May 10, 2012

Sesame Soba Noodle Salad

soba noodle salad

I'm back!  I had a wonderful, relaxing week on vacation in beautiful Cuba, but now I'm having a hard time adjusting back to work and reality!  I apologize for the lack of posts lately, as well as my delay in checking in with other blogs (I currently have over 800 unread blog posts in my Google Reader to get to!), but I'm hoping this tasty and refreshing sesame soba noodle salad will help make up for it!

This is actually a dish inspired by a meal I ate in a Japanese restaurant on my earlier trip to Singapore.  I wasn't exactly sure what I was ordering when I requested the soba noodle salad, but I certainly didn't expect to see lettuce and noodles mixed together!  I didn't have high hopes for it when it appeared in front of me, but was pleasantly surprised when I took a few bites.  Since the noodles were cold, the whole salad was light and refreshing with an interesting mix of textures that worked well together.  But what really made the dish stand out was the delicious sesame dressing that was served with it.  

You may remember the picture I posted of the dish back in my recap of what I ate in Singapore, where I promised I would try to replicate it back at home.  Well, I stayed true to my word and recreated it the weekend after I got home from that trip!

soba noodle salad 3

The salad part was easy - I just used some of my favourite salad ingredients, topped them with a pile of cooked soba noodles and a garnish of sliced nori and sesame seeds.  The salad dressing was a little harder as I had to play around with different ingredients quite a bit until I found the perfect balance, but I think I ended up with a pretty amazing dressing!

This salad tasted just as good as the one I remembered eating in Singapore - it was cool, fresh, and full of flavour thanks to the filling sesame peanut dressing.  It's great for summer and I will definitely be making this again now that my trip to Cuba has given me a taste of the hot weather I have to look forward to!

soba noodle salad 2

Sesame Soba Noodle Salad

Inspired by a dish I ate at Rakuzen in Singapore

Serves 2

Ingredients:

For the Dressing:
2 tablespoons peanut butter
1 tablespoon tahini
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 teaspoon low-sodium soy sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon minced ginger
1 teaspoon honey
Dash of salt
2 tablespoons water

For the Salad:
4-6 oz soba noodles (depending on desired amount)
Lettuce (desired amount for 2 people)
Sliced cucumber, carrot, mushrooms, and snowpeas (or other desired salad ingredients)

For Topping:
1 sheet of nori, thinly sliced for garnishing
2 tablespoons sesame seeds

Directions:

Cook soba noodles as per package ingredients.  Drain and rinse well with cold water.  Let cool.

In a small bowl, whisk together all ingredients for the salad dressing.  Taste and adjust any amounts to your liking, and add more water to thin it out if necessary.

Divide lettuce and salad ingredients between two bowls/plates.  Top with cooked cooled soba noodles.  Garnish with nori and sesame seeds and serve with sesame dressing.

10 comments:

  1. Yum - this is such an interesting way to eat soba noodles and that dressing sounds amazing! I was definitely jealous of your meal when you ordered this at the Japanese restaurant...that's so cool that you were able to recreated it yourself!

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  2. This looks perfect! I am VERY inexperienced at making salads. The most I can do is romaine and...That's pretty much it. So sad. This is what I want to build up to. YUM!!

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  3. Welcome back! I've been seeing a lot of soba noodle recipes lately, and they all sound so good! This looks amazing - love the idea of a peanut dressing. :D

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  4. Coming back from vacation is always the worst! But it's definitely less bad when you have tasty meals like this to cheer you up!

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  5. I love soba noodles, especially when combined with sesame. Something about the two together is just perfect! I'm glad you had a good trip, but I agree, it's always hard coming back from vacation--you're still in that relaxed mindset, but you have so much to catch up on!

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  6.  haha, fortunately, it's pretty hard to go wrong when it comes to salads!  I'm sure anything you try will be delicious!

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  7.  Thanks!  I love peanut dressings and am definitely going to be using this one on other things!

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  8.  Thanks!  I think I finally just got caught up on things haha it took more time to catch up on things than the time I spent on vacation!

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  9.  Thanks, I'm glad I was able to too, though it wasn't too difficult!

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