Why rice flour baking is booming in Japan

Baking bread and desserts with rice flour has been trending in Japan in recent years. With rice prices rising and squeezing household pocketbooks, the growing popularity of rice flour baking may seem surprising, especially since rice flour is on average twice the price of wheat flour. Despite the higher costs, this is the second rice flour boom during the last 20 years and this time, it may have more staying power.

Why rice flour is having a moment

Rice flour confectionery today builds on the knowledge and techniques of the past, but has expanded to include typical yougashi (western sweets) and youshoku (western-style food) items, like bread and scones.

This trend shows little sign of slowing down. The popular recipe site Cookpad saw the number of rice flour recipe searches almost triple between 2020 and 2025 with bagels earning the lion’s share of clicks. Competing recipe site Delish Kitchen similarly noted a sharp increase in searches for rice flour recipes during the same period. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) reported a doubling of demand for rice grown for rice flour production.

While the boom arguably began in 2020, piggybacking on pandemic at-home hobbies, it really kicked off in 2022, spurred on by global and domestic politics, agriculture advancements and health food trends.

From bagels to donuts

At the 2026 Rice Flour Conference, several foods were singled out as trendy and representative of the next generation of gourmet rice flour goods.

Bagel sandwiches

Recently, rice flour bagel recipes have consistently been a top search term on cooking sites, like Cookpad. Specialty stores dedicated to these bagels have also been popping up from Tokyo to Fukuoka.

Bagels were the winner of the 2025 Rice Flour Conference bread award and they have continued to soar in popularity. Bagel sandwiches are seen as a great vehicle to showcase rice flour because of the variety of potential toppings and chewy texture.

Donuts

Donuts made of rice flour are one of the top trends for sweets with an enviable squishy texture. Rice flour donuts are seen as healthier by some consumers than wheat flour donuts since rice flour absorbs less oil during deep-frying.

Donut chain store Mister Donut were early adopters of rice flour. They released their first rice flour donuts in 2009, coinciding with the start of the first boom. Their current wildly popular mocchurin series made from a blend of rice flours is attracting attention for its mochimochi (chewy) texture that pairs well with the Japanese-style flavors, like mitarashi (sweet soy).

More than a gluten-free trend

Alongside the MAFF’s entreaties and the availability of better rice flour varieties, rice flour baking is also trending because people view it as healthy. A Delish Kitchen user survey found that home cooks were attracted to rice flour because it's gluten-free and is often perceived as nutritious and is considered to be a diet-friendly food. Given the high proportion of sweets and carbs made using rice flour, it seems fair to question why consumers view it as a healthier alternative to wheat flour.

This can be traced to the widespread publicity of studies showing that rice flour soaks up less oil than wheat flour and that it has a higher proportion of amino acids. Indeed, the MAFF highlights this in both their overseas promotion site aimed at exporting Japanese rice flour and their domestic promotion site. When this knowledge is combined with the trendy gluten-free label from overseas as well as a general preference for made-in-Japan products, the result is that more and more consumers in Japan see rice flour as a worthwhile investment.

The government’s push for rice flour

Food security, or the ability to domestically produce enough food to feed a country, has long been a concern in Japan due to its large population and limited growing capacity. This is unlikely to change since farming and agricultural sectors face increasing hurdles due to rural depopulation and population decline.

In the early 2020s, several factors further accelerated this preexisting food precarity. Global supply chain disruptions during the COVID pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the world’s so-called breadbaskets, produced a renewed panic in Japan over food security.

In this context, the Japanese government needed to encourage both production and consumption of rice. With the diversification of food culture over the last 50 years, the ministry had long been wary of wheat-based noodles and breads that require wheat imports. MAFF saw a potential opportunity in promoting rice flour for domestic and international consumption. Even during the rice price crisis of 2025 and 2026, the MAFF continues to promote rice flour as an alternative, sponsoring a Rice Flour Conference, for example, in 2026.

Better rice, better baking

While the Japanese government has long been trying to stimulate rice consumption, ultimately, the taste of rice flour products themselves determine their popularity. In fact, taste and texture were two reasons why the first rice flour boom fizzled out. This original boom, which began around 2009, was driven by an interest in health. But, at that time, farmers were typically not using specialty rice cultivars to make the flour more adaptable to baking. As a result, the starches broke down when the rice was ground into flour leading to dense, water-logged baked goods. With unimpressive results by home and pro bakers, by 2014, the interest in rice flour had waned.

In recent years, agricultural advances have improved the quality of rice flour. Using new cultivars such as Mizuho Chikara, which had started development during the first boom in Kumamoto, the current generation of flour can finally harness rice’s inherent springy and squishy texture without getting too hard or mushy. These varieties were created especially for baking bread and cakes. Social media influencers, such as Suzuki Atsuko and Ecocoro, have been key factors in growing the homemade rice flour baked goods landscape. Taking their popularity offline, these two figures have also published cookbooks as well.

A trend with deeper roots

Abroad, rice flour is used in gluten-free baking mixes, such as King Arthur or Pillsbury Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour. These premade mixes typically combine rice flour with starches, such as tapioca or potato, and occasionally xanthan gum to mimic the texture and structure of gluten in baking. Outside of gluten-free recipes, rice flour is not a common ingredient and is rarely used alone, even for wheat-free breads and desserts.

In Japan, however, rice is the staple grain. It is thought that the idea of using rice flour to make sweet and savory treats arrived in Japan via Tang China during the Nara period (710-794). Then, during the Edo period (1603-1867), wagashi (Japanese-style sweets) with rice flour as a main ingredient began to take off with the general population. And following the Meiji era’s (1868-1912) industrial revolution, better milling techniques were developed which produced higher grades of rice flour ideal for making sweets and senbei (rice crackers).

The first rice flour boom came and went. This time, however, improved baking performance, changing consumer tastes and continued promotion from both influencers and policymakers suggest rice flour may be here to stay.

© Japan Today