COLD NOODLE SALAD

a Copycat recipe of my favorite salad from Japhy’s Soup + Noodle House in arcata, CA

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup Carrot, shredded

1/4 cup Peas (optional)

1 cup Mung Bean Sprouts

Salad Dressing of choice

3 oz Protein*

1 serving Noodles**

2 cups Salad Greens

1/4 cup Corn

DIRECTIONS

*Protein Note: This salad is great with sliced chicken, fried or baked tofu, tempeh, or roasted garbanzo beans, and I’ve never made it with steak, but I’m sure it would be amazing.

**Noodles Note: I typically use ramen or udon noodles for this, but soba noodles or rice vermicelli work, too! I have a plan to try Shirataki noodles soon.

 

Prepare your protein. If I am using chicken, I use Tare Chicken.

The photo above is from a salad I made using tofu, so I’m going to outline that process here.

  1. Slice squares of tofu, dry each one off with a paper towel and drop them into a pan with a little neutral high-heat oil. Cook for 1-2 minutes on each side, flipping them until you can see they are crisping up a little on the edges. At this point, you can throw in a couple of dashes of soy sauce, some coconut aminos, fresh chopped garlic, and ginger to make the tofu extra delicious, or you can just remove the tofu and let it rest on a paper towel.

  2. Boil your noodles per the instructions on the package, remove them from heat, strain, and rinse with cold water until no heat remains. If you’re going to use these immediately, that’s perfect, you can toss them right in your salad bowl. If you need to set them aside to be used in a few minutes, add a couple of dashes of sesame or avocado oil and coat the noodles so they don’t stick.

  3. To build your salad, start with the noodles on the bottom, surround those with your fresh salad greens, and top the bowl off with shredded carrots, corn, sprouts, and peas (if you decided to use them). Lastly, strategically place your protein to make your salad “pretty”… or just toss it on top because you can do whatever you like in your own kitchen.

  4. The salad dressing I use for this is someone else’s secret recipe so I can’t share it, but if you make or buy your favorite dressing, I’m sure it will be perfect. Some of my favorite dressings to use on this salad are miso, citrus vinaigrette, peanut, green goddess, tahini, sesame soy, or balsamic vinaigrette. Something with a little savory tang works really well, so be as creative as you want.

  5. Feel free to garnish the salad with fresh chopped green onions, cilantro and/or sesame seeds, but that’s totally optional.

  6. These toppings are totally up to you, you can replace the corn with baby corn, or replace it with beets for all I care - if you know me at all, you know my line of thinking is the more vegetables, the better. Just don’t skip the noodles. It’s sort of the basic foundation of the salad. However, I imagine some zucchini noodles would be perfect as a noodle replacement. So now I have to make that too…. shit.