A popular food in Japan, it is commonly eaten with beni shōga (pickled ginger), shichimi (ground chili pepper), and a side dish of miso soup.

After the arrival of Buddhism in Japan in the 6th century, consumption of meat became rare in Japanese culture (especially those of four-footed animals such as cattle or pigs) and in many cases frowned upon, both for religious and practical reasons.

Gyūnabe originally consisted of cuts of beef simmered with Welsh onions and miso (as the beef available in Japan at the time were usually of poor quality, the meat was cooked this way to tenderize it and neutralize its foul smell), but by the late 1800s, a variation that used a special stock called warishita (割下) – a combination of a sweetener such as sugar or mirin and soy sauce – instead of miso and featuring additional ingredients such as shirataki (konjac cut into noodle-like strips) and tofu began to appear.

This version of gyūnabe (known today as sukiyaki – originally the name of a similar yet distinct dish from the Kansai region) eventually came to be served with rice in a deep bowl (donburi), becoming gyūmeshi or gyūdon.

[5] Although some establishments still offer gyūdon with a sukiyaki-like topping (i.e. containing ingredients such as shirataki or tofu), the dish as served in most major food chains nowadays simply consist of rice, beef and onions.

As a consequence of the fear of mad cow disease and a ban on imports of beef from the United States, Yoshinoya and most competitors were forced to terminate gyūdon sales in Japan on 11 February 2004.

The Japanese Diet voted to resume beef imports from the United States in early May 2005, but the ban was reinstated in January 2006 after detectable quantities of prohibited spine tissue were found in the first post-ban shipments arriving in Japan.