This Easy Japanese Cold Noodle salad is a nice change up from the typical summer salad and is the ideal light meal. Made with fresh vegetables, it's healthy, easy to make, and even uses up leftover ham. However, it's not your traditional Japanese Cold Noodle Salad (Hiyashi Chuka), it's a North American Chef's salad version of cold noodle salad.
This salad is especially popular in the summer and ideal for summer picnics, although it's a great meal any time of the year. It's also dairy-free, light, and WW friendly, yet a hearty meal on its own. And it pairs well with my Everything Bagel Cloud Bread Recipe.
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🥘Ingredients
Unlike many versions of this salad, this one has no peanut butter. For this recipe, you'll need:
Salad ingredients:
- 4 -95 g packages of instant ramen noodles *I use the dry noodle from the packages of instant ramen soup and discard the seasoning
- 4 eggs (hard-boiled)
- 2 tsp sesame oil
- 1 cup ham, julienned *I use fat-free ham
- 1 red pepper, thinly sliced
- 4 cups shredded lettuce *I use green leaf lettuce or romaine lettuce
- 1 cup shredded cucumber
- 2 green onions, thinly sliced
- 4 tsp black sesame seeds
Dressing ingredients:
- ⅔ cup chicken broth
- ⅓ cup white granulated sugar
- ⅓ cup rice vinegar
- 3 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp fresh ginger
🔪Instructions
Prep: Cut ham and red pepper into thin strips, chop lettuce and green onion, and grate cucumber lengthwise through the large holes on a box grater.
Dressing: In a small saucepan, bring chicken broth/stock, sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, and ginger to a boil; reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
Strain through a sieve into a small bowl, then refrigerate the liquid until cool. Discard remnants in a sieve.
In a large pot of water, boil noodles until tender and firm. Drain and chill under cold running water.
Add noodles to a large bowl and toss with sesame oil
Hard boil the eggs, then cool in cold water, peel and slice. *I recommend using an egg slicer (see equipment).
🎥 VIDEO
Arrange cold noodles on plates, top with ham, lettuce, cucumber, red pepper, and sprinkle with green onion. Add sliced hard-boiled eggs (you can do this on a platter or on individual plates or both).
Sprinkle with black sesame seeds.
Add dressing to your liking. You can pour it all on the whole salad or add to individual portions.
📖Variations & Substitutions
- Sesame seeds - you can use regular sesame seeds if you can't find black sesame seeds in your local grocery stores. However, you can generally find black sesame seeds at Asian or Japanese grocery stores such as T&T and A-Mart.
- Sesame seed oil - you can substitute regular oil (canola or olive oil) and add regular sesame seeds
- Noodles - you can use a different type of noodles for this recipe, depending on your preference or what you have on hand, Soba noodles or Udon noodles, instead of ramen noodles, or use fresh ramen noodles instead of dry
- Add-ins - bean sprouts, snap peas, red cabbage, or shredded carrots
- Spicy - add chili oil
- Lettuce - you can use leaf lettuce, romaine, iceberg lettuce, or butter lettuce
- Lunch on the go - Pack it in a mason jar and take it for lunch
🥗 Desserts to Serve with Cold Noodle Salad
- Fruit pizza (shown)
- Raspberry Chocolate Dulce de Leche Icebox cake
- Dairy-free Orange Creamsicle Pie
- Mixed Berry Crumble
🍽Equipment
You will need a large pot, a box grater, a cutting board, a sieve, and a sharp knife for this cold sesame noodle salad. An egg slicer (affiliate links) also comes in handy if you want your eggs to look nice and evenly sliced.
🌡️Storage
You can make this noodle salad in advance and put it together just prior to serving. Store the veggies, ham, noodles, eggs, and dressing all in separate containers. Leftovers will keep for up to 2 days (due to the eggs' shelf life) in an airtight container.
This recipe will not stand up to freezing.
👪 Serving Size
This cold noodle salad recipe makes 6 servings. However, you can half, double, or triple the recipe by clicking on the serving number and selecting the number of servings you'd like. The ingredient quantities will automatically adjust.
🔢WW Points
This easy recipe is Weight Watchers friendly @7 points using regular ramen noodles and fat-free ham. The nutrition calculator on this blog only accounts for regular ham, so although it shows 20 grams of fat in this recipe, that would not be the case using fat-free ham.
If you love Ramen, but it's too hot to eat it in soup and you are looking for a cold noodle recipe, give this a try. Also be sure to check out my Ramen Wrap, made with cold ramen noodles.
📋 Easy Japanese Cold Noodle Salad recipe
Ingredients
- 4 eggs, hard-boiled
- 4 -95 g packages of instant ramen noodles (from soup) (380 g 3.31 ounces) - discard the seasoning
- 2 tsp sesame oil
- 1 cup ham, julienned
- 1 red pepper, thinly sliced
- 4 cups shredded lettuce
- 1 cup shredded cucumber
- 2 green onions, thinly sliced
- 4 teaspoon black sesame seeds
Sauce (dressing)
- ⅔ cup chicken stock
- ⅓ cup white granulated sugar
- ⅓ cup rice vinegar
- 3 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon gingerroot
Instructions
PREP: Cut ham and red pepper into thin strips, chop lettuce and green onion, and grate cucumber lengthwise through the large holes on a box grater.
Sauce (dressing)
- In saucepan, bring stock, sugar, vinegar, soy sauce and ginger to a boil; reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
- Strain and refrigerate dressing (liquid) until cool and discard remnants in sieve
Salad
- In a large pot of boiling water, cook noodles as per package directions, until tender and firm. Drain and chill under cold water.
- In bowl toss noodles with sesame oil.
- Hard boil both eggs. cool in water, peel and slice.
- Arrange noodles on plates, top with ham, lettuce, cucumber, red pepper, and sprinkle with green onions. Add sliced hard-boiled eggs.
- Garnish: Sprinkle with black sesame seeds. Add as much dressing as desired. You can pour it all on or add to individual portions.
Terri Gilson
The family LOVED this when I tested it on them! They said it was a light, but hearty meal and perfect for a hot summer day.