This recipe is getting rave reviews so it's obviously very popular and delicious to the reviewers, but having lived in Japan for 23 years, I must say this is not an authentic recipe. A true Japanese yakisoba recipe would never have any chili sauce in it, and it would be finished with matchstick red pickled ginger and Aonori (green flake-type seaweed). Japanese foods tend to have very subtle favors which probably does not have "enough kick" for the American palate, and as a result, recipes tend to get modified quite extensively. I mean no offense by this review, just wanted to inform the public.
I used traditional tonkatsu (yakisoba) sauce for this instead of making the sauce from scratch and it was awesome - made by Kikkoman and found at my regular grocery store. I also added fresh grated ginger, minced garlic, and a few dashes of soy sauce instead of a whole 1/2 cup. For extra veggies we threw in bean sprouts and mushrooms. We added a dash of crushed red pepper for a little kick - this was very tasty and cooked nicely in my wok! Try the tonkatsu sauce - it will definitely give you the yakisoba flavor you are looking for!
For having so few ingredients, I thought this was incredibly flavorful. And I didn't even use chile paste because I couldn't find it in the store. I substituted about 2 tsp. of chile powder, 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes, and a dash of cayenne pepper. Also used 3 cloves of garlic instead of 2. The result was just the perfect amount of spice (warms the mouth but still allows you to taste your food). The soy sauce tasted great on the chicken, veggies, and noodles. I just added a dash of rice wine vinegar to the veggies as they were finishing cooking. Will definitely make again.
So very very good! Taking the others' suggestions I did the following: used Sriracha (Rooster) Sauce in place of the chili paste; doubled the garlic; used 8 chicken tenders instead of breasts (I can see using sliced beef or cubed tofu too!); cut the carrots into matchsticks; to the cabbage mixture I added 1/4 cup chicken broth to help the softening process; after the cabbage mixture was softened I added 1 small can of drained & coarsely chopped bamboo shoots 1 can of drained bean sprouts and about 1/2 cup of prepared muchrooms. A touch of chopped scallions on each serving was the finishing touch!
This yakisoba recipe left out the tonkatsu sauce that is needed for authentic taste. As is, the dish is edible, but nothing at all what I was going for. All in all, I would say this is not a recipe for the person wanting to taste real japanese yakisoba. I suggest doing a Google search.
This may taste fine for many who never had real yakisoba but this is NOT Japanese yakisoba. I was born and grew up in Japan and yakisoba is my favorite dish. Yakisoba is a staple dish at festivals and recreating it at home is actually harder than we think if we don't have the pre-made yakisoba sauce. I'm not here to deny this recipe, I just want all of my fellow cooks to know the facts about yakisoba since many people are getting familiar with Asian dishes, especially Japanese food and ingredients. Although we call buckwheat noodles, "soba," for yakisoba, we NEVER, and I mean never, use buckwheat noodles for yakisoba. What we use is "chu-ka soba." Most of supermarkets in Asian food section isle has dried "chu-ka soba" packet. If you live in a community with many Asian descends, you might find a bag in refrigerate Asian section perhaps near tofu or kimchee. As for sauce, traditionally at festivals, worcestershire sauce and/or chuno- sauce flavor the yakisoba (tonkatsu sauce is for deep fried pork and it's too thick and sweet) but at home, some people uses soy sauce. So, if anything, please try this recipe with chu-ka soba and then you'll be having "yakisoba"!
It tasted awful. I threw it away.
This is just awesome, I used chinese cabbage, some green beans,some red and green bell peppers and garlic paste to give that extra Zing my hubby really loves this thanks for the receipe my husband suggests that next time try adding few fresh beansprouts, combinations of Veggies are endless !!!
I have been wanting to make yakisoba for a loooong time now! Thanks for this great recipe. I added some mushrooms too just to sneak in a couple more veggies to my family. The kids loved it too. OH and I used chili powder because I didn't have any paste. %)
