Making homemade udon noodles from scratch is actually very easy, with only 3 main ingredients (and potato/corn starch) and very little hands-on time! There’s even no need to use any special equipment to make udon noodles, add some more points if you would like to try to make some noodles at home yourself!
What are the 3 main ingredients in Udon?
The main ingredients in udon noodles are wheat flour, water, and salt. They are usually a bit thicker than the other noodles like rice noodles, glass noodles, egg noodles, etc. It can be round or flat in shape.
Do udon noodles have eggs?
Nope! The typical udon noodles don’t contain eggs, the same as this recipe that we share. Udon noodles only contain flour, water, and salt, making them a good option for vegans or vegetarians!
Where do udon noodles originate from?
Despite udon noodles is a very popular Japanese dish nowadays, there are many different stories about the origin of udon noodles. Many of them relate back to China. There’s no clear answer to how udon exactly originates, but it seems to be adopted from some Chinese food in the past.
How to eat udon noodles?
Udon noodles are usually served in soup or stir fry in sauces. A typical Japanese soup base for udon noodles is dashi. Since udon noodles are usually very slippery, you can hold the udon noodle with the chopstick, and slurp the udon noodles in your mouth with the slurping sound. (I know it sounds rude in western culture, but it’s the other way round in Japan. Eating noodles with a slurping sound is considered a compliment to the chef!) When I was a kid, I love to slurp the udon noodles one by one! It was so much fun!
How to store udon noodles?
Freshly made udon noodles are best to eat right away! If you couldn’t finish them all and would like to keep them for later, you can store them in the freezer after cutting the udon. Cook them when you want to eat (add 1-2 minutes!). It is not recommended to store the udon noodles in the fridge because they can get humid and soggy.
Udon noodles are such a delicious dish, and knowing how easy to make them is such fantastic news! Since we learned to make udon noodles, we’ve been doing that all the time! It’s absolutely one of the easiest noodles to make on your own (and probably even one of the least time-consuming ones!)
Udon Noodles
Ingredients
- 200 g Plain flour
- 95 mL Water
- 8 g Salt
- Corn starch/potato starch for dusting
Instructions
Main dough
- In a small bowl, mix the flour and salt.
- Add water gradually to form a dough. In case the dough is too dry, you can add a few drops of water until the dough come together.
- Put the dough in a large resealable bag.
- Leave the dough to rest for 30 mins in the fridge.
Flatten the dough
- Method 1: Put all the weight into your fists and press the dough down until it's flat.
- Method 2: Put a tea towel on the floor and put the dough with the resealable bag in between the towel. Step on it with your feet to let your weight press the dough down until flat.
- Take the flattened dough out of the plastic bag, shape it into a dough ball again.
- Repeat the flattening steps 2 more times. In total, we flatten the dough 3 times.
- After the 3rd time, put it back in the resealable bag and leave it in the fridge for 2 hours.
Cutting the noodles
- Dust some corn/potato starch on the tabletop.
- Use a rolling pin to flatten the dough into a rectangular shape.
- Divide the rectangle roughly into 3 parts, fold the outer parts towards the center.
- Cut the udon noodles around 2-3mm wide. (Remember the noodles will expand a bit after cooking)
- Dust more corn/potato starch to the cut udon noodles to avoid them stick with each other.
Cook the noodles
- Boil a pot of water.
- When the water is boiling, cook the freshly made udon noodles for 10-12 mins.
- Serve with your favorite soup, or cook our favorite udon dish with these homemade udon noodles!