Cold Udon Noodles with Summer Vegetables

Summer is best for cold udon noodles. Just top the boiled udon with fresh summer vegetables and pour flavorful noodle soup. It's a simple and easy recipe.

When it comes to summer, cold udon is the best. Even if you don't have much appetite, you can eat it up as it's so refreshing.

Okra, tomato, and shiso (a Japanese herb) are colorful, sticky, and juicy vegetables that match well with thick fat udon noodles.

Recommend this recipe for
• Someone who love Japanese food
• Someone who wants to learn how to make cold udon noodles
• Someone who is looking for variations of cold udon noodles

Even if you are new to udon noodles, that's ok. I will show you how to make it with great details, so please stay with me!

Jump to:

• Udon Noodles
• 📋 Ingredients
• 🔪Instructions
• Variations
• Thanks for Stopping By!
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

Udon Noodles

Udon is fat, chewy Japanese noodles made from wheat flour, water, and salt.

You can buy udon noodles at an Asian grocery store with fresh, frozen, or dried. Fresh and frozen udon are already boiled in the process, so boiling time is short, like a couple of minutes. On the other hand, dried udon noodles take longer, like 10 minutes.

We eat both hot and cold, but in the hot summer, cold udon demand increases.

How do you eat cold udon?

In general, there are 2 ways to eat cold udon noodles.

• Zaru udon: Dip udon noodles in a noodle soup. Just noodles, noodle soup, and some toppings such as chopped green onion and wasabi. This is the most simple cold udon noodles.
• Bukkake udon: Pour noodle soup over the udon noodles like this recipe. This type of udon noodles has so many topping variations.

Mentsuyu

Mentsuyu is a Japanese soup base that is used for both udon and soba noodles.

Basic ingredients are soy sauce, mirin, dashi (katsuobushi, or kombu), and water. It is full of umami and flavor from katsuobushi(or kombu). You can make it from scratch but we usually use store-bought ones.

It's very salty when you taste it as it is, so you have to dilute it with water when you use it. Follow the instructions on the bottle to add water as it depends on the brand.

📋 Ingredients

Here are the ingredients (amounts are in the recipe card below).

• Vegetables: Tomato, okra, shiso (Japanese herb)
• Atsuage (deep fried tofu)
• Udon noodles
• Mentsuyu

Atsuage is deep-fried tofu and added as a protein source. You can eat it without cooking as it is tofu.

This udon noodle is a frozen one. It's handy, and quick to boil so I always keep some packs in the freezer.

Plant Based Mentsuyu　

Mentsuyu is almost always made with katsuobushi dashi so if you are a vegan or vegetarian, you have to substitute dashi with vegan dashi.

Try this recipe: put vegan dashi (800ml/4cups), 2or3 tablespoon soy sauce, and 2or3 tablespoon mirin in a pot and bring it to a boil.

🔪Instructions

Now you have all the ingredients, so let's start cooking! You can also watch this video.

1. Prepare ingredients　>> Cut tomato, shiso, and atuage into bite size pieces. Boil okra for 2 minutes, cook it, and cut it into bite size pieces.
2. Boil udon noodles >> Boil udon noodles according to the instructions on the package. If you use frozen noodles, it will take a couple of minutes to boil.
3. Rinse and drain >> Rinse and drain boiled udon noodles under cold water.
4. Place on a plate >> Place udon noodles, okra, tomato, shiso, atsuage, and toppings of your choice on a plate
5. Mentsuyu >> Dilute mentsuyu with water (follow the instructions on the bottle) and serve with udon

Here are fresh summer cold udon noodles! Pour the mentsuyu over the udon, mix them up and enjoy!

Variations

You can enjoy various variations by adding other stuff such as healthy seaweed, boiled egg, and so on. Here are my favorite ingredients for cold udon noodles.

• Nagaimo (chinese yam)
• Natto
• Mekabu (seaweed)
• Wakame (seaweed)
• Pickled plum
• Boiled egg
• Canned tuna

Nagaimo, natto and mekabu are sticky. If you don't mind sticky food, mix them together and place them on top of boiled udon noodles. It's super sticky but so healthy and yummy! This is my favorite as well.

This recipe works for soba noodles as well. If you love soba more than udon, please swap the noodles.

Thanks for Stopping By!

How did you like this simple Japanese udon noodles recipe?

It's so easy as it only takes 10 minutes and healthy, with plenty of vegetables. I would be happy if you will add it to your summer recipe.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog♡. If you’ve tried this recipe (or any other recipe on the blog), please give it a star rating below!

Also, feel free to leave comments if you have any questions. I love hearing from you!

Chef JA Cooks is a Japanese food blog that shares simple and healthy Japanese home cooking recipes, including vegan and vegetarian. From traditional Japanese recipes to modern recipes with step-by-step instructions.

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📖 Recipe