Get ready to make these super simple homemade udon noodles from scratch… with your feet! Only 4 ingredients stand between you and these fresh Japanese noodles, just waiting to be added to a big bowl of udon noodle soup or curry udon.
Why We Love This
To this day, this is one of our favourite travel memories in the mountains of Shikoku, Japan, where we learnt the fine art of making Japanese udon noodles with our feet. Yep. You read that right.
This is the easiest method for making homemade noodles from scratch. We love being able to make a batch at any time and either eat them fresh, or pop them straight in the freezer for future deliciousness.
What are udon noodles?
These delectable chewy noodles are very popular in Japanese cuisine. They’re usually served in a simple broth, a light soy based sauce or with Japanese curry roux as curry udon. It’s the perfect light meal to fill you up.
Where we learnt to cook udon:
Our first attempt at making udon noodles from scratch was in Miyoshi, Shikoku Island, Japan with the village’s very own udon master.
Stepping inside the cosy udon cooking shed, the master launched straight into his lesson with a quick introduction to the recipe – both of which were completely in Japanese. We quickly realised that he didn’t speak English and we would have to rely on our conversational Japanese (and a few useful hand gestures) to turn the simple ingredients of flour, water and salt into noodle-y goodness.
Quickly donning aprons and super stylish bandanas, we followed along doing our best to copy the master’s technique.
When he told us to pop our dough between sheets of thick plastic, the master motioned to us to jump up and knead the balls with our feet!
We looked at each other, quickly confirming we’d both understood the instruction correctly, then jumped up and got stomping. We couldn’t argue though – this unusual and completely unexpected technique was super effective. Squishing the dough under our feet helped it become smooth and perfectly kneaded.
After that, it wasn’t just the dough balls that needed a little rest. While the dough took a break in a warm place for 30 minutes (the most convenient warm place being under a Japanese kotatsu table), we chatted with the master and his wife (as best as we could) over a cup of hot Japanese matcha green tea.
One at a time our sheets of dough were carefully laid out onto a long chopping board before being chopped into thin strips using a handy spring-loaded cleaver. At home, the easiest way to achieve this would be with a pasta machine.
Afterwards we gathered the noodles into our hands and gently pulled them apart to help separate them properly, then dropped them straight into steaming hot water to cook.
Before long the noodles were ready to be eaten, ladled out into huge bowls along with a raw egg each, followed by a ladle full of dashi, a splash of udon shoyu (soy sauce), sliced spring onion, a sprinkle of ground sesame seeds. Yum!
