Summer makes me want as little time as possible in front of the stove, and I know you want that too. Hiyashi chuka is Japan’s summer noodle staple, and cooking its kinshi tamago means standing in front of the heat.
For this tanuki udon, I only use the heat for a small pot of tsuyu and to warm the noodles. I set sliced toppings and tenkasu on the noodles, then pour that sweet-salty tsuyu over the top. It is made for summer, and nothing beats it.
Hiyashi tanuki udon
Recipe Snapshot
- What is it? Hiyashi tanuki udon is a cold Japanese dish of udon shocked in cold water, finished with summer toppings and tenkasu, and eaten with a small pour of strong sauce.
- Flavor profile: Bold, sweet-salty sauce comes first, then firm, ice-cold noodles and clean freshness from daikon and cucumber. Tenkasu stays crisp for a few bites, then soaks up sauce and turns rich.
- Why this recipe works: Ice dropped straight into the boiled sauce saves a cooling step and melts into the water that thins it. I recommend frozen udon because it heats quickly and is easy, especially the microwavable type.
- How to make it: Your only stove time is a short boil of the sauce in a small pot. Microwave the noodles, chill them in cold water, add sliced toppings, then pour and mix.
- What to expect: Plan on 10 minutes of prep and 10 of cooking, about 20 minutes in all. It is just the kind of bowl you want in summer.
What Is Hiyashi Tanuki Udon?
Hiyashi tanuki udon is cold udon topped with tenkasu. Strong tsuyu is poured on and mixed in. Tokyo’s stand-and-eat soba shops keep it on the cold menu. Unlike kake udon in its broth, it gets only a little tsuyu.
Hot kake udon takes its name from the topping. Aburaage makes kitsune, a dropped egg makes tsukimi, and tenkasu makes tanuki, chilled or not. Despite the name, the bowl holds no raccoon dog and no meat. In Kanto, tanuki means noodles topped with tenkasu. Cucumber, wakame, and grated daikon are just examples, and tenkasu alone sets the name.
The name tanuki has no single agreed origin, and dictionaries list several theories. One says tane-nuki, tempura with the filling removed, was shortened to tanuki. Another likens a broth darker than kitsune to a tanuki. A third matches the puffed fried batter to a tanuki with a swollen belly. A passed-down account says Kanto tanuki began at the end of the Edo period (the mid-1800s), when squid tempura with little filling was set on the noodles.
The bowl called tanuki changes from region to region, and that shift is part of the fun. In Tokyo it is udon or soba topped with tenkasu. In Osaka it is soba topped with sweet-simmered aburaage, the bowl Tokyo calls kitsune soba. For tenkasu udon in Osaka, the name is haikara udon or tenkasu udon. Kyoto tanuki is chopped aburaage and Kujo negi under a thick sauce with grated ginger in it. One reason the names split between east and west is the way shops handled tenkasu. In Taisho-period Tokyo (1912 to 1926), shops set agedama, the fried batter bits, on for free. It caught on, and later they put a price on it. In Kansai, tenkasu sat free on the table, and customers ordered plain udon and scattered it themselves. So at some shops, udon with tenkasu has no name of its own.
I take the small pot of tsuyu off the heat and drop ice straight in, so it cools fast. The strength shifts a little with the size of the ice, but to keep it summer-friendly, I chose not to add steps. I add crunchy summer vegetables, such as okra and cucumber. The crunch balances the chewy noodles and the tenkasu, which softens as it soaks up the tsuyu. I finish by swirling sesame oil over the bowl, to add aroma and to make the toppings easier to mix.
Cold Tanuki Udon Ingredients
- Udon: I personally use frozen udon. The factory boils and freezes it right away, so it only needs heating (the microwave works) and chilling, far quicker than dried or fresh udon. Look in the freezer aisle at an Asian grocer. No luck? Dried udon is next, boiled through and shocked in cold water so a cold bowl still has chew.
- Tenkasu (tempura flakes): If you are not already making tempura, there is no reason to fry a batch of tenkasu just for this bowl. A store-bought bag does the job. Outside Japan the bag is labeled tenkasu or tempura flakes, and at an Asian grocer it usually sits near the okonomiyaki and takoyaki supplies.
- Daikon radish: Grate the top end, the part closest to the leaves. Its heat is gentle, which is what you want when you eat it raw. The pointed bottom end bites harder and turns bitter. Peel it before you grate.
Substitutions, Variations, and How to Customize
Whether you are missing an ingredient or want to steer the bowl toward your own taste, these options start with the ones closest to the original.
Substitutions:
- The sauce (dashi, soy sauce, mirin, and sugar) → Bottled mentsuyu: This bottled noodle sauce lets you skip simmering the sauce in a small pot altogether. Dilute it the way the label tells you. The sweetness and strength change from brand to brand.
- Light brown sugar → White sugar: Regular white sugar works. You lose the rounder depth of brown sugar, and the sweetness is more straightforward.
- Japanese cucumber → Persian cucumber: The closest stand-in. The skin is thin and the seeds are small, though it is a little more watery than a Japanese cucumber.
- Japanese cucumber → English cucumber: It is thicker and wetter, and the skin can taste bitter. Quarter it lengthwise, scoop out the seeds if there are a lot, then cut it into thin strips.
- Kamaboko → Imitation crab sticks: Shred them into thin strands and scatter them over, and the toppings pick up a mix of red and white.
- Wasabi → Grated ginger: The heat is gentler, and the ginger aroma hits your nose as you eat.
- Daikon radish → Skip it: Without grated daikon, the bowl still works as cold tanuki udon. You lose its cool, clean edge, and the strong sauce feels a little heavier.
Substitutions that I don’t recommend:
- Fried onions instead of tenkasu: The sweetness of the onion seeps into the sauce and the dashi fades into the background.
- Panko instead of tenkasu: Panko is denser than tenkasu and tastes of bread.
- Chinese dark soy sauce instead of standard Japanese soy sauce: It is far too thick and too sweet. If a Chinese soy sauce is what you have, use light soy sauce.
- Vinegar and sugar instead of mirin: The sourness of the vinegar knocks the sauce off balance.
If something else from a Japanese pantry is missing, my Japanese ingredient substitutes guide covers the common swaps.
Variations:
- Plant-based: Switch the dashi to kombu dashi granules and leave out the kamaboko. Skip the optional bonito flakes as well.
- With soba: Swap the udon for soba noodles and you get hiyashi tanuki soba, the cold tanuki soba you see on the menu at stand-and-eat soba shops.
- With an egg: Top the bowl with a slow-cooked onsen egg or a soft-boiled egg. The yolk melts into the sauce and turns the bowl into a heartier meal.
How to Customize:
- Red pickled ginger: A scatter of it adds a pop of red and a sharp little tang.
- Green onions: Chopped green onions bring a fresh, grassy aroma.
- Shiso leaves: Chopped shiso adds a cool, clean scent.
- Sudachi or lemon: A squeeze of either adds acidity and lightens the sauce.
- Pickled plum (umeboshi): Its salt and sourness rein in the sweetness of the sauce.
- Natto: The sticky strands cling to the noodles and make the bowl far more filling.
- Tomato: Diced tomato brings sweetness and acidity.
How to Make My Hiyashi Tanuki Udon
i. Put the dashi, soy sauce, mirin, and light brown sugar in a small saucepan, stir, and set it over medium heat.
For the dashi, use leftover dashi if you have some. If not, dissolve a pinch of dashi granules in water. There is no need to make dashi from scratch for this little bit of sauce.
ii. Once it boils, give it 1 to 2 minutes. When the sugar has dissolved and the alcohol smell of the mirin is gone, take it off the heat. A soft, even bubble across the surface is all the heat it needs. Boil it hard and the aroma of the soy sauce cooks off.
iii. Drop ice cubes straight into the pan to cool the sauce. Once it is cool, keep it in the fridge until you eat.
This sauce is simmered on the strong side, and the water from the melting ice brings it to just the right strength. So the ice is the dilution water itself as much as it is a way to cool the sauce. Cube size shifts the strength a little, slightly lighter with big cubes and slightly stronger with small ones.
i. Rehydrate the dried wakame in water following the package directions, then drain it.
ii. Cut the cucumber into thin matchsticks, the okra into thin rounds, and the kamaboko into thin slices.
You mix the toppings into the noodles before eating, so cutting them thin and fine puts a little of each into every mouthful along with the noodles.
i. Heat the frozen udon in the microwave following the package directions. Boiling it in a pot works too.
ii. Tip the noodles into a colander and rinse them under cold running water, rubbing gently with your fingers to wash off the slippery film. If that film stays on, the sauce slides right over the noodles and never clings.
iii. Set the colander over a bowl, pile ice on the noodles, and leave them for 5 minutes.
iv. Shake the colander well to drain off the water.
i. Grate the top end of the daikon and press out a little of its liquid. Grate it right before you plate, after the noodles are drained.
ii. Divide the udon between bowls, arrange the cucumber, okra, wakame, kamaboko, and grated daikon on top, and scatter the tenkasu over everything.
iii. Set the wasabi on the rim of each bowl, drizzle the sesame oil around, and finally pour the chilled sauce over the top.
iv. Mix the whole bowl up from the bottom before you eat.
The sauce sinks to the bottom of the bowl, so the top tastes of nothing if you eat it as is. Even after mixing, the tenkasu still crunches in the first few bites.
Tips for the Best Cold Tanuki Udon
- Heat frozen udon straight from frozen. Each noodle was frozen right after boiling, with its outside and core holding different amounts of water, and that difference is the bounce. Thaw it first or loosen it in plain water and that difference evens out, and chilling won’t bring the bounce back. In a pot, wait for the block to loosen before you touch it, because stirring it frozen tears the strands into mush.
- Check a strand of udon from the middle of the pile before you plate up. A rinse under cold running water leaves the outside of the pile cold and its center lukewarm. Pile the toppings on and the warmth gets trapped under them. After the 5 minutes under ice, pull one strand from the middle, and if it is cold, drain the noodles and plate them.
- Drain the noodles and the grated daikon before they go into the bowl. The sauce is strong and the pour is small, so any water left behind thins it right away. Shake the colander until the noodles stop dripping. Press the daikon lightly and leave it wet enough to drip, because a hard squeeze makes it sharper and leaves it dry in the mouth.
- Start eating the moment the sauce goes on. The crackle of tenkasu lasts only until the sauce seeps in, which gives you a few bites. Let the bowl sit and it goes soft before you take the first one. The richness of tenkasu soaked in sauce comes on its own as you eat your way down.
If the tenkasu still crackles on your first bite, you made this bowl fast enough.
Storage & Meal Prep
Fridge: Sealed, the sauce keeps up to 3 days. A finished bowl won’t keep, since noodles soak up sauce, tenkasu softens and daikon weeps. In the fridge, chilled noodles also turn hard and crumbly.
Freezer: Freeze opened tenkasu, air pressed out, for about 1 month, or use it quickly. Moisture steals its crunch.
Meal prep: Make extra sauce and prep toppings ahead. Heat and chill noodles fresh for each bowl.
What to Serve With Hiyashi Tanuki Udon
- Salt-Grilled Mackerel (Saba no Shioyaki)
- Izakaya-Style Salted Edamame
- Spinach Ohitashi (Spinach in Dashi)
- Japanese Chilled Tofu (Hiyayakko)
Tanuki Udon Troubleshooting
Starch left on the surface of the noodles is gluing the strands together. Hold the colander under cold running water, work the clump apart with your fingers, and rub until the slippery feel is gone, then drain. That gets them back to separate strands. If rubbing does nothing and the noodles are torn and gummy, they were stirred while still frozen and the strands broke. There is no saving those, so next time heat them from frozen and leave them alone until the block loosens.
The toppings went on after only a rinse under running water, so warmth is still sitting in the center of the pile. Everything on top holds that warmth in like a lid. Slide the toppings to one side, put the noodles back in the colander, pile ice on them, and wait until a strand from the middle is cold. Drain them and plate the bowl again.
Either the noodles were drained too little or the grated daikon was carrying too much liquid. Pour the sauce over that and the small, strong pour gets watered down until it tastes flat. Before the sauce goes on, hold the toppings in place, tilt the bowl, and tip the water out. Press the daikon gently until it only drips, then set it back on top.
More Japanese Cold Noodle Recipes
- Hiyashi Ramen Cold Noodle Soup
- Zaru Udon with Dipping Sauce
- Citrus Somen with Chicken
- Gomadare Soba with Sesame Dip
Now that cold noodles tossed in a little strong sauce are part of your summer, pick your next hot-day bowl from my Japanese Cold Noodle Recipes.
Did You Try This Recipe?
I would love to hear your thoughts!
💬 Leave a review and ⭐️ rating in the comments below. 📷 I also love to see your photos – submit them here!
Hiyashi Tanuki Udon (Cold Udon with Tenkasu)
Ingredients
Sauce
- 2 tbsp dashi stock or equal amount of water with a pinch of dashi gradules, use shiitake and kombu dashi for plant-based diets
- 1 ½ tbsp Japanese soy sauce (koikuchi shoyu)
- ½ tbsp mirin
- ½ tsp light brown sugar
- 2 ice cubes or 3 tbsp cold water
Noodles and Toppings
- 2 portions cooked udon noodles about 200 g each
- ice cubes to chill the udon
- 2 tbsp tempura flakes (tenkasu)
- 6 slices kamaboko fish cake optional, omit for plant-based
- 50 g Japanese cucumber julienned
- 40 g okra sliced
- 2 tbsp daikon radish grated
- 1 tbsp dried wakame seaweed
- bonito flakes (katsuobushi) optional garnish, omit for plant-based
- toasted sesame oil optional garnish
- kizami nori (shredded nori) optional garnish
- wasabi paste optional garnish
The ingredient brands and tools I trust are in my Japanese pantry guide and my cooking tools guide.
Can’t find certain Japanese ingredients? See my substitution guide here.
Instructions
- Mix 2 tbsp dashi stock, 1 ½ tbsp Japanese soy sauce (koikuchi shoyu), ½ tbsp mirin and ½ tsp light brown sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil on a medium heat. Boil for 1-2 minutes and then remove from the stove.
- Add 2 ice cubes to the sauce to cool it quickly. Once cool, store in the fridge until serving time.
- If using wakame, soak according to the instructions on the packaging. (Usually about 5-10 mins.)
- Cook the udon noodles according to the instructions on the packaging. Once cooked, pour them into a colander and wash with cold running water. Place a bowl underneath and add a few ice cubes to the noodles. Leave to chill for 5 minutes.
- Prepare your toppings according to the instructions in the ingredient list. Divide the udon into serving bowls and arrange the toppings on top.
- Add a small amount of wasabi to the side of the bowl (optional) and drizzle with sesame oil. Finally, pour the chilled sauce over the top.
- Mix thoroughly before eating and enjoy!
Leave a rating and a comment