Topped with crispy shrimp tempura, fish cake and sliced scallion, this steamy bowl of Soba Noodle Soup is one of my favorite dishes to enjoy on the New Year’s Eve. In Japan, it is a tradition to eat soba noodles on this day.
Hot and Comforting Soba Noodle Soup
Attempting to warm up my cold hands by holding the warm bowl, I slurp away the noodles inside the steam coming off from the piping hot broth. On a cold rainy day or when I feel under the weather, a bowl of hot noodle soup never fails to bring me great comfort. I always prefer udon or ramen over soba noodles when it comes to hot noodle soup, except for one day out of 365 days. I must eat hot soba noodle soup on the New Year’s Eve.
How To Make Soba Noodle Soup 温かいお蕎麦の作り方
Warm soba noodle soup in a delicate kombu dashi. Topped with shrimp tempura, kamaboko, and sliced scallion, this authentic soba noodle soup is enjoyed by the Japanese on New Year’s Eve.
Why Do Japanese Eat Soba Noodle Soup on New Year Eve?
New Year’s Eve is called Ōmisoka (大晦日) in Japanese and it’s a Japanese custom to eat soba noodles on Omisoka. We call this tradition Toshikoshi Soba (年越しそば) or year-crossing noodle. The custom and its name differs by region in Japan, but this tradition started around Edo period (1603-1867). There are several theories why we have this custom and here are some well-known ones:
- Long thin soba noodles symbolize a long life.
- Buckwheat can survive severe weather, which represents strength and resiliency.
- Goldsmiths use buckwheat flour to gather gold dust, which symbolizes good fortune.
- Soba noodles are easily cut while eating, which symbolizes letting go of hardship of the year.
Simple Toppings for Soba Noodle Soup
For Toshikoshi Soba, the noodles are often eaten plain without any toppings, or with just chopped scallions. I like mine to be simple too as we usually eat Toshikoshi Soba before midnight. Some people top them with tempura or fish cakes. Some eat cold soba instead of soba in hot soup. Today I’ll show you the Soba Noodle Soup recipe which I would normally prepare for regular meal. In this recipe, the dashi broth is flavored with kombu, bonito flakes, and the usual Japanese seasonings like mirin, soy sauce and sake. When the nutty buckwheat noodles immerse in the hot broth, you’d get a bowl of noodle soup that is light yet no lack of umami complexity.
This Soba Noodle Soup will keep you nourished and leave you a warm fuzzy feeling inside out. What a wonderful dish to welcome the New Year! Do you have a New Year’s Eve tradition where you are from or live? I’d love to know.
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- 4 cups water (4 cups = 1000 ml)
- 1 piece kombu (dried kelp) (4" x 3” = 10 cm x 8 cm)
- 1 cup katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes) (1 cup = 10 g)
- 2 Tbsp mirin
- 1 Tbsp sake
- 2 Tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp kosher/sea salt (I use Diamond Crystal; Use half for table salt)
- 7 oz dried soba noodles (buckwheat noodles) (7 oz = 200 g)
- 1 Kamaboko (fish cake)
- 2 frozen shrimp tempura
- 1 bunch komatsuna (or spinach)
- 1 green onion/scallion (or Tokyo negi) (1 scallion = 3" Tokyo negi)
- Shichimi Togarashi (Japanese seven spice) (or Ichimi Togarashi) (See Notes)
- [Optional] Soak kombu in water overnight (if you have time).
- Transfer kombu and water into a saucepan. Bring the water to a boil. When it’s almost boiling, remove kombu from water and discard.
- Add katsuobushi and simmer for 30 seconds. Then turn off the heat and let katsuobushi sink to the bottom of pan. Let Katsuobushi steep for about 10 minutes.
- Strain the dashi over a large strainer lined with a paper towel set over another saucepan. Gently twist and squeeze the paper towel to release any remaining dashi into the saucepan.
- Add mirin, sake, soy sauce, and salt in the dashi and bring the soup to a boil. Set aside until warming up later.
- Insert a knife at the bottom of kamaboko to separate it from the wooden board. Then cut the kamaboko into ¼” slices.
- Slice green onion thinly and cut komatsuna into 2 inch pieces.
- Boil the komatsuna in salted water. I first boil the hard bottom parts of komatsuna since they take longer to cook. Then add the leafy part later. Once they are tender, take them out and soak in ice water to stop cooking. Drain well.
- Bake shrimp tempura at 400F (200C) for 15 minutes, or according to the package instructions.
- Meanwhile boil two large pots of water (See Note). One for cooking soba noodles and the other pot for warming up the noodles after washing them. Cook soba according to the package instructions less 30 seconds*. Mine says cook for 4 minutes, so I cook 3 minutes and 30 seconds. Unlike pasta, you do not need to add salt to the water.
- Drain the soba noodles and wash the noodles with hand under cold water to get rid of slimy texture.
- Then transfer the soba noodles into the other pot of boiling water to warm up the noodles again. Once they are warm, drain and place them into a serving bowl.
- Pour hot soup over the noodles and place toppings. Sprinkle shichimi togarashi or ichimi togarashi if you like it spicy. Serve immediately.
You can use Ichimi Togarashi or Shichimi Togarashi (Japanese seven spice)
* If you want to save time, just boil one pot of water, cook according to the package instructions (4 minutes), rinse under cold water, and then put the noodles directly into a bowl.
* If you have Mentsuyu, you can dilute it with hot water to make a soup broth.
* Adjust the seasoning as you like - to make it saltier or sweeter. I intended to bring out good dashi flavor so my seasonings may be too light for some of you.
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 and link to this post as the original source. Thank you.
I just discovered your blog recently and have begun trying your great recipes. I grew up in NYC eating at the many great Japanese restaurants in the East Village and now I’m thrilled to try making the food at home!
My question is about the kamaboko. It is sold frozen. I cut it like you suggested without any problems. But I noticed you didn’t cook it in the broth. How should I properly prepare frozen kamaboko?
Hi YC! I’m happy to hear you started to cook Japanese food at home! 🙂 I wish Kamaboko is not always sold frozen here (In Japan, it’s always in refrigerated section only. Kamaboko stores would claim that the quality will go down, but I guess we are lucky we can still get kamaboko here even it’s frozen. Kamaboko is already processed so you can eat it without cooking. It’s enjoyed in both non-cooked and cooked. You will need to defrost it one day before and have to use it in less than a week. Hope this helps!
HELLO NAMI
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU AND YOURS.
HERE IN SPAIN THE TRADITION IS TO EAT 12 GRAPES AT MIDNIGHT ONE FOR EACH MONTH OF THE YEAR TO BRING LUCK. I HOPE I CAN FIND ALL THE INGREDIENTS HERE IN SPAIN
THANK YOU
Happy New Year Margaret! It’s interesting and fascinating! Thank you so much for sharing the tradition in Spain! I appreciate your kind words and support. 🙂 I know, I wish a lot of Japanese ingredients are available in Spain…
Hi Nami! I have finally acquired most of the ingredients needed to make this truly delicious looking soup. I only need to get some mirin and the king prawns. We have a very rainy week here in Slovenia, so I’m looking forward to warming my family up with the broth! ? I’ll be making this for 4-5 people, but it’s my first time making something like this, so I’ll use some help from my obaachan ☺️ I was just wondering though, are the dishes using sake and mirin suitable for children? I know that some alcohol would evaporate, but I don’t know this recipe well, so I wouldn’t mind some guidance ?
Hi Greg! Japanese don’t particularly worry about mirin and sake especially when it’s cooked (I read somewhere that it evaporate very quickly once it’s cooked and said even after opening the bottle, basically saying not to worry). However, if you’re worried, at step 4, you can first put sake and mirin in a small pot and let them evaporate for a longer time. Then add it to dashi. That way, you can make sure to evaporate alcohol. 🙂 Hope this helps!
Hope this dish will warm up everyone! 🙂
Great recipe and the cultural lesson about eating soba on New Year’s Eve was also very interesting.
Hi Mike! Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed reading this post. 🙂
Some people eat Black Eyed peas on New Year’s Day here in the South.
Hi Christina! Yes, I learned about it from JOC readers a few years ago. I’d love to visit the South one day and try the food there! 🙂
I spent a couple of weeks in Japan and found a very small place to eat lunch. I had
what they call ed yokasoba soup. Im sure I am not spelling it correctly. I have tried
several soups by that name but they were not at all like that in Japan. Do you have a recioe for the real soup.
Hi Bob! Thanks for writing! Hmmm… the name you wrote does not make sense, so I tried to understand what it could be…
Ed – is it Edo (like it means old Tokyo)?
Yokasoba – is it Yakisoba (but that is not a soup, it’s stir fried noodles – https://www.justonecookbook.com/yakisoba/).
I was searching in Japanese to see a similar word for soba menus, but I couldn’t find that sounds similar to Ed Yokasoba…. Could you describe what’s in there besides soba and soup broth?
Nami Sensei! If I want to make this today, how long should I let the kombu soak? What is the shortest amount of time???
Arigato gozaimasu!
K
Hi Kristin! Sorry for my late response. I had a crazy busy week and failed to respond in time. I’m sorry. Step 1 is optional, so you can just do Step 2. Use a low heat to slowly bring the water to boil, so you can get maximum flavor out of kombu. 🙂
Hi Nami, thank you for this recipe. If we would like to make the dashi by just using a dashi packet (instead of making homemade dashi), then would we still add the mirin, sake, soy sauce, and salt after simmering and then removing the dashi packet?
Thank you!
Hi Sarah! Yes, I would make dashi first before adding condiments. 🙂
How do I make this vegetarian? Can I replace the soup base with shiitake dashi? Thanks 🙂
Hi Ju! I’d use Kombu Dashi. If you really want to use shiitake dashi, you can add some part of it but not the entire shiitake dashi as it’s too strong. 🙂
Thank Nami 🙂 so do i still keep the same amount of kombu in this recipe? 1 piece of 4″ x 3″ or should i add more to replace the bonito flakes. thanks! 🙂
Hi Ju! Yes, use the same amount. It should be enough, but you can add more if you feel it’s not enough next time. 🙂