Soba Salad

For my mom’s 60th birthday celebration, we had a big BBQ at my parent’s house and enjoyed grilled meats and veggies.  This refreshing soba salad dish came from my mom’s friend and it was a huge hit!  The ingredient quantities are very flexible… I just started throwing stuff in…

Melanie’s Soba Salad (recipe courtesy of Melanie Gong)

Ingredients:

NOTE on quantities:
For 1 box (1 lb) Spring Salad Mix, 1 container of firm tofu, ½ bag of edamame, 1 bunch of green onions, ½ red, yellow, and orange bell peppers each… will require at least 1 cup of dressing and 4-5 bunches of soba noodles

Salad base items:

• Soba or Buckwheat noodles
• Spring Salad mix
• green onions, diced

Salad optional items:

• carrots, julienned
• red / yellow / orange bell peppers, julienned
• cooked edamame
• cherry tomatoes, halved
• firm tofu, drained and cubed
• cooked shrimp

Dressing Ingredients:

• soy sauce
• sugar
• olive oil
• rice wine vinegar
• sesame oil
• roasted sesame seeds

Directions:

Make the dressing by combining equal parts soya sauce, sugar, olive oil and rice wine vinegar (i.e. ¼ cup of soy sauce, ¼ cup of sugar, ¼ cup of olive oil, and ¼ cup of rice wine vinegar) in a container with a lid that you can shake up.  Add about 2 tablespoons of sesame seed oil and 2 heaping tablespoons of roasted sesame seeds for each cup of dressing made.  Shake to dissolve sugar and shake dressing before it is served on the salad.  Dressing can be made in advance.

Prepare soba noodles as per package.  Rinse in cold water and drain well.  Once the noodles are drained well, add some of the dressing to marinate the noodles.  The dressing will also prevent the noodles from sticking together.

Combine the base of the salad in a large salad bowl – spring salad mix, green onions, and soba noodles.  Add all the other salad ingredients and toss in the dressing.  Add fresh ground pepper to taste.