Cool down and relax with this Japanese Cold Ramen dish called Hiyashi Chuka. It’s a bright, flavorful, fun way to experience the magic of ramen on a hot summer day!
As the temperature and humidity soar in Japan in the late summer, I just want to eat chilled noodle dishes like cold soba or cold udon. But when it gets extra hot, like it did this year when the rainy season ended two weeks early, all I can think about is the flavorful, rainbow color of toppings on a bowl of cold ramen called Hiyashi Chuka (冷やし中華).
Today, I’m sharing a Hiyashi Chuka recipe with my favorite soy-sesame homemade noodle dressing.
What is Hiyachi Chuka?
Hiyachi Chuka literally means “chilled Chinese”; however, it is a Japanese dish with chilled ramen noodles and various colorful toppings, including strips of egg crepes, cucumber, ham, and imitation crab. Be creative and add your favorite toppings to this hiyashi chuka. If you are vegetarian, omit ham, shrimp, and imitation crab, and add your favorite veggies instead.
Finally, a soy sauce or sesame based dressing is poured over the dish. Although the store bought hiyashi chuka package comes with dressing, it has lots of MSG and preservatives. For a healthier option, you can easily make the dressing at home. The dressing recipe I specified below is more than enough for 3 servings of cold ramen, in case you want to add more toppings than what I have included.
On hot days, a cold noodle dish like Hiyashi Chuka is a delicious nutritious meal to cool your body down, while filling up your tummy. Now go ahead, pick up some ramen and your favorite toppings, and create this cool Japanese dish!
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- 6 Tbsp soy sauce
- 4 Tbsp sugar
- 3 Tbsp rice vinegar
- 2 Tbsp sesame oil (roasted)
- 2 Tbsp water
- 1 Tbsp white sesame seeds (roasted/toasted)
- ¼ tsp ginger (grated)
- ½-1 tsp la-yu (Japanese chili oil)
- 2 large eggs (beaten)
- 2 tsp sugar
- ¼ tsp salt (kosher or sea salt; use half if using table salt)
- neutral flavor oil (vegetable, canola, etc)
- 6 shrimps (+ 1 Tbsp sake)
- 1 Persian/Japanese cucumbers (or 1/3 English cucumber, julienned)
- 1 iceberg lettuce (shredded)
- ½ tomato (cut into wedges)
- 3-4 slices hams
- 4-6 imitation crab meat (kanikama) (or crab meat, shredded)
- Kaiware radish sprouts
- chicken tender (steamed, shredded)
- bean sprouts (blanched)
- dried wakame seaweed
- shredded nori seaweed (kizami nori)
- 3 package ramen noodles (1 package = 6 oz) (or chukamen noodles, See Notes) (GF Ramen Noodles)
- 1 Tbsp white sesame seeds (roasted/toasted)
- Japanese karashi hot mustard (optional)
- pickled red ginger (beni shoga or kizami beni shoga) (beni shoga, optional)
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Gather all the ingredients.
- Combine all the noodle dressing ingredients in a medium bowl and whisk all together. You can keep it chilled in the refrigerator.
- For eggs, you make thin egg crepe and cut into thin strips (Kinshi Tamago). If you want to make super thin crepe, follow my recipe here (How To Make Shredded Egg Crepe). Whisk together the eggs, sugar and salt. Heat the oil in the pan over medium heat. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and cook on both sides.
- Cool the crepe and slice into very thin strips.
- For shrimps, bring a small pot of water to a boil. Add sake and shrimp and cover with the lid. The alcohol in the sake will help remove the smell and tender the meat. Turn off the heat when the color of shrimp started to change and let it cook with remaining heat. Do not overcook otherwise shrimp will become hard. Transfer shrimps to a plate and let them cool.
- Cut all the topping ingredients.
- For the noodles, bring a pot of water to a boil and add the noodles, separate the noodles before dropping into water. Cook according to package directions. Drain the water and rinse the noodles to remove starch. Soak the noodles into a bowl of ice water to cool. Drain completely and divide the noodles on plates/bowls.
- Place all the toppings and pour the dressing before serving. Serve with karashi hot mustard and pickled ginger on the side, if desired.
Ramen noodles: I used GF Ramen Noodles.
Recipe by Namiko Chen of Just One Cookbook. All images and content on this site are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without my permission. If you’d like to share this recipe on your site, please re-write the recipe in your own words and link to this post as the original source. Thank you.
