Chef Takumi
Ankake Udon (あんかけうどん)
Winter udon with staying power: clear dashi, a little soy and mirin, and just enough starch to make the broth cling without turning heavy.
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Zaru Soba (ざるそば)
Created by
Zaru soba is summer made plain: cold buckwheat noodles, chilled tsuyu, a little nori, and the discipline to rinse the noodles until they feel clean.
Soups & Stews
Japanese
Weeknight
Quick Meal
Picnic
15 min
Active Time
10 min cook•25 min total
Yield2 servings
Zaru soba looks almost too spare to be a meal. Noodles on a bamboo tray, sauce in a cup, a little wasabi and scallion. Then you taste good soba cold, and the quietness starts to make sense. The buckwheat aroma comes forward because nothing is covering it.
The one detail that decides it is the rinse. Boil the soba until tender but still lively, then wash it under cold running water with your hands until the surface starch is gone. This is not fussing. It stops the cooking, firms the noodles, and leaves each strand clean enough to carry the dipping sauce without turning sticky.
The sauce is tsuyu, built from dashi, soy sauce, and mirin. Make it stronger than a soup because the noodles touch it only briefly. Dip a small bundle, not the whole tangle, and stir the wasabi into the cup if you like it. Put the wasabi on the noodles and it falls off like a bad promise. The way we do it here is simpler: cold noodles, cold sauce, clean hands, nothing hidden.
Soba became closely associated with Edo, present-day Tokyo, where buckwheat noodles were common by the seventeenth century and quick soba shops became part of urban eating. Zaru soba takes its name from the zaru, the bamboo draining basket used to serve the chilled noodles after washing. The distinction between mori soba and zaru soba shifted over time, but in modern use zaru soba is commonly marked by shredded nori on top.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
dried soba noodles
Quantity
200g
dashi
Quantity
1 1/2 cups
soy sauce
Quantity
1/4 cup
mirin
Quantity
1/4 cup
sugar (optional)
Quantity
1 teaspoon
nori
Quantity
1 sheet
cut into fine shreds
scallions
Quantity
2
thinly sliced
wasabi
Quantity
1 teaspoon
freshly grated, or prepared wasabi
ice water
Quantity
as needed
for chilling
reserved soba cooking water
Quantity
as needed
for serving at the end
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| dried soba noodles | 200g |
| dashi | 1 1/2 cups |
| soy sauce | 1/4 cup |
| mirin | 1/4 cup |
| sugar (optional) | 1 teaspoon |
| noricut into fine shreds | 1 sheet |
| scallionsthinly sliced | 2 |
| wasabifreshly grated, or prepared wasabi | 1 teaspoon |
| ice waterfor chilling | as needed |
| reserved soba cooking waterfor serving at the end | as needed |
Equipment Needed
- •Large pot
- •Bamboo draining basket (zaru), or a wide flat colander
- •Small dipping cups (choko)
- •Fine grater for fresh wasabi, optional
Instructions
- 1
Make the tsuyu
Combine the dashi, soy sauce, mirin, and sugar if using in a small pot. Bring just to a simmer, then take it off the heat and cool completely. This is dipping sauce, not soup, so it should taste stronger than you expect. The noodles will only meet it for a second.
Chill the tsuyu before serving. Warm sauce softens the cold noodles and dulls the buckwheat aroma. - 2
Boil the soba
Bring a large pot of water to a full boil. Add the soba and stir gently so the strands separate. Cook according to the package timing, usually 4 to 6 minutes, tasting early. The noodle should be tender through the center but still have a clean bite.
- 3
Save soba-yu
Before draining, ladle out a cup or two of the cloudy cooking water and keep it warm. This is soba-yu, the water that carries the buckwheat starch. At the end of the meal, you pour it into the leftover tsuyu and drink it as a light closing broth.
- 4
Rinse clean
Drain the noodles and rinse under cold running water, rubbing them gently between your hands. Keep rinsing until the water runs clear and the noodles feel firm and slippery, not gummy. This washes away surface starch, stops the cooking, and gives zaru soba its clean finish.
The rinse is the first secret. Skip it and even good soba turns dull and sticky. - 5
Chill and drain
Set the rinsed soba in ice water for a minute, then drain very well. Shake the zaru or colander gently so water does not pool beneath the noodles. Cold is good. Watery is not. Extra water thins the tsuyu before the first bite.
- 6
Serve on zaru
Arrange the soba in loose, lifted folds on a bamboo zaru or a flat basket, leaving space around the noodles. Scatter the shredded nori over the top. Pour chilled tsuyu into small cups and set scallion and wasabi beside them. Dip a small bundle at a time, with the wasabi stirred into the cup, not smeared over the noodles.
Chef Tips
- •Buy soba with buckwheat listed first if you can. Jūwari soba is all buckwheat and has a deep aroma, but it breaks more easily. Hachiwari soba, about eighty percent buckwheat with wheat flour, is forgiving and still very much the real thing.
- •Don't salt the cooking water. Soba is not pasta, and the dipping sauce supplies the seasoning. Salted water only makes the noodles taste oddly blunt.
- •Cut the nori just before serving, or buy good kizami nori in a sealed packet. Nori loses its scent quickly once exposed to air, and zaru soba needs that clean sea aroma without weight.
Advance Preparation
- •The tsuyu can be made up to two days ahead and kept refrigerated. Chill it well before serving.
- •The nori, scallion, and wasabi should be prepared close to serving so their aroma stays fresh.
- •Cook and rinse the soba just before eating. Cold soba loses its clean texture if it sits too long.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 510g)
Calories
460 calories
Total Fat
1 g
Saturated Fat
0 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
1 g
Cholesterol
0 mg
Sodium
1900 mg
Total Carbohydrates
95 g
Dietary Fiber
4 g
Sugars
18 g
Protein
18 g
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