This luscious soba noodle salad from Minimalist Baker's Everyday Cooking is made with hearty buckwheat noodles tossed with rich cashew butter dressing, crisp veggies and juicy mango chunks.
Are you guys familiar with Minimalist Baker? I discovered this lovely blog a few years ago, and since then I've had to replace several laptops, each after attempting to eat my monitor. That's why I'm so glad there's a Minimalist Baker cookbook now! Minimalist Baker's Everyday Cooking by Dana Shultz has pages and pages for me to destroy with my teeth, and then when I'm through, I can get another copy. Cookbooks are way cheaper than computers!
Getting serious though, like the blog, every piece of food found in Everyday Cooking is completely enticing, beautiful, and surprisingly uncomplicated. The upper left hand corner of every recipe page will tell you if the dish is 30 minutes or less, 10 ingredients or less and/or gluten-free. Most of the dishes meet several of these criteria. The dishes themselves are of the type I swear will convince any die-hard omnivore that vegan eats are where it's at. Personally, I want to make them all, starting with the double chocolate gluten-free waffles, Thai baked sweet potatoes, chickpea fresenjan, creamy broccoli "cheddar" soup, 1-bowl vegan tiramisu cake, and pizza burgers.
I guess I wanted to make the cashew soba noodle salad the most though, because that's where I got started. It was awesome. If you're a fan of peanut sauce, it's time to give cashew butter sauce a try. It's like peanut sauce's slightly mellower, sweeter cousin, and it makes for a seriously decadent and delicious soba noodle salad, coating every crispy veggie and noodle to slurpable perfection.
Also, this was so incredibly easy to throw together. The only real cooking involved is boiling a bunch of noodles. Other than that, it's just chopping and tossing stuff into a bowl. So easy! And even though this is named a salad, it's really just a salad according to that strict definition of it's eaten cold and has a bunch of raw veggies. This salad is seriously hearty, and if you eat it for dinner I'm betting you'll be more satisfied than if you'd put away a couple of burgers.
Cashew Soba Noodle Salad
Ingredients
- 5 ounces 141g soba noodles (substitute rice noodles if gluten-free)
- 1 cup 155g shelled edamame
- 1 cup 128g thinly sliced carrots
- 1 red bell pepper 119g, thinly sliced
- ½ cup 80g snow or sugar snap peas, chopped in half
- ¼ cup 15g chopped cilantro
- ¼ cup 30g roasted salted cashews, chopped, plus more for serving
- 1 mango, peeled and chopped into bite-size pieces
- 1 lime, sliced, for garnish
Cashew Ginger Dressing
- ½ cup 128g salted creamy cashew butter (or substitute almond or peanut butter—if unsalted, add additional soy sauce)
- 2 Tbsp 30ml tamari or soy sauce, plus more for dressing the noodles
- ¾ tsp chili garlic sauce
- 2 Tbsp 30ml maple syrup or agave nectar (or substitute coconut sugar)
- ½ lime, juiced (1 Tbsp or 15ml)
- 1 tsp fresh grated ginger
- 1 tsp toasted sesame oil, plus more for dressing the noodles
- Hot water to thin
Instructions
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Cook the soba noodles according to package instructions. Then drain, rinse with cool water, and set aside.
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While the noodles are cooking, prepare the vegetables. To cook the edamame, microwave for 1 minute, covered. Or add to a saucepan over medium-low heat with 1–2 Tbsp (15–30ml) water, cover, and cook until warmed through, about 2 minutes. Set aside.
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To prepare the dressing, combine all of the ingredients (except the water) and whisk. Then add enough hot water to thin into a pourable sauce (~2–3 Tbsp or 30–45ml). Taste and adjust the seasonings as desired.
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To serve, add all of the salad ingredients to a large bowl and toss with 1 Tbsp (15ml) soy sauce and 1 tsp toasted sesame oil. Then add the desired amount of dressing and serve at room temperature or chilled. Serve with chili garlic sauce for added heat and a few more roasted cashews for garnish (optional).
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Leftovers will keep covered in the refrigerator for 2–3 days, though best when fresh.
Recipe Notes
Reprinted from Minimalist Baker’s Everyday Cooking by arrangement with Avery Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, A Penguin Random House Company. Copyright © 2016, Dana Shultz
I pre-ordered Dana's cook book. It was delivered yesterday...Yum! I want to make everything. I follow a few vegsn food blogs. You and Dana are my favorites. Really good, easy to make, flavorful recipes and no search around for strange ingredients that I'll only use once.
Keep up the great work! From one blogger to another
Looks great. How many does this serve? I'm looking to serve 12 people this weekend but just as a side dish.
Oh! I left the number of servings out when I originally posted this. I just updated the recipe - it's 2 to 4. My husband and I split the batch as an entree and it was quite a meal, so you might be able to even get 5 or 6 sides out of a batch. Doubling or tripling the recipe for 12 side servings should be plenty.
Yay! Thanks for the love!!
Very welcome! Awesome book!!
This was incredibly delicious! We added pasta water from the pasta we were making to thin the sauce the way you said to do it. Added a bit more ginger and lime to the sauce and also garlic as well as sauteed onions. We have issues with the amount of garlic we eat in this house. :) Thanks for a tasty and simple recipe!
Haha! We can really go through the garlic in my house too. :) Glad you enjoyed this! Thanks so much for stopping back to share your results!
Is there is way to get the nutritional facts on this recipe if possible? I track my daily meals and would like to add it to the recipe section.
I'm working in adding nutrition facts, but for now I'd recommend calculating it with this tool: https://www.verywell.com/recipe-nutrition-analyzer-4129594