New Year’s Noodles are the perfect way to cut off the old year and begin the new year fresh.
ABOUT NEW YEAR’S NOODLES
New Year’s noodles, aka toshikoshi soba (年越しそば), is a dish traditionally eaten as part of New Year’s Eve celebrations in Japan. Fun fact, my first job was as an assistant cook at a soba restaurant. This is why I stand by soba as the best noodles 🫡. You can enjoy soba hot or cold to suit the weather and your cravings. Soba can also be enjoyed however you like with a variety of toppings, but I feel like green onions are always a must! Shrimp tempura is a very popular topping, so I’ve included instructions for it in the recipe below as well! It’s not an absolute MUST for this recipe, but I wanted to include it for you to have as reference as well!
TOSHIKOSHI SOBA SYMBOLISM
The name toshikoshi soba (年越しそば) means “year passing soba” because the dish represents breaking off the old year as you enter the new one. In fact, this is the reason soba noodles are used for the dish. Soba breaks off easier than other noodles, representing breaking off troubles of the old year. Additionally, the thin long noodles also represent health and long life. Typically it’s seen as bad luck to eat this right at midnight because of the overlap of the years. However, whether you eat these noodles on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day is completely up to you! I hope you can enjoy these noodles to close off 2022 and I wish you prosperity in 2023!
COMPONENTS OF NEW YEAR’S NOODLES
- ☆ Soba: Long thin buckwheat noodles. These noodles break off easily, making them perfect for symbolizing the end of the year.
- ☆ Mentsuyu: A savory broth made with bonito stock, soy sauce, and mirin. You can use this for both cold soba and hot soba depending on how you dilute it. For cold soba, it’s referred to as tsuketsuyu (つけつゆ). Conversely, for hot soba, it’s referred to as kaketsuyu (かけつゆ)
- ☆ Toppings: Typically, new year’s noodles has green onion, kamaboko, and chicken. It is also popularly served with shrimp tempura. I like to top new year’s noodles with shrimp tempura because it’s my dad’s favorite, but you can also with a variety of different tempura.
INGREDIENTS (+ SUBSTITUTIONS)
This is a basic list and explanation of the key ingredients. For full list and measurements, please scroll down to the recipe below!
- ☆ Soba
- Most brands of soba you can find in the grocery stores use a mixture of wheat and buckwheat flour. The addition of wheat flour is to help with the texture. Traditionally the best ratio is 80% buckwheat, but it’s hard to tell just from packaging. It’s not super important, so just work with what you can find and what you like!
- ☆ Mentsuyu
- Mentsuyu is prepared by flavoring katsuobushi stock with soy sauce and mirin. You can make mentsuyu completely from scratch, or you can buy a concentrated version in most Asian and/or Japanese grocery stores. This recipe falls somewhere between, as I share a way you can easily make mentsuyu yourself with some pantry staples.
- ☆ Green onion
- Green onions are optional, but they go great with noodles and tsuyu.
- ☆ Kamaboko
- Kamaboko are very popular fish cakes. Many noodle soups, including soba, udon, and ramen, are topped with kamaboko. You can find them in a variety of styles. Additionally, many people cut aka kamaboko in many styles to make dishes more decorative and festive. In 2021 I cut the kamaboko to look like an ox for the year of the ox, and this year because it’s the year of the rabbit, I cut it to look like a rabbit! You can find many videos online on ways to cut kamaboko, so feel free to get creative.
- ☆ Ebi tenpura
- Shrimp tempura are a very popular topping, but this is optional. You can use pan cooked chicken, tempura vegetables, aburaage, tenkasu, etc. instead. I find soba more enjoyable with toppings, so go ahead and top with ingredients you like!
TIPS FOR MAKING NEW YEAR’S NOODLES
- ☆ You can make a big batch of mentsuyu and keep it in the fridge for a week. This lets you enjoy a variety of noodle dishes whenever you want. You can also use this mentsuyu for udon! It’s super versatile for flavoring dishes, so I highly recommend keeping mentsuyu in your home.
- ☆ You can reserve the water you boiled the soba in. This is called sobayu, and it’s rich in nutrients such as potassium, vitamin B, and fiber. Sobayu also aids in digestion, but it also makes a nice warm drink to have after your meal while also minimizing waste of water.
MORE SAVORY JAPANESE RECIPES! ♡
- ☆ Aji Fry
- ☆ Wakame Soup
- ☆ Spaghetti Napolitan
- ☆ Sushi Bento
- ☆ Onigiri
- ☆ Omurice
- ☆ Shoyu Ramen
If you recreate this New Year’s Noodles recipe, please let me know by tagging me or leaving a comment on Instagram @maruryouri or TikTok @atsuryouri. I’d love to see your creations and hear your feedback!
New Year’s Noodles
Ingredients
Shrimp Tempura
- 90 g cake flour
- 180 ml water ¾ cups
- 1 egg
- 1 lb shrimp or prawn
- Neutral oil for frying
New Year’s Noodles
- 4 tablespoons soy sauce 1/4 cup or 60ml
- 4 tablespoons mirin 1/4 cup or 60ml
- 1 teaspoon hondashi powder
- 700 ml water 3 cups (350ml if you’re making tsuketsuyu)
- 2 servings soba 100g each
- Green onion optional
- Shrimp tempura optional
- Kamaboko optional
Instructions
Shrimp Tempura
- Measure out your water and cake flour and store in the fridge while you prepare the shrimp. We want all the batter ingredients to be cold while we work with them.
- Begin preparing the shrimp by peeling and deveining the shrimp. Leave the segment of the shell right before the tail. To devein the shrimp, you can pierce part of the back toward the tail with a toothpick and carefully pull out the vein. Or you can cut a slit down the back and remove it like that as well. Do whatever is easiest or works best for you.
- Next, rip off the pointy part of the tail and lay the shrimp down so that the tail folds in half symmetrically. Cut the tip of the tail diagonally and use the back of the knife to remove the water and impurities in the tail.
- Make 4-5 evenly spaced shallow cuts on the underside of the shrimp on each segment of muscle. Then flip the shrimp over so the cuts are facing the cutting board and firmly press with your fingers until you hear a snapping sound. This is enough to straighten shrimp, but you can also gently pound with the side of your knife for good measure.
- Next we will clean the shrimp. Lightly coat the shrimp with starch and rub around. Then rinse with water until the water is clear. Dry off with a paper towel.
- At this point you can coat the shrimp and any other ingredients you would like to make tempura of with flour and heat the oil to 185°C/370°F.
- Now it is time to make the matter. You want to work quickly to make sure everything stays cold. Crack the egg into the water and whisk until dissolved. Add the liquids to the cake flour and roughly mix with chopsticks to prevent overmixing. You want some lumps left in the batter.
- Once the oil is hot, dip the shrimp into the batter and lay into the frying oil. At this point you can also drizzle some batter over the shrimp and push/roll the shrimp into it. This makes the shrimp prettier and adds more crispy batter bits around, but it’s not necessary! Use a spider to gather and remove any excess floating fried batter bits to keep the oil clean. These bits are called tenkasu and can also be used to top your noodles!
- Once the shrimp has finished frying, remove it from the oil and let it cool on a cooling rack. It’s best if they cool standing upright, but it’s okay if you have to lay it flat. Continue frying until all the shrimp are cooked and let cool.
New Year’s Noodles
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil and cook soba based on package instructions. Once cooked, rinse under cold water and drain thoroughly. Place in your bowl while you prepare the mentsuyu.
- Combine soy sauce, mirin, hondashi, and water in a saucepan. Let it come to a simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally to dissolve the hondashi. Once simmering and steaming, remove from heat.
- Simply ladle the mentsuyu over the soba and top with your desired toppings, and the new year’s noodles are done! 完成です！