Noodle soup is the perfect cure to any bad day! I came up with this simple recipe yesterday when I was craving some soup, noodles and vegetables.
I came up with this combination of ingredients while working at a pho restaurant back in college. We used to get one free meal per shift and I always opted for udon noodles with fried tofu, bok choy and a heaping scoop of chilli oil!
Since making pho broth from scratch isn’t feasible for a weeknight meal after work, I improvised and used a Korean dashima broth instead. This meal is quick, hearty, and can be adjusted to have your favorite toppings! Enjoy!
Fried Tofu and Bokchoy Udon Soup
A simple, hearty udon soup topped with crispy fried tofu and bokchoy.
Servings: 2
Ingredients
Korean Dashima Broth
- 3 Cups Water
- 7 Pieces Dried anchovy
- 1 Piece Kombu/Dashima
Udon Soup Seasoning
- 1 tbsp Mirin
- 1 tbsp Sugar
- 1 tbsp Soy sauce
- 1/2 tsp Salt
Udon Toppings
- 2 Packs Frozen udon noodles
- 4 Heads Bokchoy
- 1 Package Firm or extra firm tofu
- 3 Tbsp Cornstarch
- 1 Tsp Garlic Powder
- 2 Tbsp Soy sauce
- Salt
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 2 Green onion Thinly sliced
- Chilli oil If desired
Instructions
Dashima Broth
- Clean anchovies by scraping the belly area to remove guts.
- Place anchovies, dashima and 3 cups water into a small pot over medium high heat and bring to a boil. I like to put the anchovies in a small mesh bag, but this is not necessary.
- Once boiling, remove dashima from pot and reduce heat to a simmer for 10 minutes.
- Remove anchovies with mesh sieve.
- Add all soup seasoning ingredients to the broth. Taste and add more salt if needed. Set broth aside.
Udon Soup
- Cut tofu into 1″ cubes and pat dry with paper towel
- Put tofu cubes into a medium bowl and add 2 tbsp soy sauce. Mix gently with a rubber spatula.
- Take another bowl and add 3 tbsp cornstarch, 1 tsp garlic powder and a little salt. Mix well.
- Put tofu into bowl and gently stir to coat the tofu pieces.
- Heat olive oil in a large pan over medium high heat
- Add tofu in one layer into pan. You may have to do two batches. Let them crisp up for around 3 minutes, then flip them over and cook for 3 more minutes.
- Remove tofu from pan and set aside.
- Bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a medium pot. Once water is boiling, add bokchoy and cook for 4 minutes.
- Drain water from pot and place bokchoy in ice bath.
- In the same pot, bring 4 cups water to a boil.
- Add frozen udon and cook for 1 minute. Drain.
- Reheat broth.
- Put udon in bowls, top with bokchoy, fried tofu, chopped green onion. Ladle heated broth into bowls.
- Top with chilli oil if desired.
