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Japanese-Style Summertime Pasta Salad (Hiyashi Chūka)

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Makes 4 servings 1x

Time 30 minutes

Units Scale

Ingredients

  • Salt
  • 1/2 cup Kombu Dashi or water
  • 3 tablespoons soy sauce, or more to taste
  • 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • 1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
  • 2 tablespoons wasabi powder, or more to taste
  • 1/4 cup boiling water
  • 12 ounces dried or fresh ramen noodles
  • 1 cucumber, peeled if you want, halved, seeded, and thinly sliced
  • 1/2 cup lightly packed shredded nori
  • 1/4 cup pickled ginger
  • 2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
  • 1/4 cup sliced scallions

Instructions

  1. Put a large pot of water on to boil and salt it. Stir together the dashi, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, sesame oil, and fresh ginger in a small bowl. Taste, add more soy sauce if necessary, and let sit. Dissolve the wasabi in the 1/4 cup boiling water; let cool and thicken for a few minutes. Add a little more powder if it seems too thin.
  2. Drop the ramen into the pot of boiling water and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender but not mushy. Start tasting after 1 minute; the cooking time can vary by a few minutes. Drain, rinse in a colander under cold running water, and drain again.
  3. For individual servings, divide the noodles among 4 serving bowls, then divvy up the cucumber, nori, and pickled ginger among them. (In Japan, these ingredients are usually nested in individual piles on top of or around the noodles, though you can just scatter the toppings over the noodles if that seems too fussy.) Top each salad with a pinch toasted sesame seeds and the scallions.
  4. Serve the noodles with small bowls of the dressing on the side for diners to dress and toss the salad at the table. Pass wasabi to season the noodles.

– How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Completely Revised Tenth Anniversary Edition

Recipe variations

Toppings for Japanese-Style Summertime Pasta Salad

  1. Grilled or sautéed shiitake mushrooms
  2. Oven-Dried Tomatoes
  3. A spoonful or two of seaweed salad
  4. Korean-Style Quickles
  5. Individual poached eggs
  6. Chopped hard-boiled eggs
  7. Scrambled eggs
  8. A handful of bean sprouts
  9. Thinly sliced or grated daikon or other radish
  10. A spoonful or 2 of silken tofu
  11. Cooked black or white soybeans (1/2 cup or so per serving)