Vegan Hiyashi Chuka is a Japanese cold ramen noodle dish with an assortment of toppings doused in a delicious sesame sauce. A light and refreshing meal perfect for the summer months!
Every year, noodles seem to be my choice of carbs during the summer months. There are just so many delicious cold noodle dishes that speak to me like this Vietnamese Noodle Salad and this Sesame Miso Soba Salad. Today, I’ll be sharing another one of my absolute favourites, something I grew up eating often: Hiyashi Chuka! AKA Japanese Cold Ramen, with a ton of toppings all soaked up in a delicious sesame dressing.
What is Hiyashi Chuka?
Hiyashi Chuka, in english is translated in to “chilled Chinese”, but this is a Japanese noodle dish that features chilled ramen noodles with an assortment of toppings. It can really be anything you like or have on hand, but typically the noodles are topped with vegetables such as cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots and beansprouts, and a protein such as ham or chilled chicken. However, something that is almost always included is a crepe egg and a delicious sauce. There are two very popular sauces served with Hiyashi Chuka: a soy sauce based sauce and a sesame based sauce. Today, I will be sharing my favourite sesame dressing to serve with this cold ramen noodle salad!.
What does Hiyashi Chuka taste like?
Think of it like a Japanese cold noodle salad. Chewy curly fresh ramen noodles and a variety of fresh toppings with different textures. That gets all sauced up with a nutty savoury sesame sauce. It has the perfect balance of both rich and lightness, making it an ideal summer meal.
Ingredients to make Vegan Hiyashi Chuka
Like I mentioned earlier, this Japanese cold noodle salad typically included a meat and egg but this can easily be made vegan!
- Noodles: Ramen noodles are the way to go with this recipe, specifically fresh ramen noodles. I’ve been able to easily find fresh ramen noodles in asian grocery stores, but your next best choice would be dry ramen noodles. The noodles shouldn’t be too thick or too thin, with a slight yellow tint and curliness in appearance. If you’re not able to get your hands on ramen noodles, soba noodles (while not the same) is also very delicious!
- Vegetables: any fresh vegetables will work but think textures! Cucumbers, corn, mung bean sprouts, daikon, lettuce tomatoes, carrots… etc.
- Protein: Replace the ham with vegan ham (I used Tofurky ham slices) and the egg crepe with an egg mix alternative (I used the brand Eggcited). If you don’t have access to vegan ham or egg, feel free to substitute them with more vegetables, it’s just as delicious!
- Garnishes: Japanese hot mustard, pickled ginger and/or scallions.
How to make Japanese chilled ramen
- Mix together the dressing ingredients and keep in the fridge to chill.
- If using an egg, fry the egg omelette style.
- Bring a pot of water to a boil.
- While waiting, prep all your ingredients by slicing them into thin strips. For my Hiyashi Chuka, I used cucumber, carrots, corn, tomatoes, vegan ham and vegan egg.
- Once the water gets boiling, cook your noodles according to the package instructions, just until they have a nice chewy bite.
- Drain the noodles and quickly rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process and to chill the noodles.
- Serve the noodles into a shallow bowl, top with all the toppings and pour over the delicious sesame sauce.
And thats it! Making Japanese chilled ramen is suppose to be easy and quick, for minimal cooking in the kitchen.
Tips & Tricks to making delicious Vegan Hiyashi Chuka
- When working with fresh ramen noodles, break up the noodles with chopsticks and slowly stir between the strands of noodles. Once cooked, immediately rinse with cold water to chill or they become soggy after time.
- When choosing your vegetables, incorporate different textured vegetables: crunchy, soft, toothsome, juicy… etc.
- If you enjoy a lighter dressing, try the soy sauce option! Here is my go-to soy sauce dressing for hiyashi chuka: 1/3 cup soy sauce, 1 tbsp water, 1 tbsp sugar, 3 tbsp rice vinegar, 2 tbsp sesame oil, 1/2 tsp grated ginger, 1 tsp hot chili oil & 1 heaping tbsp of sesame seeds.
More noodles to love!!
- Vegan Bun Chay
- Sesame Miso Noodle Salad
- Pad Thai Zucchini Noodles
- Vietnamese Noodle Salad
- Vegan Yakisoba
- Vegan Japchae
If you recreate this Hiyashi Chuka recipe let me know how you liked it by leaving a comment and rating below or by tagging me on Instagram @Okonomikitchen, I love seeing all of your tasty recreations!
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Hiyashi Chuka
- Total Time: 20
- Yield: 2 servings 1x
Description
Hiyashi Chuka is a Japanese cold ramen noodle dish with an assortment of toppings doused in a delicious sesame sauce. A light and refreshing vegan meal perfect for the summer months!
Ingredients
Sauce:
- 3 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp rice vinegar
- 2 tbsp roasted sesame butter
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- 2 Tbsp water
- 1/2 tsp ginger, grated
- 2 tsp sesame seeds
Ramen:
- 2 servings fresh ramen noodles (200g)
- 1 small tomato, sliced into quarters
- 1 small cucumber, thinly sliced (100g)
- 6 small slices of vegan ham, thinly sliced
- vegan egg, optional
- 1/3 cup corn (100g)
- 1 tablespoon sesame seeds
- Hot Japanese mustard (optional)
Instructions
- Mix together the dressing ingredients and keep in the fridge to chill.
- If using a vegan egg, fry it egg omelette style.
- Bring a pot of water to a boil.
- While waiting, prep all your topping ingredients by slicing them into thin strips.
- Once the water comes to a boil, cook the ramen noodles according to the package instructions, just until they have a nice chewy bite.
- Drain the noodles and quickly rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process and to chill the noodles.
- Serve the noodles into a shallow bowl. Add all the toppings on top of the bed of ramen and pour over the sesame sauce. Garnish with sesame seeds, pickled ginger and hot mustard if desired.
- Prep Time: 10
- Cook Time: 10
- Category: Entree
- Method: Stove top
- Cuisine: Japanese
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Serving
- Calories: 807
- Sugar: 12.92g
- Sodium: 1847mg
- Fat: 28.4g
- Saturated Fat: 3.68g
- Unsaturated Fat: 19.5g
- Trans Fat: 0.08g
- Carbohydrates: 111g
- Fiber: 7.56g
- Protein: 30.63g
- Cholesterol: 0
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Looks delicious and I will make it. I noticed that in the body of the text the sauce calls for 3 Tablespoons of sugar but in the recip it calls for 1 T! I would have cut the sugar down anyway, but is that a typo or just a sweet variation?
1 is correct! just updated thank you 🙂
The creamy sesame dressing was so good I wanted to drown in it hahah I also love that you only need 1 tbsp for the sauce which makes it so easy and minimal mess. Perfect dish for a hot day.
Made the sauce and used it as a dressing for a salad tonight: romaine and spring mix greens topped with carrots, celery, tomatoes, cucumbers and some spicy fried tofu (from your tantanmen recipe). SOOOOO yummy! My husband and I shared two big bowls of salad for dinner tonight. It’s a HIT!! Mahalo for such yummy recipes!
Looks so vibrant and delicious.
Hi Sheenam! Thank you so much 💗