For someone who usually declines dessert and prefers treats “not too sweet,” my recent visit to Japan’s National Confectionery Exposition in Hokkaido challenged everything I thought I knew about sweets.

Held every four years since 1911, the expo returned this year after a pandemic hiatus, showcasing over 1,000 confectionery products in Asahikawa, a city renowned for its dairy and produce. The event drew huge crowds, with queues up to an hour for popular desserts like fluffy cream pancakes and strawberry parfaits. Yet, the only sweet that caught my attention during the festival was a unique soft-serve ice cream made from Hokkaido corn.

The real revelation came the next day at Staple, a quiet restaurant in Biei—a picturesque town surrounded by farmland. The husband-and-wife team there create tasting menus spotlighting local seasonal produce with an innovative twist, particularly in their desserts.

Unlike the usual focus on fruit or chocolate, the dessert menu highlighted vegetables in surprising ways. A no-bake cheesecake paired raw celery’s grassy sharpness with the creamy sweetness of ricotta gelato. Red paprika ice cream combined beautifully with blueberry and cheese gelato, reminiscent of a colorful Battenburg cake. The standout was a soy sauce crema Catalana served with grilled aubergine ice cream, where the umami-rich pudding was enhanced by the smoky depth of charred vegetable.

Each dessert maintained the essence of the vegetable without overpowering the palate. The dairy balanced celery’s sharpness, the red pepper’s fruity notes harmonized with blueberry’s floral character, and the aubergine provided a smoky bass note that complemented the soy sauce and caramel.

Vegetable-led desserts soon became a theme of my trip. Back in Tokyo, I tried a strawberry and tomato kakigori (shaved ice dessert) at Azuki to Kouri near Yoyogi Park. While tomatoes are botanically fruits, their savory quality came through strongly here, layered with milky burrata, olive oil, and Parmesan cracker crumble. It was essentially an antipasti dish disguised as a dessert—a surprising and delicious twist that broadened my perception of what sweets could be.

Japan’s inventive use of vegetables in desserts offers a fresh take on indulgence, blending unexpected flavors and textures that transform the traditional ice cream and pastry scene. For those interested in the latest ice cream trends and innovative flavor profiles, these vegetable desserts reveal a new frontier in sweets that balances sweetness with savory depth.

Have you ever tried vegetable-based desserts? What did you think?

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