Tororo Soba Recipe: How to Make Tororo Soba

Tororo soba is a traditional Japanese noodle dish that consists of chewy soba noodles served in dashi stock and topped with grated nagaimo, a slightly slimy, mild-flavored mountain yam (also known as Chinese yam) that you can eat raw. Soba noodles are long, thin noodle strands made from buckwheat flour and water. In Japanese, “soba” means “buckwheat.”

You can serve this dish cold or warm, making a warming winter dinner or a cooling summer treat. Grated yam—which takes on a viscous, creamy texture—tops the soupy soba noodles, along with green onion and soft-boiled quail eggs for a simple, satisfying meal that you can have on the table in under twenty minutes.

Whether you’re well versed in Japanese food or just beginning to explore this refined cuisine, follow these tips to craft the tastiest tororo soba noodles possible:

1. 1. Adjust the water amount. Adjust the amount of water you’re using to create either a soupier or brothier dashi-and-yam mixture. This recipe creates a more soup-like dish, but you can adjust the amount of water down to as little as a ½ cup, depending on how concentrated you want the flavor to be.
2. 2. Experiment with additions. Customize the soup noodle broth to your taste by incorporating flavorful ingredients like garlic, ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, shiso leaves, mirin, and vinegar. Finish the dish with toppings like pickled ginger, thinly sliced vegetables, dried seaweed, and spicy chili sauce or the condiments of your choice.
3. 3. Make it cold or hot. You can serve this popular dish either hot or cold. To make this recipe a cold soba dish, dilute the soup base with cold water—rather than hot water—before pouring it over the noodles.