stuffed somen salad

Stuffed Somen Salad

August 17, 2007 Other Recipes

Every year the weekend of Thanksgiving, my Japanese great aunts throw a huge Christmas party. The entire family is invited, so it’s a huge day of craziness, fun, and tons of really good Japanese food. I have fond memories of eating sushi and somen salad (somen is a type of Japanese noodle) and watching while all the adults played white elephant. Unfortunately, once I started performing Nutcracker every year the party conflicted with the performances, so I haven’t gone since I was pretty young.

I have been craving somen salad for a while now, but I didn’t know what it was called so I couldn’t ask my mom about it. So of course I was elated when I walked into the kitchen a week ago and smelled the dressing! She put the somen salad in inari packets… just when I thought somen salad couldn’t get any better! Believe me… this is heaven!!! I really could eat this the rest of my life… it’s pretty light but still makes a good meal, and it’s sooooo good! Just try it… I promise that you will love it too!

(Why is my somen salad funny colors? I happened to have some purple sweet potato somen in my pantry, so I used that for the somen salad! It definitely made the appearance more interesting, however I was a little disappointed that it didn’t affect the taste at all.)

stuffed somen salad

Ingredients
  • 1 package aburaáge
  • 8 oz or 2 bundles of somen noodles
  • 1/2 cup shredded nori
  • 1 small Japanese cucumber, finely chopped (use regular cucumber if you can’t find Japanese cucumber)
  • 6 oz imitation crab, finely chopped
  • 3.5 tbsp sugar
  • 3 tbsp rice vinegar
  • 3 tbsp sesame oil
  • a dash of mirin
Cooking Directions
  1. Break each bundle of somen noodles into thirds.
  2. Boil a pot of water.
  3. Add the somen and carefully stir.
  4. Boil for 3 minutes.
  5. Drain and rinse with cold water.
  6. Mix the sugar, rice vinegar, sesame oil and mirin together in a small bowl.
  7. Mix noodles with nori, cucumber, imitation crab and sauce together.
  8. Prepare the aburaáge, but don’t prepare any sumeshi.
  9. Stuff each piece of aburaáge with about 1/4 cup somen salad. Be careful… the somen salad is slippery so it can be a bit difficult to stuff the aburaáge.
  10. Enjoy!

9 thoughts on “Stuffed Somen Salad”

  1. Yvo -

    Mmm, sounds yummy. I first heard of somen salad from Avenue Food’s blog, and then I keep hearing about it since! I still have to find the aburage that you have cuz the only kind I can find are the really complex instructions one =T
    Also after I first heard of it, I went to this Japanese supermarket/superstore and they had a somen server thing for parties- it was a giant plastic contraption that you’re meant to put ice water in, then the somen noodles, then turn on the “fan” thing that blew/propelled the noodles to go around and around the water/moat thing. It was weird/interesting… lol 🙂

  2. Allison -

    It is GOOD. 😀 Wow… that somen server thing sounds fascinating… hehe I’m such a dork I would sit there watching the noodles go around. 😛

  3. Sarah -

    I made this yesterday. And again today. Sooo good! I’ve had it for three meals so far and packed it in my bento for tomorrow. I did find that the inari packets overpowered the salad if I stuffed them, so I’ve been cutting them up and putting the pieces on top! Thanks for the recipe!

  5. Allison -

    😀 I love this stuff, and I’m glad to hear you like it too! Isn’t it just soooo good? See, I’m like obsessed with inari so I LOVE the pouches… but I totally understand that not everyone is as inari-obsessed as I am hehe. Sounds like a fantastic idea!

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