How to easily make takoyaki at home (low calorie anime recipe)

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My Hero Academia week may be over, but there are still plenty of recipes from the show to be made! TikTok user @tiredbones21 requested that we make takoyaki, which is featured in this show. I love takoyaki but have never made it myself, so I'll be sharing this beginner-friendly way to make takoyaki at home. Takoyaki is, simply put, a fried dough ball stuffed with grilled octopus. 
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Takoyaki featured in My Hero Academia with Kirishima, Amajiki, and Fat Gum

​This is featured in My Hero Academia with Fat Gum’s introduction, since takoyaki is a classic Osaka street food and that’s where he lives. It’s also where Amajiki got his tentacles from when he converted his food for his Quirk, Manifest.

Amajiki's Quirk, Manifest, lets him convert the food he eats into extensions of his body in fights!

Takoyaki is actually featured in a bunch of different anime. My first exposure to it was Cardcaptor Sakura as a kid!

Kero-chan enjoying takoyaki from Cardcaptor Sakura

​Everything you need, you can get on Amazon. You can order a takoyaki maker if you want to make more at a time, but I wanted to give this a try before I committed to a larger kitchen appliance (especially since we don't have much room in our small galley kitchen). So, I ordered this small cake pop maker that the reviews said work great for takoyaki as well. Plus, with the cake pop maker, I don't have to turn the takoyaki over since it functions similarly to a waffle iron.

​Ingredients

Measurements are for about 3 servings, or 25 pieces of takoyaki

• 4 oz. Otafuku takoyaki kit (this comes with the takoyaki sauce and takoyaki flour)
• 1 Green onion 
• 4 oz. octopus, grilled and chopped
• 12 oz. Water
• 2 Eggs
• 2 tbsp Pickled ginger 
• Bonito flakes to taste
• 2 tbsp mayonnaise (preferably Japanese kewpie mayo, but you can use regular mayo) 
  • ​If you're following Weight Watchers or are on a calorie deficit, you can use a light mayo instead

Instructions

Instructions taken from the Otafuku takoyaki kit bag. The maker I used is nonstick, so I just used a bit of cooking spray, but you may need to use oil if your maker is not non-stick. 

1. Grill and chop octopus tentacles and set aside.
2. In a bowl, mix the takoyaki flour, water, and two eggs.
3. Fill your takoyaki maker with batter about halfway. Evenly distribute fillings (except bonito flakes) in each hole, then fill to the brim with more batter.
4. If you are using a traditional takoyaki maker (not the cake pop maker I bought), once the takoyaki is cooked halfway, flip them halfway with a toothpick.
5. Once your takoyaki is golden brown, top with the takoyaki sauce, mayo, and bonito flakes and enjoy!

The verdict

These aren’t the easiest to make without a proper takoyaki maker, but the cake pop maker did the trick. I’d rate this a 8/10 for ease of replication but only because it took a while with the cake pop maker. Some of them also deflated fairly quickly. If we had a larger takoyaki maker, it’d have been a breeze.

The taste, though? Excellent! The fillings I selected were based off of what I’ve had at two separate Japanese restaurants here in Orlando, and these tasted really similar to the ones we had there. 10/10 on taste!
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Nutritional information

If making 25 takoyaki pieces, each ball contains approximately...

• 40 calories
• 1 g fat
• 15.7 mg cholesterol
• 140 mg sodium
• 5 g carbs
• 0.1 g fiber
• 5 g sugar
• 2 g protein

​Have a food from an anime that you want me to try to recreate? Let me know in the comments below! Plus, follow me on TikTok to see the behind the scenes of how this was made.
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