It’s summer now although I don’t feel like it sometimes because I live in San Francisco, California. Summer is San Francisco could be cold and gloomy. When it’s warm and summer-like, I crave something cool and refreshing to eat at night. I like salad but salad could be boring sometimes. When I want something raw but not I am not in the mood for salad, one of my go-to is a raw vegetable noodles dish. My favorite raw vegetable noodles are cucumber noodles. They are easier to digest than raw zucchini noodles. I like to eat them with a variety of sauces. One of my favorite sauces is basic Japanese dipping sauce (麺つゆ). You can buy pre-made non-vegan dipping sauces in a bottle at a Japanese supermarket but I haven’t found a vegan one. Basic Japanese dipping sauce for noodles is usually made with fish broth. The vegan version of basic Japanese dipping sauce for noodles is very easy to make and can be stored in a fridge for a few days. I’ll show the step-by-step instructions here but the shorter version of the recipe and the listing of ingredients are at the bottom of this post.
- Soak dried shiitake mushroom and kombu in water and leave it for a few hours to make dashi (broth). See recipe for basic vegan Japanese dashi.
2. Remove dried shiitake mushroom and kombu from the water. You only need 1/2 cup of dashi to make this. Save the rest for other uses.
3. Melt sugar in hot water and poor it into 1/2 cup of dashi.
4. Add soy sauce and salt into dashi and mix well. The sauce has a caramel color.
Today I’m going to use the sauce with cucumber noodles. I usually use Japanese cucumbers or English cucumbers for noodles because they are less watery and seeds are smaller compared to big American cucumbers. I am using a julienne peeler to make noodles today but you can use a spiralizer if you have one. I actually like noodles made with a julienne peeler better than the ones made with a spiralizer because they are thinner.
You can use this sauce for any type of noodles – cooked ones like soba, udon etc. or raw vegetable noodles. To garnish, you can add chopped green onions (scallion). I used green onions to garnish the sauce and topped noodles with finely-cut nori and purple shiso. Cold soba noodles (zarusoba – ざる蕎麦) usually has these finely-cut nori on top for presentation and taste.
- 1 dried shiitake mushroom
- 1 konbu (kombu) - Kelp (1½ inch square)
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 2½ teaspoons coconut sugar (or sugar of your choice)
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup water to make dashi
- 1½ tablespoons hot water
- Soak dried shiitake mushroom and kombu in water and leave it for a few hours to make dashi (broth)
- Remove dried shiitake mushroom and kombu from water
- Melt sugar in hot water and poor into ½ cup dashi (broth). Save the rest of dashi for other uses.
- Add soy sauce and salt into dashi and mix well
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