as slow to cool. That slowness draws the sweetness out of rice, keeps a broth clear, and holds food warm after the pot reaches the table. A donabe reaches somewhere the speed of a metal pan cannot.

This article sets out how to choose one across size, use, material and glaze, then covers medome before first use, the heat, washing, and what to do if it cracks.

Size first, decided by how many people

Donabe are sized in go. One go is roughly 3cm, so the number is close to the diameter.

When in doubt, go one size up from your number. A donabe only fills to eighty percent, so an exact match leaves no room for the ingredients. For two people 8-go is comfortable and still copes with guests.

A rice pot and a hot-pot donabe are different things

Both are donabe, but the pot for rice and the pot for nabe dishes are shaped differently.

• Rice pot　Deep, with a heavy lid, rounded so convection can build inside. Sized in go of rice rather than diameter: a 5-go pot takes about 750g of rice and serves four to six
• Hot-pot donabe　Shallow and wide. Easy to lay ingredients in and serve from. The lid is lighter, with a hole to let steam out

The rice pot's lid is heavy in order to raise the pressure slightly inside. You do not lift the lid while it cooks because that pressure has to stay in. You open it once at the end, and that burst of steam decides what the room smells like for the next hour.

The clay is not ordinary pottery clay

A donabe that goes over an open flame is made from clay blended for heat resistance.

The key is petalite, a mineral that barely expands when heated. Blended into the clay, it makes the pot far less likely to crack under sudden heat. Banko ware in Yokkaichi, near Mino in Mie, became the donabe region because it established that blend early.

Shigaraki is also a donabe region. The coarse clay of Shigaraki ware is naturally strong in fire. The coarseness is only a matter of texture; once tightened by firing, the clay holds water.

Kanefusa Seito: making only donabe, in Shigaraki

The donabe Nokaze carries are made by Kanefusa Seito in Shigaraki, Shiga.

This workshop makes only donabe and rice pots, which is to say only heatproof pieces. No plates, no mugs, only pots that go over fire. So the clay blend, the weight of the lid and the way heat is stored are all decided from cooking outward.

Everything on the shelf is a 5-go rice pot: about 750g of rice, four to six servings. For two people it is the size that lets you cook 2 go and turn the rest into onigiri the next morning. The lid is thick and heavy, and it does not let the pressure out while the rice cooks.

There are six glazes. Even in the same 5-go form, a change of glaze changes the pot's face on the table completely. Compare them in the next section.

Choosing by glaze: six colors

The glazes on a donabe are ones Japanese makers have refined over four hundred years. This is a pot that goes to the table, so the color stays visible to the last.

The base is left unglazed. It is the surface that meets the flame, and glaze there would peel under heat. Turn it over and you see the bare clay.

If rice is the main use, choose shino or ruri; if you will cook nabe dishes too, tenmoku or ame. When in doubt, tenmoku. The contents stand up against it whatever you cook. Compare the actual pieces on Donabe.

Do medome before first use

Before putting a new pot over the flame, do medome. It fills the fine pores in the clay with starch, preventing seepage and absorbed odors.

• 1. Wash and dry it thoroughly　Dry the outside and the base completely. Wet there and the pot will crack over heat
• 2. Simmer rice porridge　Fill to eighty percent with water, add about a rice bowl of cooked rice, simmer on low for around an hour. Rice rinsing water works too
• 3. Let it cool as it is　Turn off the heat, leave it until it cools naturally, then wash and dry completely

For a rice pot, the first batch of rice does the job. Do it again if the pot has sat unused for a year or so.

Four rules at the stove

Whether a donabe lasts is decided almost entirely here.

• Dry the base before lighting the flame　Water on the base expands suddenly under heat and cracks the pot. Wiping with a cloth is enough
• Never heat it empty　The clay cannot take it. Check the inside before you light the flame
• Start on low　Thick clay warms slowly. Do not start on high; medium is as far as you need
• Do not pour water on it while hot　Sudden cooling cracks it. Let it cool a little before washing

Induction does not work, apart from pots with a heating element built into the base. Open flame and the oven are where a donabe belongs. A microwave is fine for reheating what is already cooked.

Washing and storing

Wash with warm water after use and dry it completely before storing. That single point matters more than anything else in looking after a donabe.

Clay holds water, so a pot boxed up before it is dry will grow mold. Leaving it overnight upside down somewhere with air moving is the reliable method. In a hurry, a few dozen seconds empty over a low flame will drive off the moisture.

Go easy on detergent. Clay absorbs it, and the smell can come back the next time you cook. If food catches, fill the pot with water and leave it overnight and it usually lifts. General handling is covered in caring for Japanese tableware.

If it cracks

Fine lines appear in the glaze surface with use. That is crazing, not a break. Almost every well-used donabe has it.

For a deeper crack that lets water through, simmering rice porridge in it will often seal it. Same principle as medome: starch settles into the gap and hardens. If once does not work, do it twice. If it still leaks, the pot's working life is over, but a pot that got that far has worked hard.

How pieces change over time is in what it means for a piece to develop. Keinenbika applies to a donabe exactly as it does to anything else.

Using a donabe at a Western table

A donabe is assumed to be for Japanese food, but think of it as a thick pot that goes from flame to table and the range opens up considerably.

• As a casserole　It goes in the oven. Gratin, lasagne, roasted root vegetables. Thick clay carries heat slowly, so the middle cooks before the edges catch
• For braises　Pot-au-feu, stew, cassoulet. The heavy lid keeps moisture in, so meat softens on less liquid
• Bread and soup in one dish　French onion soup straight to the table. It cools slowly, so the last spoonful is still hot
• For grains other than rice　Risotto, paella, couscous. A 5-go pot is about 24cm across, which takes paella for four

The difference from a Dutch oven is weight, and how it reads once it is on the table. Cast iron stores heat well but is heavy, and on the table it still looks like equipment. A donabe does the same work and becomes tableware the moment it lands. Shino and Oribe glazes sit well on wood and on linen alike.

Only three things need care. Induction will not work unless the pot is built for it, and that includes European and American induction hobs. Never light the flame under a wet base. And do not set it straight onto a wet counter or marble after it comes out of the oven. Sudden temperature difference is the one weakness a donabe has. Gas, electric coil and the oven are all fine.

Washing does not change. Warm water, dried completely before storing. Keep it out of the dishwasher and wash by hand.

Choosing your first one

To sum up:

• Size　One up from your number. 8-go for two people
• Use　Rice means a deep rice pot; nabe dishes mean shallow and wide
• Glaze　Shino to make the contents look bright, tenmoku to suit anything
• Weight　You carry it to the table, so check the weight with the lid on

A donabe is a piece you use for decades from the day you buy it. Choose your first one as something you will bring out every winter.

Related reading

Related terms

• How to do medome | The one thing to do before first use
• What is Shino | Japan's first white glaze, and its scarlet bleed
• What is Kiseto | Yellow glaze with green bleeding through
• What is keinenbika | Time making a piece more beautiful

Read alongside

• Pottery and porcelain | Four ways to tell them apart
• What is Shigaraki ware | Clay that glows, 1,200 years on
• What is crazing | Lines that look like cracks but are not damage
• What it means for a piece to develop | What actually changes
• Caring for Japanese tableware | Washing, storing, stains

Browse by shape

• Donabe | Japanese Clay Pot for Rice and Hot Pot
• Japanese Bowls | Rice Bowls, Soup Bowls and Matcha Bowls
• Shigaraki Ware | Handmade Shigaraki Pottery from Japan