Ginger Soba Noodles Recipe
Soba noodles tossed with a creamy-ginger dressing and topped with crispy tofu, tarragon, and toasted delicata squash seeds.
Some things I liked about the past few week: The girl with red tights and a banjo at the bus stop. Standing at Ocean Beach to watch the surfers. Roasting a pan of teensy delicata squash seeds. The skater kid wearing Japanese paper tape as rings. Happenstance meeting with Joy & Tracy outside Tartine. Seeing my girl Bea get married in Palm Springs. Reading all your nice notes. Me, Wayne, & lots of pelicans standing the shore of the Salton Sea. And eating these soba noodles for lunch.
For those of you who cook/roast/bake as many delicata squash as I do this time of year - their seeds are really fun. They're tiny and tasty, and because everyone else throws them out, you rarely see them around. It's a bit of fuss, but they're great in salads, pastas, brittle, and the like. Just clean them, dry them, and roast them tossed in a bit of olive oil and salt at 350F until extra golden.
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Ginger Soba Noodles
You can certainly make the dressing a day or two ahead of time. Just give it a good shake and a taste before using - then adjust the salt and balance if needed.
12 oz / 340 g dried soba noodles
Ginger Dressing:
1 tablespoon freshly grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
zest and juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/2 cup / 2.5 oz / 70 g chopped white onion
1 teaspoon mirin (optional)
2 teaspoons brown sugar or honey
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
3 tablespoons brown rice vinegar
1 celery stalk, strings removed, then chopped
1/3 cup / 80 sunflower oil or untoasted sesame oil3 tablespoons of chopped tarragon, plus more to taste
a few big handfuls of cubed tofu, pan-fried or baked until golden
1/3 cup + toasted squash seeds, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, or sesame seeds
Cook the soba noodles in well salted water, drain, rinse under cold water, and shake off as much of the water as possible.
In the meantime, make the dressing by combining the ginger, toasted sesame oil, lemon zest and juice, onion, mirin, sugar, salt, vinegar, celery, and sunflower oil in a food processor. Blend until very smooth, then press aggressively through a strainer. Taste and tweak a bit if needed - the dressing should have a bit of bite, and an edge. It'll hit the pasta and you want it to be able to cut the starchiness. Set the dressing aside.
In a large bowl, toss the soba noodles with most of the tarragon, the tofu, most of the squash seeds/nuts, and about 2/3 of the dressing. Really get in there and toss well. Add more dressing if needed (I use all of it), and season again until the noodles are to your liking. It's nice to serve this with a few wedges of lemon on the side, or a bit of brown rice vinegar. Finish with the remaining tarragon and seeds.
Serves 4 - 6.
Prep time: 10 minutes - Cook time: 20 minutes
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Comments
I love Soba noodles with ginger. Such a healthful dish. I have a few recipes I love for Soba noodles and Asian slaw, but I am definitely going to try yours.
I’ve been thinking about these ever since I saw them, especially since I’ve got a sudden affinity for all things ginger.
Have to try this recipe as soon as possible. Ginger and soba noodles should be so good together.
Hi Heidi,
I’m leaving this comment for the spice-kissed pumpkin pie post. i’ve never had a pumpkin pie before (and i’m 37) and blindly followed your recipe for a thanksgiving party at my child’s school. amazing is the word i heard from everyone:) none believed it had coconut milk in it. it was so silken, with the correct sweetness and the perfect spice mix. thank you for sharing such lovely treasures with us.
This sounds amazing! I love cold soba noodles, especially in summer. I haven’t even used brown rive vinegar before, interesting!
Not only does this dish look and sound wonderful, I love your bowls too!
A fun recipe! I was coming home on the train craving noodles and at the same time my husband texted saying “I’ll cook some noodles for lunch” and this popped in my inbox! We substituted shallots for the onion and sprinkled some grated daikon and toasted sesame seeds on top. Very delish, thank you!!
Hi Heidi, I’m a little late with my condolences for the loss of your beloved cat. I have a couple of four-legged babies and can appreciate the searing loss of one who gets you like no other.
I made these noodles and they were delicious both the day of as well as for lunch the next day. I love really good leftovers that manage to not only maintain the magic of the day before but can mellow and morph into a treat all to themselves. This noodle dish did that for me.
Also, I’m going to Morocco (!!) in February that I somehow stumbled upon via your amazing site. I almost didn’t get in but someone had to back out due to health so the magic dust got sprinkled on my email. I have admired your photography for a long time and I would love the opportunity to ask you a couple of questions about Polaroids before I purchase one if that would be okay. Would this be the right place?
HS: Hi Michelle! Thanks for the nice note. I’ll pop you an email – happy to answer your questions, or point you in the direction of someone who might know better.
This is a healthy response to my pasta cravings 🙂 Loving it!
I love all types of ginger dressing! Thanks for sharing this recipe. I’ve also been making your “easy little bread” recipe a ton lately–love it!
-Jaime
You have some of the most lovely china! Thank you for creating delightful images and sharing culinary inspirations.
I’ve adored your cooking for ages…my hubby is a little…erm…shall we say, less “into” whole foods. In fairness, he loves whatever I make, but will choose Steak Ems and fries if he’s in charge of dinner. I’ve been on a “Heidi” cooking frenzy lately, and completely converting him. This is a must make as my 6 yr is a soba noodle fanatic (truly). Anyhoo, thanks loads for such soulful recipes…xoxo
I love soba noodles, this sounds so yummy. Can’t wait to try!!
Continually impressed with your photography! Your first photo especially is a memorable, I love how you capture the delicious food and the beautiful dish at the same time. Thanks for sharing.
What’s your favorite brand of soba noodles? Some I find have so very little buckwheat content.
Thanks!
An Li
I love the ginger….especially coming into the old season. so fresh and a great immune booster!! thank you!
peace
Mmm I’ve been looking for a light sauce to drizzle over soba noodles. I usually do something with cashew or peanut butter, but this looks wonderful.
@Stephanie the brand I love the most is Eden Organics Buckwheat and Wild Yam, but their Mugwart noodles also add an interesting aromatic to a dish.
Heidi, your recipe is – as usual – stunning, but i’m even more impressed by the gorgeous bowl! Any chance you would share with your readers the source of the bowl?
HS: Hi Nivedita, it was just a garage sale find! 🙂
The recipe sounds great, but what caught my eye was the beautiful china in the photos!
Oh this looks SO delcious! Hedi – I am so grateful to be spending time on your site again! I got a bit carried away with food blogs and have been spending way too much time on sites with banoffee double chocolate marshamallow pie – etc! Ive made some very tasty things – but Im normally such a healthy eater and I think my teeth, my head and my waistline are paying the price – so pleased to have this to come back to! Made your curried lentil soup last night as well and it was delicious!
HS: Welcome back Em 🙂
I can’t believe how well this turned out. I had never used tarragon before and I didn’t like how it tasted raw but it really worked with the acidity of the dressing. I chopped some tarragon into the dressing, added a hot pepper, and didn’t strain it. Thanks for the recipie
This sounds divine! I love ginger dressing on soba noodles– the flavors really compliment each other so nicely! And I find it really inspiring that you roast the delicata squash seeds– just another reminder that we throw away entirely too much perfectly delicious food these days. Can’t wait to make this dish!
Oh I love meals that serve as good, cold leftovers the next day, especially when I can sprinkle them with nuts or toasted coconut. Thanks!
I’ve gotta learn where to find all of these ingredients. The food looks so delicious, though. -And you can’t beat 20 minutes! It looks like something I’d have at a restaurant. Great pics.
gorgeous bowl, gorgeous flavors — the sort that I can taste, without yet having set teeth to them.
I absolutely love this, Heidi! We buy Soba noodles in bulk (I think three pound packets (can’t remember off the top of my head), and whenever I need a satisfying meal in a hurry- I pull them out. This looks absolutely perfect, and I’m sure that I’ll be making this late tomorrow evening, when I get home from school and a three-hour-long meeting.
Also- totally random and unrelated to the post- I think we have the same colander! 🙂
This sounds like perfection…
Soba noodles rock…
I like how you managed to bring in some of fall flavors to this dish. A nice surprise.
looks yummy! is the celery stalk necessary? what does it add?
Never been a big fan of soba noodles but I think that I might change my mind with this recipe.
Gonna try it tonight…
Love & Light
Margherita
I love the combination of textures and tastes here — and ginger is my absolute favorite spice. Thanks for posting a recipe.Your recipes are always so simple, using natural, easy to find ingredients, with suggestions for substitutions! Love it!
What a great recipe and perfect for a packed lunch. It’s so easy to get in a lunch rut; this would be fresh and tasty. GG
This is a really delicious dish. The dressing is very flavorful and is perfect with the soba. I did add some Japanese pepper powder to the dressing which gave it a little more heat and used toasted edamame which I had on hand. Great!
Love the simplicity and versatility of adding extra vegetables to this dish like broccoli and shitakes. Oh, and the tarragon finish is a great compliment.
This was really good, even without the tarragon that I missed because I was hungry and in a hurry to get something made for dinner! Very filling!
I love this recipe! Your recipes are always so simple, using natural, easy to find ingredients, with suggestions for substitutions! Love it!
Looks great. So light yet a perfect earthy, fall dish at the same time.
I love soba noodles, the seeds def. gives this recipe an extra crunch:) I will def. try this one out
I’ve tried baking different squash seeds, but they never seem as crunchy and fresh as the bulk bin from the grocery store. What do you think I’m doing wrong?
I know this is a late response to an old post, but responses seem to be closed to that particular post, so I wanted to say THANK YOU for the golden potstickers recipe! I’m going to make this forever! And, thanks for this recipe too – nice to know what to do with those squash seeds!
How lovely, love your recipe and your thoughts.
take care
I saw this and immediately whipped this up into my lunch! I don’t have a food processor, though so I just ended up eating the chopped onions, and I had only the strongest more tear inducing onions so it has resulted in a much…STRONGER lunch than I had intended, but it was delicious nevertheless! I wonder how it would do with grated shallots. Thanks for the great recipes, as always.
I can’t get enough squash either. This looks lovely. I would never think to pair it with soba noodles. Clever 🙂
The words Soba Noodle and ginger together are music to my ears and when eaten are music to my tummy.
This looks so comforting and yummy. Ginger steals the show everytime! I’ve never thought to roast delicata seeds, but I’ll be trying it out now! Thanks!
This sounds lovely. I’ve been wondering if I could roast the seeds from all the squash I’ve been roasting! Time to re-stock, I guess. Also, ginger makes everything better. 🙂
I recently toasted squash seeds for the first time. The squash was not very good, but the seeds were great, with a soft shell, and very tasty although not very meaty. Next time I roasted seeds from another type of squash (there are so many around now!): the seeds looked plumpier, and the squash tasted great, but I had to throw them away because the shell was too tough.
Toasted squash seeds are a great idea, but they need some experimenting 🙂
This looks amazing. I love soba noodles and the ginger dressing + seeds combo sounds out of this world! Thanks for sharing!
This looks so good Heidi. I’ll definitely make it this week. Thanks for posting so many quick vegan recipes that don’t use a bunch of highly processed meat substitutes. It’s made the transition from vegetarian to vegan a lot easier.
♥happenstance meeting♥
i hope i run into you again sometime soon! that was such a wonderful surprise.
I was introduced to delicata squash in college and we’ve been having a torrid affair ever since!
I recently came across delicata squash for the first time. I had no idea what it was and had to google “yellow squash with green stripes.” I loved it… it was sweet and had a great texture. Also… it’s not necessary to peel, which is a bonus if you hate peeling squash!
It sounds great and perfectly delicious……!!!.
Mmmmmm! I was sold when I saw the chunks of tofu, but the dressing sounds killer and those darling squash seeds stole my heart! I’ll definitely be making this sooner than later.
This sounds like a great dish to pack for lunch. I loved your black sesame otsu and this sounds similar, I think I’ll just throw in some veggies when I try it.
@Maureen: I save the seeds from lots of different types of squash & they’re all good roasted.
I recently used roasted squash seeds as a topping for rice pudding on my blog.
Wonderful! I discovered soba noodles this summer and am always on the look-out for new ways to enjoy them. I already tried your quick peanut sauce (amazing, I blogged about it!) and now I can’t wait to try your ginger sauce. Thank you, Heidi! Thank you always—you inspire so many of my cooking endeavors.
This is perfect for a hot day. It is refreshing, simple and healthy. If lack of appetite, this will be a good meal. 🙂
Soba! So healthy with grains. I do cook soba often, cold in summer and hot in winter.
In Japan, we have soba noodle on the New Year’s Eve at dinner time to welcome the new year which we hope we will be healthy and live long like how soba looks like.
This looks so good! I absolutely love the flavor of ginger, and cook with it a lot.
I’ve never had soba noodles but i’ve been told that i’ll love them once i do! i think this would be a great introductory recipe!
This sounds so yummy!
do remove the seed from the shell or do leave it in, if you don’t then don’t the shell of the seeds get stuck in your teeth even after being roasted, in the middle east they serve these seeds roasted and salted in a bowl with tea or coffee. you crack open the shells with your teeth and eat the lovely seed in the middle.
This may be one of my favorite recipes from you. When I’m not eating vegan junk food I actually eat fairly macrobiotic and this is just the kind of dish I crave! Thank you!
I love using ginger in almost my all dishes, savory and sweet both! I have loved soba noodle, but never made it quite like this. I have to start using mirin more often.
I happened upon the surfers the first Tuesday they were here. So awesome to bike to the beach and then, surprise!, a surfing competition.
I’m a big fan of tofu noodle dishes and LOVE the black sesame otsu dish. This sounds like a lovely one, too.
I love watching the surfers at ocean beach and roasting squash seeds too! I did it with butternut squash recently but haven’t tried it with delicata squash. Looking forward to trying this recipe!
I’m addicted to pumpkin seeds. I grind them and use them on pasta all the time. I’m gluten free, so I use brown rice pasta, but I’ll try 100% buckwheat soba for this tasty treat!
I love roasting squash seeds and snacking on them! In fact, I just did that with some butternut squash seeds tonight :). I’ve had trouble finding delicata squash, where do you normally get them from? I’ve struck out at a few farmer’s markets and grocery stores…
i love soba noodles!!!
What beautiful times you’ve had! Delicious looking meal 🙂
This looks like a delicious lunch!
Soba noodles are one of my all time favorites and this recipe looks fantastic, as always.
I’m really into ginger right now as it has such a nice spice and warms me right up. Roasted squash/pumpkin seeds are also a favorite treat this time of year. Yum.
This is the first year I’ve ever had delicata squash and now I feel like I was really missing out the past 26! I can’t wait to try roasting their seeds – I never thought of that
A lovely and beautifully flavorful meal!
What a wonderful dressing for soba. I love it and can’t wait to share it with others! Enjoy the rest of fall!
This sounds great and perfectly light.
I’m a big fan of the ginger/mirin/sesame/tofu/noodles combo, but it’s never occurred to me to toss it all with tarragon. I’m trying to imagine the sweet licorice bouncing in between these Asian flavors, and just can’t come up with it. I guess I’ll just have to try this out and see for myself. Thanks for the inspiration.
I use a very similar recipe for a backpacking meal. I add reconstituted shitake mushrooms. It always amuses us to be eating such a gourmet meal 12 to 15 miles from the nearest road.
Any chance of some London recommendations soon? We’re headed over there on Saturday and I’ve been keeping my eye out for some trip notes from when you were over there!
HS: Ack – I know! I’m so sorry it is taking so long. Every time I sit down to write it up, I get pulled away. Soon! Go to Morito / St John Food & Wine / Dover Street Market Rose Bakery – more to come, promise.
Heidi – What percentage buckwheat do you prefer and why? I’m new to soba and enjoy it, but am baffled by the range available at the market.
HS: Hi Stephanie – one of the brands that I see in a lot of natural food shops is Planet Organic soba. Those are the ones you see in the photos up above, and I tend to stock up on them when I see them. They’re a blend (of buckwheat & wheat flour) – not sure what percentage offhand though.
I love ginger, so much. And that dressing sounds wonderful.
I love the first picture. It’s dark and a bit moody without being ‘dark’. The bowl is beautiful, the mood is set, the scene is there, the countertop is cold and white, the noodles are warm…no words needed. Just that photo. Beautiful, Heidi!
hmmmm, delicata squash sounds familiar but I can’t picture it. I save pumpkin seeds when I’m feeling industrious and I love pepita seeds.
I recently made a wonderful tahini soba noodles and have enough noodles to give this a try. I love ginger.
I’ve had a packet of soba noodles sitting in my pantry for ages, trying to find the perfect dish to make with them, this (as soon as I get some squash seeds) will be it!
I just made somthing similar to dinner tonight. I sauteed finely shredded cabbage to stir into the noodles. There’s something about slurping gingery noodles this time of year, huh?
Now if only you could have made the girl with the red tights and a banjo this for lunch…perhaps she would have deemed you worthy of a song?
Heidi — I love the combination of textures and tastes here — and ginger is my absolute favorite spice. Thanks for posting a recipe that can easily be made gluten free, too. Have you seen these: http://www.kingsoba.com/organic-noodles-pumpkin-ginger-and-rice.php
pumpkin ginger soba noodles — so fantastic!
Lovely little post…
Your original sesame otsu recipe is still hands down my favorite way to eat soba noodles (and basically asian-style noodles in general…)
I love the idea of the roasted seeds in this though. Thanks for sharing, Heidi
great to know that delicata seeds are edible! i am never sure which kinds of squash seeds are good for roasting, aside from acorn and butternut. does anyone save and roast seeds from other kinds of squash?
I have a box of soba noodles I haven’t figured out what to do with- thanks!
Mmm, delicious! I don’t know what it is about this time of year but I just can’t get enough ginger. The toasted seeds sound so yummy too 🙂
Oh this is a lovely recipe Heidi! It arrives at a perfect time as I’ve run out of steam for our packed lunches, especially on the kind of hot days we’ve been having in Sydney.
Ohhhh, my word. Seriously. Soba noodles rip my heart open and massage it.
y-u-m.
I’ll bet the crunchy seeds on top are the perfect compliment to this dish. Looks fantastic.
I’ll bet the crunchy seeds on top are the perfect compliment to this dish. Looks fantastic.
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