10-Minute Sesame Soba Noodles

Name: 10-Minute Sesame Soba Noodles
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 10 min
Yield: 2 servings
Ingredients: 180 g dried soba noodles; 2 tbsp tahini or Chinese sesame paste; 2 tbsp soy sauce; 1 tbsp rice vinegar; 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil; 1 tsp honey or maple syrup; 1 clove garlic; 1 thumb ginger; 1 cucumber; 3 spring onions; 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds; Chilli oil, to serve

Cold buckwheat noodles in a sesame and soy dressing with cucumber and spring onion. The fastest properly good thing you can make from a cupboard.

🕐 10 min👥 2 servings🍣 Japanese 🥗 Clean ⚡ 15 Minute

Nutrition Info (per serving)

480
Calories: 17g
Protein: 18g
Fat: 64g
Carbs

ThiamineNiacinVitamin KFolateManganeseMagnesiumPhosphorusCopper

Ingredients

180 g dried soba noodles
2 tbsp tahini or Chinese sesame paste
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
1 tsp honey or maple syrup
1 clove garlic
1 thumb ginger
1 cucumber
3 spring onions
1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
Chilli oil, to serve

Instructions

1Bring a large pan of water to the boil. Do not salt it — soba dough is salted before the noodles are cut, and salted water on top of that makes them harsh under a soy dressing.
2Grate the garlic and the ginger. Whisk them in a bowl with the tahini, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil and honey. It will thicken and seize; add cold water a tablespoon at a time, 2 to 4 in all, until it pours like double cream.
3Cut the cucumber into matchsticks and slice the spring onions on the diagonal.
4Cook the soba for the time on the packet, usually 4 to 5 minutes. Stay with the pan — soba goes from firm to mushy quickly.
5Drain the noodles and rinse them under cold running water for a full 30 seconds, rubbing them between your hands. This strips the surface starch that would otherwise glue them into one mass, and stops the cooking.
6Shake the noodles properly dry. Water left clinging to them thins the dressing into a puddle at the bottom of the bowl.
7Toss the noodles with the dressing, the cucumber and most of the spring onion.
8Top with the sesame seeds, the rest of the spring onion, and chilli oil if you want heat.

This is the recipe to know for the evenings when cooking is not going to happen. Ten minutes, no chopping board beyond a cucumber, and everything except the fresh vegetables lives in a cupboard indefinitely.

Do not salt the water

Soba dough is seasoned before the noodles are cut, and they release that salt into the cooking water. Salt the pot as well and the finished noodles taste harsh, particularly with a soy-based dressing on top. Plain boiling water is correct here, which is the opposite of the rule for Italian pasta.

Rinsing is mandatory

Buckwheat sheds a lot of starch. Skip the rinse and the noodles knit together into a single mass within about a minute of draining.

Rinse under cold running water for a full thirty seconds and rub them between your hands as you go. This does two jobs: it strips the surface starch, and it drops the temperature so the noodles stop cooking. Soba is served cold or at room temperature far more often than hot, and this is why.

Then shake them genuinely dry. Any water left on the noodles dilutes the dressing.

The dressing seizes, then loosens

As with any sesame paste dressing, adding acid and soy to tahini makes it stiffen into something that looks broken. It is not. Cold water, added a tablespoon at a time with steady whisking, brings it back into a smooth pourable cream.

Aim for the consistency of double cream. Thicker and it clumps on the noodles instead of coating them.

Soba, and what to buy

Look at the ingredients. Many supermarket soba are mostly wheat flour with a little buckwheat for colour, which is fine but is essentially a thin wheat noodle. Packets marked juwari soba are 100 percent buckwheat, naturally gluten free, more fragile and much more interesting to eat. Anything at 80 percent buckwheat or above is a good compromise.

Variations worth making

The base dressing takes almost anything. Add a soft-boiled egg, shredded poached chicken, or edamame for protein. Swap the cucumber for blanched tenderstem broccoli or raw sugarsnap peas. A spoonful of chilli crisp turns it into a different dish entirely.

Nutrition

Buckwheat is not a wheat at all - it is a seed, closer to rhubarb - and it is unusual among grain-like foods in offering a complete amino acid profile along with a lot of manganese and magnesium. A serving comes in around 480 calories with 17 grams of protein, most of it from the noodles and sesame.

It also holds well: dressed soba keeps in the fridge for two days, which makes this a genuinely good packed lunch rather than one that turns soggy by noon.

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