With LCA being focused on Asian recipes, we’re always on the look-out for a solid noodle replacement and we found one with this authentic Low Carb Japanese Soba dish!
A short while ago, we were walking around Costco when a package that read ‘Edamame Noodles’ caught our eyes.
We picked up the package and once we confirmed that the ingredients and net carbs checked out, we threw it in our cart in anticipation on how they would taste.
A couple of weeks later, we happened to be making some meat sauce spaghetti for our kids when we figured it would be an opportune time to test the edamame noodles.
We followed the very simple cooking instructions on the package and served it over the meat sauce. They tasted OK as a ‘spaghetti’, but it actually had a very similar texture to noodles used in Japanese soba!
This got me very excited because I’ve been wanting to do a Japanese soba recipe for a while, but never found a good noodle to pair it with! The noodles used in Japanese soba have a ‘bounce’ or ‘koshi’ to them and these noodles did a good job of replicating it.
So we went ahead and tested these noodles in some Japanese soba a couple of days later and as predicted, they came out awesome!
For those that have never had Japanese soba, it’s a dish where you dip ‘bouncey’ textured noodles into a cold dipping sauce brimming with soy umami flavors!
Inside the dipping sauce, you can add many different ‘toppings’ such as umeboshi, myoga (Japanese herb), wasabi, etc, but for the sake of accessibility, we only will use green onion and ginger for this recipe.
If you happen to have access to a store where you can access all those different ‘Japanese’ ingredients, by all means, add them into the soba dipping sauce! Japanese Soba is usually served as a cool dish, so a perfect recipe for the upcoming summer!
This dish comes in at ~ 8g per serving, so will fall on the low-carb side, but comparing that number with the traditional Japanese soba that comes in well over 100+ g of net carbs, we think it’s a home run!
Now, let’s get making this Japanese Soba recipe!
- Prepping Time 5M
- Cooking Time 5M
- Total Time 10M
- Net Carb/Serv ~8g
- Servings 2
Ingredients
- 4 oz Edamame Noodles (or Japanese soba noodles of choice)
- 1/3 Cup Japanese Sake
- 1/4 Cup Soy Sauce
- 2 tbsp Sweetener (Monkfruit Erythritol Blend, sugar or sweetener of choice)
- 1 1/2 Cup Bonito Flakes (can sub with 1/4 tsp of hondashi)
- 2 1/2 tbsp Cold Water (add more water for lighter sauce)
- 1 Stalk Green Onion
- 1/2 Inch Ginger
Directions
1) Gather all the ingredients.
2) Boil about 3-4 cups of water in a stove top pot.
3) While waiting for the water to boil, in another stove top pot, add Japanese Sake, Soy Sauce, sweetener and bring to light boil. Once lightly boiling, reduce heat to simmer, mix in Bonito Flakes and simmer for 1 minute. Once 1 minute has passed, remove from heat and set aside. This will be your ‘mentsuyu’ or concentrated dipping sauce.
4) Finely slice green onions and transfer to serving plate.
5) Grind down ginger with grater and transfer to serving plate.
6) Once water is boiling from step 2), add Edamame Noodles and follow cooking instructions indicated on package (ours required to steep in boiled water for 4 minutes). Once cooked, use a strainer and wash in cold water. Transfer to serving plate.
7) Using a strainer, strain mentsuyu sauce into a bowl and use a spoon to push out any excess sauce from the Bonito Flakes. Next, mix 2 1/2 tbsp of cool water into the concentrated dipping sauce and split sauce equally among servings. Note – if you would like a lighter sauce, add more water and visa versa.
8) To enjoy, add selected toppings into the mentsuyu dipping sauce and mix well. Then take a little bit of the noodles, dip into the dipping sauce and enjoy!
Hope you enjoy your Japanese Soba!
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Low Carb Japanese Soba
Ingredients
- 4 oz Edamame Noodles
- 1/3 Cup Japanese Sake
- 1/4 Cup Soy Sauce
- 2 tbsp Sweetener monkfruit erythritol blend, sugar or sweetener of choice
- 1 1/2 Cup Bonito Flakes can sub with 1/4 tsp of hondashi
- 2 1/2 tbsp Cold Water add more water for lighter sauce
- 1 Stalk Green Onion
- 1/2 Inch Ginger
Instructions
- Gather all the ingredients.
- Boil about 3-4 cups of water in a stove top pot.
- While waiting for the water to boil, in another stove top pot, add Japanese Cooking Sake, Soy Sauce, sweetener and bring to light boil. Once lightly boiling, reduce heat to simmer, mix in Bonito Flakes and simmer for 1 minute. Once 1 minute has passed, remove from heat and set aside. This will be your 'mentsuyu' or concentrated dipping sauce.
- Finely slice green onions and transfer to serving plate.
- Grind down ginger with grater and transfer to serving plate.
- Once water is boiling from step 2), add Edamame Noodles and follow cooking instructions indicated on package (ours required to steep in boiled water for 4 minutes). Once cooked, use a strainer and wash in cold water. Transfer to serving plate.
- Using a strainer, strain mentsuyu sauce into a bowl and use a spoon to push out any excess sauce from the Bonito Flakes. Next, mix 2 1/2 tbsp of cool water into the concentrated dipping sauce and split sauce equally among servings. Note - if you would like a lighter sauce, add more water and visa versa.
- To enjoy, add selected toppings into the mentsuyu dipping sauce and mix well. Then take a little bit of the noodles, dip into the dipping sauce and enjoy!
Video
Nutrition
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substitute for Japanese sake?
Hi Kathy! We’ve never tried it ourselves, but we’ve heard Dry Sherry Wine works.