Japanese home cooking: Yakiudon

Haven’t done a post on food in a while, but this is one dish people should know about: yakiudon (焼うどん). Most people who know Japanese have eaten yakisoba which is stir-fried soba noodles, but yakiudon is usually not sold in restaurants. It is more like cheap home cooking since udon noodles are very common in Japanese homes. I can’t tell you how many times my wife has cooked this dish when we have leftovers at home, so let me share with you how it’s done. The recipe is almost too simple to be worth posting about, but think of it as “poor man’s Japanese food”.

You need some basic ingredients:

• A pack of udon noodles, boiled
• Powedered fish stock or dashi.¹
• Thinly sliced “sukiyaki” pork or whatever meat or meat alternative you might have.
• Vegetables, such as carrots, sliced garlic, green beans, mushrooms (crimini, shiitake, shimeji, etc).

The actual recipe is actually very easy. First cook all the vegetables and meat together. Add dashi and season to taste. You can see me doing this here:

While doing this prepare the udon noodles by boiling in a separate pot and then drain the water:

Finally add the noodles to the stir-fry and mix them in evenly. You’re done!

Try this out and let me know what works. Good luck!

P.S. Taken a few weeks ago while we lived in temporary corporate housing after moving back to the US. Everything you see here came with the apartment as our stuff hadn’t arrived yet.

¹ For vegetarians, you may have trouble finding substitutes. I heard you can make dashi by soaking konbu (昆布) seaweed in water overnight, but I couldn’t make it taste good the one time I tried it. As for something like mushroom broth, “Johnl” recommends in the comments below, that dried mushrooms would work. Either way, you need something powdery, or at least pretty salty.