📋 Easy Japanese Cold Noodle Salad recipe

Japanese cold noodle salad on a black plate, with chopsticks and a dish of dressing in the background

5 from 1 vote

📋 Easy Japanese Cold Noodle Salad recipe

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, quick and easy to make, and uses up leftover ham. This is a North American Chef's salad version of cold noodle salad.

Course dinner, lunch

Cuisine Japanese

Keyword cold, Japanese, noodle, salad

Allergen dairy-free

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 15

Total Time 35

Servings people

Calories 479kcal

Author Terri Gilson

Equipment

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

US Customary - Metric

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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.

Notes

Note: Adapted from Japanese Cold Noodle Chef's Salad, Canadian Living Magazine p. 150, May 2004

Expert Tips:

Chill the noodles properly. After rinsing the noodles under cold water, let them drain completely before tossing with sesame oil. This ensures they don’t become watery and helps the oil coat them evenly.

Uniformly slice vegetables. For a visually appealing salad, aim to cut all vegetables into similar-sized thin strips. This also ensures an even distribution of flavors in every bite.

Control the dressing amount. Add the dressing gradually to the salad, tossing as you go. This prevents the noodles from becoming overly saturated and allows you to adjust to taste.

Make perfect hard boiled eggs. After boiling, place the eggs in an ice water bath to cool them quickly and prevent overcooking. See my Dill Deviled Eggs recipe for full instructions.

Use an egg slicer (affiliate links) . An egg slicer comes in handy if you want your eggs to look nice and evenly sliced.

🎥VIDEO

Video: How to cook hard-boiled eggs

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.

Nutrition