Our Ingredient List For This Stir Fried Udon Is Simple
Here is what we are working with for our short and friendly ingredient list:
- udon noodles
- a bag of stir fry vegetables
- dark soy sauce
- oyster sauce
- rice vinegar
- garlic
This is assuming you already have oil and brown sugar and black pepper. Just you wait. YUMMM.
Okay. If I’m speaking honestly, I was very skeptical of the taste and texture of pre-cooked noodles in a plastic package. I really was.
Pre-SOS-times, I may have even just said no thanks, that’s gross, I don’t want to eat noodles that are just vacuum-packed in plastic and somehow shelf-stable? But I’m happy to report what many of you probably already know which is that they are, in fact, so totally delicious.
There Are Lots Of Options When It Comes To Udon Noodles
We tried several varieties of udon noodles in our testing for this recipe. Here’s the breakdown:
Okay, last thing: I think this would be incomplete if I didn’t tell you that my favorite thing about this whole recipe is that when you let the noodles rest in the pan for a few minutes as you cook them, they get a little bit caramelized and browned on the outside and the contrast of that pan-fried goodness with the thick, chewy, slippery noodles is just texturally so wonderful.
I mean… look at it.
Do you want to live in this pan of noodles with me? Check yes or no.
Black Pepper Stir Fried Udon: FAQs
Will regular soy sauce work instead of dark soy sauce? If you can’t find dark soy sauce, regular soy sauce will still taste great (we tested and can confirm). However, dark soy sauce is more concentrated and really does make a difference for how much the flavor saturates into the noodles. We ended up finding some dark soy sauce at an Indian / Asian grocery store near us! But Amazon sells it*, too.
I have a little bit of extra sauce. Can I save it for another round of this recipe? I often find that I have a little extra sauce, too. No problem, it can be saved in the fridge for a half-batch or full-batch later on!
Can I add meat to this dish? You can definitely add a protein if you want! I love veggie noodle stir fries, but true yaki udon (the Japanese name for this dish) usually includes meat of some kind. I would think chicken or shrimp would be great. I also made a version of this with tofu kind of scrambled into a ground-meat-like consistency that was really yummy.
Where can I find oyster sauce? You can find it at most bigger / chain grocery stores down the sauce aisle (usually by the soy sauce) or a local Asian grocery store likely sells it as well. If you can’t find it, hoisin sauce would probably be the best sub.