Cabbage yakisoba noodles
Chewy noodles stir-fried with cabbage, carrot and onion in a sweet, tangy, savory sauce, the Japanese street-fair favorite made with packs of instant ramen.
- 25 min total
- 20 min hands-on
- Follow-a-recipe easy
- Serves 2
- About $1.32 a serving
- 790 calories
- Vegan
- Dairy-free
Dolly says: Read the steps once before you start. Everything goes smoother after that.
Ingredients
For 2 servings.
- ½ yellow onion, thinly sliced
- 1 carrot, cut into thin matchsticks
- 3 cups green cabbage, chopped
- 2 tbsp ketchup
- 3 packages ramen noodles, seasoning packets discarded
- 2 green onions, thinly sliced (optional)
From your pantry
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp rice vinegar
- 2 tsp brown sugar
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 pinch salt
Each serving has about 790 calories, 16 g protein, 101 g carbs and 35 g fat, and costs about $1.32 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No yellow onions? White onions or red onions work.
- No green cabbage? Red cabbage or coleslaw mix works.
- No green onions? Chives work.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
the onion, cut the carrot into thin matchsticks, and the cabbage into bite-size pieces.
Thinly slice. Thinly slicing means cutting slices about an eighth of an inch thick, roughly two coins stacked. Thin slices cook in seconds and soften fast, which quick dishes need.
How you’ll know: A slice bends a little when you hold it by one edge, and slow, steady cuts beat fast ones.
Chop. Chopping means cutting food into bite-size pieces that don’t need to be neat. Keep them roughly the same size so everything cooks evenly.
How you’ll know: Your pieces are about half an inch and roughly alike, even if none of them are pretty.
Stir the ketchup, soy sauce, rice vinegar and brown sugar together in a small bowl.
Cook the noodles in a pot of water for 2 minutes, just until they loosen. and them with cold water.
Boil. Boiling means heating a liquid until big bubbles rise and break all over the surface. It’s the fastest way to cook pasta, potatoes and eggs, because it’s as hot as water gets.
How you’ll know: Bubbles are breaking across the whole surface, not just at the edges, and steam is rising.
Drain. Draining means pouring off liquid, like tipping pasta into a colander or spooning extra fat out of the pan. Pour hot grease into a can or jar, not the sink, where it hardens and clogs the pipes.
How you’ll know: Only a few drips are left, and the food isn’t sitting in a puddle.
Rinse. Rinsing means running cold water over rice or canned beans in a strainer while you swish them around. It washes off loose starch and can liquid, so rice cooks up fluffy and beans taste clean.
How you’ll know: The water running out goes from cloudy to mostly clear; it doesn’t have to be perfect.
High heatTimer: 2 min
Dolly’s tip: Undercook them a little. They finish in the pan and go mushy if they start soft.Heat the oil in a large over medium-high until it . Add the onion and carrot and 2 minutes.
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Shimmering oil. Oil shimmers when it’s hot enough to cook: its surface looks rippled and wavy, like heat over a road. That’s your cue to add the food, just before the oil would start to smoke.
How you’ll know: The oil looks wavy and runs thin like water when you tilt the pan, with no smoke yet.
Stir-fry. Stir-frying means cooking small pieces fast over high heat in a little oil, stirring almost constantly. It moves quickly, so have everything chopped and ready before the pan gets hot.
How you’ll know: It sizzles loudly the whole time, and the vegetables turn bright and tender-crisp in minutes.
Medium-high heatTimer: 2 min
Add the cabbage and salt and 3 to 4 minutes, until but still a little crunchy.
Stir-fry. Stir-frying means cooking small pieces fast over high heat in a little oil, stirring almost constantly. It moves quickly, so have everything chopped and ready before the pan gets hot.
How you’ll know: It sizzles loudly the whole time, and the vegetables turn bright and tender-crisp in minutes.
Wilt. Wilting means cooking leafy greens just until they go soft and collapse. Greens shrink a lot, so a big pile of spinach becomes a small handful, and that’s normal.
How you’ll know: The leaves turn soft and deep green and slump into the pan, usually within a minute or two.
Medium-high heatTimer: 3 min 30 sec
Add the noodles and sauce and with tongs for 2 minutes, until the noodles are coated and a little sticky.
Toss. Tossing means gently lifting and turning food so everything gets coated, like pasta in sauce or vegetables in oil. It coats every piece evenly without mashing anything.
How you’ll know: Every piece looks glossy or evenly coated, with no dry spots hiding underneath.
Medium-high heatTimer: 2 min
Pile into bowls and scatter the green onions on top.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
