udon noodle soup

Whenever the weather gets colder, I naturally start turning to noodle soup dinners to warm us up inside & out. Udon noodle soup is one of those dishes that I very seldom make but should make more often now that the winter months are amongst us.

Udon is a thick Japanese noodle that is made out of wheat-flour. It’s used usually in hot noodle soups in Japanese cuisine. It’s chewy and has a very slippery consistency. If you aren’t skilled in chopsticks, you should stick to a fork, as they’ll probably slip right out of your grip :)

This is actually my favorite noodle to cook with and to eat. I’ve always loved the thickness of these noodles and I like how chewy they are.

There are various ways to make udon noodle soup and there’s no ‘correct’ way. It really varies by region and also by how you want it to taste. The broth that the noodles are cooked in is called a dashi stock. It’s the base broth that makes the soup. It’s usually a light brown color. Dashi is made out of bonito flakes and soy sauce. You simmer the soy sauce and bonito flakes in chicken broth and that’s where you get the flavor from! If you aren’t familiar with bonito flakes, I have a picture of it below. You can find these at your local Asian market.

I made my udon noodle soup with white miso paste (you can find this at the Asian mart too), dry seaweed, chicken broth, bonito flakes, and green scallions. This is a very versatile dish and you can add virtually any kind of meat to this as well as tofu (which is pretty common — I just didn’t have any on hand) and mushrooms.  This dish takes no time to make (just look at the recipe — 4 steps!). It’s a one-pot dish that is ready in roughly 15-20 minutes! It has great flavor and it’s really something to warm yourself up to after coming in from the bitter cold :)