Last Updated on February 14, 2021
Summer time in Florida can be brutally hot but it’s nothing compared to the summer heat in Japan. It is super humid and all you crave is cold dishes like this! It is oil-free (except the natural oil of avocado) dish and it doesn’t leave you with a heavy stomach.
The dish has udon noodle in soy sauce based sauce made with ginger and lime, topped with avocado, red onion, cherry tomatoes, cabbages, scallions, and cilantro. Lime and cilantro add a Southeast Asian flavor to the Japanese udon. By the way, for many Japanese, cilantro is a very acquired taste ingredient. Actually, we use to hate cilantro as well but now we put it just about anything! Honestly, being vegan opens up our mind to many unknown territories and ideas. Also, we love any sort of raw onion-like flavor; red onion, scallion, shallots, chives just to name a few, so we tend to use a lot of them (we must smell really bad…) If you are not a big fan of such strong flavors, use a moderate amount.
For the udon noodle, we like thick ones for the hearty and chewy texture. Unfortunately, this type of udon noodle is available only in the freezer section in Asian markets where we live. But it’s not all bad. It’s actually a great time savor since it’s already cooked and frozen so it takes only 60-90 seconds to be done! Of course, you can use any other types of udon noodle for this dish.
The sauce requires no cooking! Just put all ingredients together and it tastes great! We have a slight different preference in saltiness of food. Good news is that you can adjust the saltiness of the sauce just by adding more/less water! If you are not much of a saucy-person and ended up not using all the sauce, you can save it and use it later for stir-fry veggies or noodle which is what we did. We made stir-fried udon noodle the next day.
Udon with Lime Ginger Soy Sauce (Cold)
Ingredients
Sauce
- 1/2 cup soy sauce
- 1/4 cup lime juice
- 1/3-1/2 cup cold water
- 1 1/2 tbsp grated ginger
- 1/2 tsp grated garlic
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper powder
- 1 tsp sugar
The Rest
- 1 cup shredded cabbage
- 1/2 cup bean spouts
- 1 scallion thinly sliced
- 2 blocks (8.8 oz each) thick udon noodle (we use frozen one)
- 1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion
- 4 cherry tomatoes halved
- 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
- 1 Hass avocado halved then sliced/diced
Instructions
- In a large pot, start boiling water for cooking udon.
- In the meantime, make the sauce. In a medium bowl, combine soy sauce, lime juice, water, grated ginger, grated garlic, cayenne pepper powder, and sugar. Mix well and set aside.
- In another bowl, combine cabbage, bean sprouts, and scallions and marinate with 3 tbsp-1/4 cup of the sauce. Let marinate for 2-3 minutes.
- Start cooking udon in the boiling water according to the direction on a package. Transfer to a big bowl of ice bath then use a colander to drain. Rinse under running water. Shake off the excess water.
- Assemble. Place udon in a bowl. Pour the sauce over then top with the cabbage/bean sprouts/scallion mixture, red onion, cherry tomatoes, cilantro, and avocado.
Notes
- Adjust the saltiness of the sauce by controlling/adjusting the amount of water.
- Using frozen udon is a great time saver. It takes only 60-90 seconds in boiling water to be cooked.
