Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Vegetables from Shiga

Hinona-zuke (Hino turnip bran pickle)日野菜漬け

Hinona is a slender turnip about 30 cm long, purple near the leaves and white at the tip. For the bran pickle, the turnips are hung on racks to wilt for a day or two, then packed tightly in a tub with salted rice bran under a stone twice their weight, and checked after about a month. Chopped and pickled in vinegar it turns pink, which gives the name sakura-zuke.

Fully documentedVegetables31 days – 32 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceOne tub, from the Shiga food culture research group's recipe on the MAFF regional cuisine site (5 kg dried hinona, 200 g salt, 2 kg bran). Recipes vary by area and household.
Hinona, washed and wilted5 kg (dried weight)[maff-hinona-k]
Coarse salt200 g[maff-hinona-k]
Rice bran2 kg[maff-hinona-k]
4 % salt waterOnly if no liquid rises after a few days[maff-hinona-k]

Total time across the recorded steps: 31 days – 32 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: The washed hinona turnips hang on hasa racks until they bend

Step 1 of 5
Wash and hang on hasa racks to wilt
Time
24 h – 2 days
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
L. plantarum
Flavour
Not documented
Texture
wilts until it bends
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Hinona is a slender turnip about 30 cm long, purple near the leaves and white at the tip. For the bran pickle, the turnips are hung on racks to wilt for a day or two, then packed tightly in a tub with salted rice bran under a stone twice their weight, and checked after about a month. Chopped and pickled in vinegar it turns pink, which gives the name sakura-zuke. Made in 5 steps over 31 days – 32 days. The longest step, pickle and check after about a month, takes 30 days (MAFF うちの郷土料理 (regional cuisine) 2026). Salt is 4 % (MAFF うちの郷土料理 (regional cuisine) 2026). In rice-bran pickling beds (related product; a laboratory study of cucumber, cabbage and radish nukazuke, not this one), Lactiplantibacillus plantarum became dominant in both the bed and the pickles does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step30 daysReported[maff-hinona-k]Pickle and check after about a month
Salt4 %Reported[maff-hinona-k]Top up with brine if no liquid rises

What makes this one different

Hinona-zuke is made from a long, thin, two-coloured turnip that has its own pungency and bitterness. The turnips are wilted on racks before the bran, and its vinegar form turns the pink of cherry blossom.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Sakura-zukeLeaves chopped and roots cut into thin strips, salted, rubbed, scalded and rinsed, then pickled with vinegar and a little salt under a weight; liquid rises overnight and it is ready a day and night later.
  • Ebi-zukePre-salted whole with leaves, then pickled in sweet vinegar.
  • Quick bran pickleSalted for about half a day, rubbed under running water, tied in bundles of 4–5 and put in a bran bed; ready when liquid rises.

Safety

In the MAFF recipe the turnips are packed tight and pressed under a stone twice their weight. If no liquid has risen after a few days, 4% salt water is poured in, and the pickle is checked after about a month.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Hinona is said to have been found about 500 years ago by the lord Gamō Sadahide near a Kannon hall in Hino. Pickled, its colour reminded people of cherry blossom, and a poem sent back from the court named it sakura-zuke. Hinona-zuke was chosen as a Shiga food cultural property in 1998, and the vegetable gained Japan's GI protection as Ōmi Hino-san hinona in 2022.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [maff-hinona-k] MAFF うちの郷土料理 (regional cuisine), 日野菜漬け, recipe by 滋賀の食事文化研究会; read 2026-10gov
  2. [maff-hinona-t] MAFF にっぽん伝統食図鑑 (traditional foods), 日野菜漬け(ひのなづけ), 滋賀県; read 2026-10gov
  3. [maff-mie] MAFF うちの郷土料理 (regional cuisine), 野菜の漬物 (三重県); read 2026-10 (names 日野菜漬け among Mie's pickles)gov
  4. [jawiki-hinona] Japanese Wikipedia, 日野菜, read 2026-10-16wiki
  5. [sugiura2024] Sugiura S. et al. 2024, Impact of vegetables on the microbiota of the rice bran pickling bed Nukadoko, Bioscience of Microbiota, Food and Health 43(4), 359–366paper