Mochi for Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving has always been a big gathering for our family—a full house, a packed table, and the perfect chance for me to test new Japanese home cooking ideas with people I love. Every year, I bring a couple of dishes, and over time they’ve become small traditions of their own.

This year, my daughter and I contributed three items to the feast:

1. Napa cabbage slaw with a light sesame–rice vinaigrette

2. Kale, spinach, and kabocha squash salad with balsamic vinaigrette

3. Mochi—appearing for the very first time

The salads are tried, tested, and always welcomed. But the mochi… that was the wildcard.

We have several family members who prefer or require gluten-free options. So I thought: Why not bring mochi? Not the familiar mochi ice cream you see at supermarkets, but plain, simple, honest mochi—a soft rice cake, nothing more and nothing less.

I wanted to see how people would react to it on a Thanksgiving table, and also whether this might inspire me to develop mochi-based dishes that fit naturally into American holiday meals. Could mochi play the role of dinner rolls? Could it be a small sweet at the end? Could it hold a savory topping the way stuffing or potatoes do?

Thanksgiving felt like the perfect stage to try this—not a restaurant experiment, but a family one. No pressure, no expectations, just curiosity.

The mochi came in different shapes and sizes, some round, some block-shaped, all freshly made. Watching everyone taste them for the first time, I found myself imagining new possibilities:

• roasted mochi with maple butter

• mochi bites paired with cranberry sauce

• savory mochi stuffing cubes

• even kabocha–mochi desserts

Introducing something new to a holiday that’s deeply rooted in tradition can be delicate. But in our family, food is one of the love languages, and experimenting together is part of the fun.

Mochi may just become a new character in our Thanksgiving story.

And who knows—maybe next year, something mochi-infused will make a more confident appearance on the table.

More kitchen experiments coming soon.