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What is Yaki udon?
Yaki udon (焼うどん) is a type of Japanese stir fry dish made with thick udon noodles. There are many different ways to make yaki udon. You can use different meats, various vegetables and even different sauces. There are no rules when it comes to yaki udon!
In my recipe, I flavor the dish with soy sauce, butter, and garlic. It’s quick, easy and tastes so good!
How I Developed This Recipe
When developing this Yaki Udon recipe, my initial idea was to base it around mayonnaise, a popular choice for yaki udon in many Japanese home kitchens. To add depth and richness to the dish, I incorporated the classic Japanese golden combination of soy sauce, butter, and garlic. This trio of flavors works wonderfully together, enhancing the mayonnaise base with savory, aromatic notes.
This recipe is not only flavorful but also incredibly quick to prepare – it can be made in just about 15 minutes. It’s perfect for those days when you need a satisfying, delicious meal but don’t have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen.
Try this Yaki Udon for a quick lunch!
Ingredients & Substitution Ideas
- Udon Noodles: Essential thick wheat noodles. Pre-boiled udon is the best choice for this dish.
- Chicken Breast: Chicken thigh or other meats like pork, beef, or seafood are also suitable.
- Green Cabbage: Common in Japan, but other cabbage varieties work well.
- Yellow Onion: Thinly sliced; white onions are an alternative.
- Bell Peppers: Thinly sliced; any color is suitable.
- Fresh Garlic: Grating is recommended, though garlic paste is a convenient substitute.
- Unsalted Butter: Use unsalted butter to control salt levels or adjust other salty ingredients if using salted butter.
- Oyster Sauce: Adds depth to the dish.
- Soy Sauce: Kikkoman is an affordable and quality choice. For more information, see my soy sauce guide.
- Japanese Mayonnaise: Kewpie mayonnaise is ideal, but other brands are fine.
- Green Onion: Used as a topping; more details are available in my negi article.
The only thing you need to keep in mind is the water content. If the water content in the substitute ingredient is too high, this can cause the other vegetables to start steaming and become soggy, so be careful!
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Jump to Full Recipe MeasurementsVisual Walkthrough & Tips
Here are my step-by-step instructions for how to make Japanese Chicken Yaki Udon at home. For ingredient quantities and simplified instructions, scroll down for the Printable Recipe Card below.
For efficiency in the kitchen, I recommend washing and cutting all of your ingredients in advance.
The cabbage can be cut roughly as it’s already thin and cooks quickly, but I recommend cutting it into thin slices of similar sizes for the rest of the vegetables. Thinner slices mean faster cooking time; if the pieces are uniform, they’ll cook at the same rate.
You’ll notice that there are both red and green bell peppers on my chopping board. That’s just for extra color. Feel free to use any color you like!
Cutting the vegetables to the same size and thickness will ensure quick and even cooking.
The first step in the cooking process is to melt the butter and add the garlic. This will help infuse the flavors essentially. You will make your garlic butter. Do this over low heat to stop the garlic from burning.
Next, turn up the heat to medium and add the chicken pieces. Adding the chicken early gives it plenty of time to cook all the way through, and the surface will pick up the flavor of the garlic butter.
Cooking the chicken in the garlic-infused butter will help the chicken stand out in the dish!
Stir fry the chicken until the surface is sealed on all sides.
Once the chicken is sealed, add the cabbage, onion, and bell pepper, and then drizzle in the oyster sauce and half of the soy sauce. Stir fry until vegetables are softened slightly. This will take about 4 minutes or so.
You might find it strange that I use half of the soy sauce when adding the vegetables, but it’s not a mistake! I add the other half later when I add the noodles. This is because I want to flavor the vegetables and noodles separately.
If you add all the soy sauce initially, the flavor becomes lost and doesn’t reach the noodles. If you add it all at the end, the vegetables don’t have time to soak up the flavor, and everything becomes jumbled together.
Once the vegetables are softened, add pre-cooked udon noodles to the wok and stir fry for about 3 minutes.
Finally, add the rest of the soy sauce and a generous sprinkle of black pepper. Stir fry for 1 more minute.
Jump to Full Recipe MeasurementsFAQ
Yaki (焼き) is the Japanese word for “fry” and appears in the names of lots of fried or grilled dishes, for example, takoyaki (fried octopus balls), yaki onigiri (fried rice balls) and yakisoba (fried noodles). In fact, when I think of Japanese stir-fried noodles, the first thing that comes to mind is yakisoba. But how is yakisoba different to yaki udon?
Yakisoba and yaki udon use many of the same ingredients. The most obvious difference is the type of noodles used in the dish. Yakisoba is an iconic street food dish made with ramen-style noodles called “chukamen” or “chuka soba,” whereas yaki udon is, of course, made with udon noodles.
However, it’s not only the type of noodles that set the dishes apart.
The biggest difference between yakisoba and yaki udon is the type of sauce used in the dish.
The most well-known type of yakisoba is “sauce yakisoba” (ソース焼きそば) and is most commonly made with a savory and slightly tangy Worcestershire sauce-based sauce.
On the other hand, yaki udon is more commonly fried in a soy sauce base and then drizzled with Japanese mayonnaise. Of course, this is not a strict rule, and many different types of yaki udon exist. It also depends on the region and family too. (Check out my shio lemon shrimp yaki udon here!)
Did you know that the mixture of soy sauce and butter is one of the most loved condiment combinations in Japan? I mean you can find soy sauce and butter-flavoured things everywhere, from vegetable side dishes to meat recipes like butter shoyu steak, or even in snacks such as potato chips.
Adding garlic to the golden combo makes it even more golden in my opinion!
One of my favorite things about the food communities in Japan is they make everything sound like a big deal and create competitions nationwide. Yaki udon is no exception.
As I mentioned before, there is no real rule about what to include in yaki udon (except, of course, udon noodles). Now, many different regions across Japan have created their own regional versions of yaki udon.
Here are a few examples:
Iwatemachi yaki udon (岩手町焼きうどん): Iwate Prefecture – Pork, cabbage, carrots, and udon noodles stir-fried and seasoned with salt and white pepper
Hatogayashi Sauce yaki udon (鳩ケ谷市ソース焼きうどん): Saitama Prefecture – Pork, cabbage, beansprouts, onion, carrot and udon noodles fried in a Worcestershire-based sauce.
Kameyama Miso yaki udon (亀山みそ焼きうどん): Mie Prefecture – Pork, cabbage, onions, and udon noodles stir-fried in a red miso sauce.
Horumon yaki udon (ホルモン焼きうどん): Hyogo Prefecture – Yakiudon made with “horumon” offal and stir fried in salt, pepper and soy sauce.
Kim Toma yaki udon (キムトマ焼きうどん): Gunma Prefecture – Udon with kimchi and tinned tomatoes
And since 2011, there has been an event called the “National Yaki Udon Summit (全国焼うどんサミット)” where yaki udon recipes from different regions compete.
It might come as a surprise that this even is a pretty big deal, Japanese people take food very seriously you know!
I hope you enjoy this Chicken Yaki Udon recipe! If you try it out, I’d really appreciate it if you could spare a moment to let me know what you thought by giving a review and star rating in the comments below. It’s also helpful to share any adjustments you made to the recipe with our other readers. Thank you!
More Stir-fry Recipes
Chicken Yaki Udon (Garlic & Butter Soy Sauce Fried Noodles)
Ingredients
- 2 portions udon noodles pre-cooked, ready to use type
- 200 g chicken breast bitesize pieces
- 130 g green cabbage roughly cut
- 50 g yellow onion(s) thinly sliced
- 60 g bell pepper(s) thinly sliced
- 1 tsp garlic grated or garlic paste
- 1 tsp unsalted butter
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 pinch ground black pepper
- 1 tbsp Japanese Mayonnaise
- 1 tbsp finely chopped green onions
Instructions
- Prepare your ingredients. Cut 200 g chicken breast into bitesize pieces, then 60 g bell pepper(s) and 50 g yellow onion(s) into thin slices and 130 g green cabbage into rough chunks.
- Heat a wok/frying pan on a medium-high heat and add 1 tsp unsalted butter and grated garlic.
- Once the butter is melted and 1 tsp garlic paste is fragrant, add the chicken pieces and fry until the surfaces are sealed.
- Add the cabbage, onion, bell pepper then drizzle in 1 tbsp oyster sauce and half of the soy sauce. Stir fry until vegetables are softened slightly. (Approx 4 minutes)
- Next, add 2 portions udon noodles and stir fry for about 3 minutes.
- Add the rest of the soy sauce and 1 pinch ground black pepper. Mix again and fry for 1 more minute.
- Dish up, drizzle with 1 tbsp Japanese Mayonnaise and garnish with 1 tbsp finely chopped green onions.
- Enjoy!
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