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
- 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 Kosher 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, optional)
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.
It all looks so delicious. I made a similar cold (somen) noodle dish but with tahini paste and shredded green onion and carrot over which to place grilled teriyaki salmon today. Just two servings and I can barely keep myself from going to the fridge to eat the other portion as a late night snack because it was so good. 🙂
This looks so good for hot days, I love your soy & ginger dressing!
Nami this is a beautiful dish and one I would love to make. I’ve copied it to my ZipList to try when I get back from vacation as well.
Your photo is so pretty and vivid. I really need to take some lessons.. I have several books but there’s just so many hours in the day to post, read, etc. I think a lesson would be helpful. What kind of camera do you use and editing software?
Hi Vicki! Every photo shoot, I’m struggling and learning to take good pictures. These noodles were really hard to take pictures especially composition. 🙁
For photography, I have a post about food photography and my camera/software info:
https://www.justonecookbook.com/food-photography-resource/
Hope that is helpful…
Hi Nami – I love cold ramen noodles. My 8-year old does too and I was just talking about getting some since it’s so HOT here right now! I love having your homemade dressing recipe – the packaged ones are tasty but I know it’s not very good for you. I would love to try your recipe and make a healthier version. Thanks for sharing! Enjoy the rest of your trip!
Hi Nami, thanks for sharing this wonderful recipe. I have eaten this a few times in Jap restaurant, now I can make this with your recipe (never knew how to do the dressing correctly at home). Thanks again 🙂
I know how you feel…it’s been raining here for the last 4 days and now with the high temps I can’t take a breath, that’s how humid it is. Hiyashi Chuka looks so beautiful and deliciously presented, real feast for the eyes, too. I wish I had that for my dinner–I am always ready for any ramen noodle dish 😀
I really love the variety of cold noodles Japanese cuisine offers. It’s always hot here and I can always do with a cold bowl of noodles. 🙂
Your Hiyashi Chuka looking so yummy!!!
Your mother must be very proud of you, Nami-san. Your kinshi tamago are perfectly cut into bright little yellow stripes. Bravo!
And yes hiyashi chuka is one of the best meals on a sultry summer evening!
Really terrific looking dish – I love all the flavors in this, and the food styling is exquisite. That shrimp looks so terrific. I don’t believe I’ve ever had cold ramen noodles before, but now you’ve got me craving them. So of course, at least for me, this post was a big success! Really good stuff – thanks so much.
I sure would love to have a bowl of this refreshing noodles!
Looks great! Can I replace ramen with soba?
Sure, or if you can find somen noodles or udon noodles, they are probably better kind of noodles with this dressing. 🙂
Great idea to enjoy Ramen in summer, this looks delicious 😀
Cheers
CCU
Am smiling Namiko-san: it must be really freezing in Australia at the moment as I cannot imagine eating noodles cold! Oddly enough I have never come up against all the cold Japanese noodle dishes just about everyone else has and really have to make acquaintance with them our next summer season. Your dish looks very pretty and I would copy it exactly except for the ‘pretend’ crab which is one of my unfavourite things 🙂 !
Haha! I love the word “pretend” crab! I’m unfortunate that I became allergic to crab at early 20s… so sad as it’s one of my favorite seafood! I can eat little bit, but I usually stick with “fake” crab just in case… =P Enjoy real crab for me!
All my family including my sisters love this cold noodle dish. The only thing is that we can only eat the store bought one because we don’t have any recipe nor we know how to make it. So, thank you Nami for sharing the recipe. Now I can make it from scratch without all of the additives that come with the dressing of store bought ramen.
Yum! I love cold ramen salads. My husband and I will often go out to a restaurant to get them, why I never thought to make them at home is a mystery. I will have to change that ASAP. Starting with this recipe. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
I love cold noodles! It’s great during the summer time when you don’t want to be bothered slaving over a hot stove. This looks delicious Nami!
I’ve never had cold ramen before but I’m really excited to try it! Jason and I love ALL VARIATIONS of ramen!
Nami, I’m not sure we have fresh ramen noodles on Guam, I’ve never seen the cold noodle packages sold here. We have something similar but in hot soup flavors (I can’t recall their names). These noodles are coated with something white and powdery. Would it be safe to use these instead of what you use? If not, do you have a substitute noodle to recommend? Thank you
Hi Vanessa! You can use the regular (hot) fresh ramen noodles, and those white powders are flours to separate the noodles so it’s safe to use. When you drop the noodles, make sure to separate noodles so they don’t stick each other. 🙂 You can use somen or udon noodles, soba is okay too, but I’d prefer somen/udon to eat with these toppings. 🙂
Hi Nami,
Thanks for the quick response! I’m thinking ill use udon noodles instead, but I only have the dried version not the fresh frozen type. I hope this would be fine to use as well. Going back to the ramen noodles here on Guam, I noticed that after cooking them, they are sticky. If I should use these, will rinsing them (as you instructed) take care of the stickiness? Thanks
I like Sanuki Udon, but if you cannot find it, then dried udon is perfectly okay! About ramen texture, the noodles can get sticky from the following reason 1) overcooked 2) not rinsed enough and there is too much starch (but I’d say it’s more “slimy” than “sticky”…). Or simply the kind of noodles is different. I’m not sure about this brand and kind of noodles so it’s a bit hard to tell. 🙂 Hope rinsing will help!
My goodness that looks good. Seriously though, I think you could make a dirty rag look delicious. 🙂 I love, love, love your photography.
This looks so delicious and refreshing! I think the sauce is the most important part of the dish and I can’t wait to try this recipe. So happy you and the family are having a grand time in Japan!
Agree, sauce is the most important part! Thank you so much for your kind words, Donna! xo 🙂
that’s a colourful looking dish 🙂
This Ramen dish looks amazing Nami! I love all cold noodle dishes especially during the summer time too and this ramen dish looks so refreshing! Love all the wonderful colors too 🙂
Nami – funny, we both have been thinking about cold noodles in this hot weather! Yours looks so pretty. I’ve never tried Japanese chili oil – what does it taste like?
This is so delish, I can have this cold noodles no matter what the weather is, any day. Glad you’re having lots of fun in Japan. I’m living vicariously by following your activities. Enjoy all of it. Thanks for sharing this terrific recipe, Nami !
Oh heavens, that looks amazing. I’ve never tried a cold Asian noodle salad before, but I may just have to rectify the situation with this one. That dressing on its own looks delicious.
Oh, I know I would love this one! It would be perfect for the hot weather we are having back here at home too 🙂 Hope you are enjoying your vacation!
Looks so good! Just the perfect thing to make on this hot day in LA! Thanks!
Thank you Julia! Yeah I already had this three times since I came to Japan… LOL. Perfect summer meal!
Nami, this is such a beautiful dish. With a good sauce, a cold noodle is very nice during the summer especially. I like the colorful shot.
Hi Nami! I love your cold soba recipe that you posted previously and have been using it weekly for one of my weekday lunches.
Now I am going to try this cold remen recipe!
Cold noodles sound pretty wonderful considering the heat lately! Such beautiful presentation with all the sliced veg and egg strips too.
Oh looks delicious – I remember delicious Chuka ramen in Sapporo.
I didn’t think it was possible to make Ramen so gourmet! Really awesome!
these photos are beautiful Nami!! What a wonderful recipe!! Hope you are enjoying yourselves on the trip!
As always, your dishes look perfect! Do you think some lotus root or daikon would go well? I’ve noticed the grocery stores here in Okinawa have an abundance of them lately 🙂
Hi Jordyn! Thinly sliced and julienned Vinegared renkon may go well with this Hiyashi Chuka, but hmmm daikon may not go so well. 🙂
Looks wonderful! Absolutely perfect for the hot days we’re having.
Love cold noodle dishes. In Korea i used to eat something similar with whole wheat noodles and spicy sauce and some cucumbers. Loved it! Especailly on hot summer days!
This meal looks sensational, Nami! So colorful and scrumptious. I’d love to make it for myself! Thanks so much for sharing.
This looks so refreshing! It’s incredibly hot and humid here in Georgia too so cold foods are so desirable right now.
What a nice colorful dish this is… It looks so delicious and I love the idea of cold ramen. Thanks for sharing
Hi Nami! It’s been so long since I last had ramen, and I have a feeling that’s going to change with this refreshing salad! Love the homemade dressing as, you’re right, the ones that come in the bag are just terrible..although extremely satisfying when eaten at night. I emphasize night as in right before going to bed. Then I look like jiggly puff the next morning which is no fun. Thank you for sharing!
What a perfect meal for the hot days of summer! We’re all about cold salads with a mix of fresh ingredients and a little protein. Have never thought about using fresh noodles, but that might just have to change. I do love the look of this salad and those fresh ramon noodles look SO good. Where would I find them at the Asian market – in the freezer section, refrigerator section? This salad looks like our kind of meal!
Hi MJ! It should be in refrigerator section, but it can be in freezer section if there is no demand. In my store, it is in the same section as fresh ramen noodles. 🙂
Ah now this looks fantastic. It’s perfect for these hot summer days we are having. Everything looks so fresh. Thanks for sharing this recipe, Nami!
Oh this does sound like a perfect dish for the hot summer months! I love your dressing recipe, it would be delicious even on lettuce salads:-) Beautiful, Hugs, Terra
I would love some hot weather, Nami! It’s very cold here. I can imagine that in hot weather a cold dish like this would be very welcoming. I love the sound of your homemade dressing – it must have plenty of flavour xx
My God, Nami, this ramen looks amazing 🙂
This is such a colorful dish Nami I cannot help but desiring it! Perfect!
Oh it does look so delicious! I can’t wait for warmer weather.
Pop over and say hi, we are doing winter warming food at the moment. 🙂
I’ll take ramen any way!!
Cold ramen… what a fun meal. I hope the weather cools off for you there… but with delicious meals like this you may not mind the heat. 🙂
It looks comforting and yummy!
Beautiful!!!! I always love this and now with your details and easy to follow recipe. I can whip it up anytime whenever I crave for this 🙂 Thanks Nami!
本格的！私は’中華三昧’ですよ。トッピングの錦卵にはお砂糖入れないし（ダイエットのため）し、エビも面倒だから省いて、ハムのときゅうりの千切りくらいかな。それにしても、きれいな写真。 かなりおいしそうです。You’re awesome!
Nami, what a stunning presentation of this fabulous recipe – I love everything about this, the name, the dressing, the fresh ingredients and the pictures too – we are in the midst of a heat wave around here and I would love to have this for dinner tonight – goodness, this looks sooo fabulous!
Dear Nami, I hope you are having a wonderful summer vacation with your family – we still have two weeks to go before the school years ends.
Nami this look really delicious and I love how you make!
This looks absolutely delicious and comforting, I’m definitely sharing this one!
This is perfect food for hot and humid weather. And it is such a lovely presentation. Love how you did your healthy version of the dressing.
I love those noodles!
Beautiful dish! makes me want to grab a fork and just dig in.
I’m the opposite here! It’s cold and I am off to check out your ramen recipe instead! LOL Although pregnancy does funny things and who knows how my body temperature changes and I might use this recipe instead! This is a delicious one pot meal.
I am a huge sucker for ramen noodles and I love the way you cooked it with the flavors and the shrimp! My friend this is beyond amazing and delicious looking. I hope you are having a great summer! It is hot here in Houston but not as hot as it has been in previous summers so that is something to be thankful for right? LOL!
Your recipe is amazing. Thanks for sharing.
I love Japanese food its very easy to cook and save the time and enjoy with family thanks for the quick recipe sharing here and i like your selected picture to help me more..
Looks super delicious, the sauce sounds so flavorful!
What a mountain of yumminess! My kids love ramen, but I have never served it cold. I think I just want all of those toppings!
What a fantastic dish for these hot summer days… I think I might try and make it for my wife on the weekend. I’ll go for real crab though… can’t stand the imitation stuff. Don’t think I’ll be able to get some fresh ramen before then though… hmm, I’ll have to think what I have in the house. Maybe I could use udon and make some sort of hybrid dish, since I have dried udon and soba already.
Bring on the heat because that is beautiful. GREG
Hey Nami!! Are you blogging whilst you’re out on holiday/vacation? 🙂 Gosh those ramen noodles look good and the ingredients that you’ve added to compliment it. So hungry now… 😀
Hi Cristina! Yeah I’ve been a little bit too busy to post frequently but I haven’t abandoned my blog yet. 😀 Thank you for your kind words! Hope you are having a good summer so far. xo
Ooh I love chuka dressing so I’m going to give this a go! 😀 It’s so flavoursome for so many dishes 😀
Thank you for the amazing and easy idea! You can have so many combinations with the vegetables you have using this sauce.
Loved the egg crepes.
Yummy!
fantastic, i love to try it right now
Even when the weather’s crazy hot, I don’t have many cold recipes to cook in summer 🙂 I usually cook something hot as per usual and finish off the meal with ice cream or something haha….. I’ll have to bookmark this recipe for when the warmer months come around! Looks so delicious, and I love the colours!
Nami, I must be completely crazy because when I saw this post it was extremely hot here too and instead of making something logically cold and refreshing, I started to crave hot ramen so much, I had some in the middle of the day. This beautiful cooling dish reminded me that I haven’t had my beloved ramen for ages.
I have never had hiyashi chuka, so thank you once more for one more wonderful recipe. I love very single ingredient and actually happen to have most of them at home. Maybe this weekend?
Love hiyashi chuka, takes me right back to tokyo july 1990 and sooo hot and humid like I never felt before, my friend yumiko introduced me to these chilled noodles and I survived on them on many hot days, we are having a heat wave now so this is a perfect time to try your recipe, oishiso 🙂
Hi Ran! Arigato! It was nice to hear your hiyashi chuka story! Japan’s summer is so humid and hot and we definitely enjoy eating cold noodles. I’ll post 2 more cold noodles recipes and hope you will enjoy them this summer. 🙂 Thank you for following my blog!
Oh, this is perfect for our hot weather here. I shall try this out one day. Thanks for sharing.
Just mouthwatering….looks delicious!
What a great meal for a hot day! You took beautiful pictures of the dish. You need to teach me some photo taking skills. =)
Hi Candice! Thanks for your kind words. Every photo shooting is practice for me…until I really understand everything. I’m not very technical so it takes extra time to learn. 😉
Delicious!!! Love the ingredients and everything in it, definitely perfect for Summer days. We had heat wave about a week ago where it hit 106F in Concord. I’ll keep this recipe handy and try this soon.
My husband is completely into ramen these days and you know how fussy he is usually with food. I bet he would enjoy your ramen dish with the prawns. I for sure would go crazy for it, looks so tempting Nami!
I love all of these colors! Absolutely beautiful Nami!
子供の頃の夏の食卓を思い出します。長い間食べていませーん！ああ、日本の夏を思い起こしながら作ってみようかなあ。本当に美味しそう！！！
I would love to have some of this right now. It`s so hot, I can`t bear to eat any noodle soup. Haha. I need to try more cold noodle dishes. 🙂
Hi Nami – hope you are enjoying your summer vacation. Been busy here, haven’t stopped by in a while. Love this dish, so colorful and summery. And the second shot with the noodles is fabulous!
LL
This is a perfect recipe for a hot Summer day! Cold Ramen – I am craving it!
I’ve never had cold ramen, and this looks really good! Especially for those hot days — the temps here recently got up to 99, with a “feels like” temperature that was even higher.
Wow, I must admit cold ramen is not a dish I have had before but it sounds so delicious with that dressing and those toppings. Yum!
Dear Nami, greetings from Singapore!
I am a great fan of cold ramen served in Japanese restaurants. From your recipe, I am delighted to know that I can preparecold ramen by myself.
I intend to prepare the cold ramen for following day’s lunch, is it advisable to prepare all the ramen & dressing on the night before & store them in the fridge? Will the quality or taste be affected?
Hi Lisa! Thank you for visiting my blog! Compared to freshly made Hiyashi Chuka, I have to say the taste and texture won’t be the same if you make it in advance. You can cut cucumbers, hams, eggs etc (toppings, basically) and make the dressing ahead of time but please try to cook the noodles on the same day at least? Maybe it’s just me, but I am very particular about texture of noodles and I don’t like them to be soggy and not fresh. Hope this helps. 🙂
This dish originates from China, hence the name. Cold sesame noodles are very common all over the east coast of China, and have been served for quite some time.
Hi Marcus! Yes, all the 中華 recipes have sesame oil in it and the Japanese love the flavor!
Your recipes all look so delicious!!! My husband is Japanese and I am mainly Hawaiian/Irish. I don’t know any japanese recipes. I have a question though. Is there any non seaweed/seafood dashi recipes? My mother in law is allergic to anything from the sea which really limits me from using a japanese recipe. Thank you for all the mouth watering recipes 🙂
Hi Alina! Thank you! I have a lot of readers who have a Japanese husband like you and try to cook Japanese dishes for him. 🙂 Non-seafood dashi will be kombu if you don’t consider kombu as seafood. It’s kelp, and I’m not sure how your mother-in-law feels about kombu from the ocean…maybe allergic also? Another good dashi is dried shiitake mushroom. It has great flavor to it, so you can soak the shiitake to rehydrate and reserve that liquid for cooking. We don’t necessarily call it “dashi” but it’s better than using water in terms of flavor. Hmmm other than that, everything else includes fish (dried bonito flakes and dried anchovies). Depending on the dish, you “can” use chicken stock too. But usually flavor is too strong unless you cook Japanese chicken dish. If you have a specific recipe you want to try that includes dashi, let me know. I can maybe say you don’t need dashi (esp. if it’s 2 Tbsp. etc). Hope that helps! 🙂
can i make this the night before for next day’s lunch?
Hi Jill! Ideally, boil the noodles and pour the sauce before you serve. That way, the texture of the noodles is best and noodles won’t get soggy. You can cut all the ingredients for toppings on previous day. However, if you absolutely don’t have time on the day, then make the noodles on previous day, but please pour the sauce right before you serve. Hope this helps!
なみさん、日本食が恋しくてなみさんの写真じっくり観させてもらいました。とってもいい写真にワクワクさせられました。長ーい間頑張っているのですね。これからも応援しています！
お久しぶりです！いやぁ～、Emiさんのように写真を上手に撮れたら、きっともっともっと読者も増えるんでしょうけど、なかなか写真は（特にEdit）難しいです。結構限界きてます（笑）。もしEmiさんが近所に住んでたらだったら、是非写真のコンサルタントとして依頼して、撮影してるところで色々アドバイスを頂きたい位です。頑張ります・・・。
Emiさんもブログ続けて下さいね！
My relative recently recommended that I eat hiyashi chuka since it’s been so hot. I found your recipe and tried it out. The husband and I love it! I know that I could buy bottled sauce but the recipe that you provide is so tasty. Thank you for sharing!
Hi Kathy! I’m so happy to hear you liked Hiyashi Chuka. I love cold noodles in general (like Cold Tanuki Udon) and I can’t live without it in the hot summer days. I’m happy to hear you liked the homemade Mentsuyu too! 🙂 Thank you for your kind feedback! xo
Nami,
I made this for dinner tonight and it’s absolutely perfect for summer. It’s 98 degrees in NM today, so turning on the oven at all, or the stove for long, just isn’t an option. I’ll be doing your cold udon noodles in the very near future.
I did have one question for you… would the method for cooking the shrimp work with any alcohol? Or is it something specific to sake? I was curious if I could use vodka for a shrimp cocktail.
Thanks, as always, for the fabulous recipe.
Hi Madeline! So sorry for my late response (I was traveling…). I hope you enjoy cold udon. I make it at least twice a week with different toppings. Sure, you can use vodka for a shrimp cocktail. White wine etc works too. You don’t need much, but the alcohol evaporate with unwanted smell. 🙂 Thank you for reading my blog!
Just an FYI for all of those folks who may have switched, or wanted to, to a low(er) carb diet: we have made this recipe with zucchini noodles on a Spiralizer and cut the sugar in the sauce in half. It is obviously not the same recipe, but for those that are seeking a lower carb alternative, it will give you hope. I apologize to the traditionalists who think giving up noodles and rice are crazy.
Hi Jason! You’re kind and polite. Thank you for sharing your low-carb option! My readers and I appreciate your feedback! 🙂