My MIL showed me a Clean Eating magazine recently, and not only was this recipe an attention-getter, but so was just about everything else in it. I downloaded the current issue to my Kindle and proceded to pretty much fill my eyes with lots and lots of yummy food porn. And not just yummy pictures, but recipes that seemed, for the most part, accessible in terms of ease of effort with ingredients that wouldn’t require a trip to Kilimanjaro or anything. I’d love to see Kilimanjaro, I just don’t want to have that epic a trip when trying to find recipe ingredients that I need in a couple of days. Kimchi has fortunately become readily accessible in our area, so it was off the Korean grocery store!

Holy Asian pantry, batcook! Looks like I had to bring just about all my arsenal to the table this time. This can only ever be a very good thing.

I can’t believe how far I’ve gotten into this post already without mentioning how EASY this recipe is.

So there - it’s super easy! The shrimp you buy already cooked, and that leaves the soba as our only home-cooked ingredient. Soba cooks very fast though, so there’s not much wait time with it either. The effort in this one is mainly in chopping the veggies.

A word on the soba noodles. The consistency was basically that of angel hair pasta. Very thin, and once it cools, it very easily wants to stick together even after spraying it or putting a little oil in to prevent such annoying stuff. Our suggestion: Make the soba noodles last. We’ve rearranged things a bit in the instructions to reflect this. Have everything else ready to go and toss together, cook the noodles and add them in last, toss, toss some more and enjoy the deliciousness. You can sometimes find slightly thicker soba, but most of what I’ve seen has been very thin.

The dressing for this salad is comprised of all the awesome liquid ingredients shown above and it is tasty, folks. A little is combined first with the shrimp, but….I’m not sure why. Once you plunge into this delicious salad, you won’t really taste the dressing on the shrimp nearly as much as you do the rest of it.

If you’re a fan at all of the flavors in this dish, and of Asian-infused goodness in any way, you’re going to love this noodle salad. Fresh shrimp were the perfect accompaniment!

A sprinkling of crisp green scallions and peanuts give the dish a nice crunch and texture, and the kimchi is perfectly spicy amongst the slightly sweet dressing. This is very fresh and ready in a not-so-hot minute, which means it’s perfect for our hot weather. It’s going on the menu again ASAP!

Kimchi & Cucumber Noodle Salad

From recipe by Jo Lusted for Clean Eating Magazine, June 2014

Prep Time: 20 minutes Cook Time: about 4-5 minutes Level: Easy Serves: 8

• 12 oz. brown rice spaghetti or soba (buckwheat) noodles
• Olive Oil Cooking Spray
• 2 tablespoons reduced-sodium tamari (or soy sauce)
• 2 tablespoons unseasoned rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 12 oz. cooked large shrimp, peeled, deveined and tails on
• 3 cups shredded green cabbage
• 2 cups julienned English cucumber
• 3/4 cup kimchi, chopped plus 2 tablespoons of the brine
• Sea salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste
• 4 green onions, thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons crushed unsalted peanuts

Prepare dressing: In a small bowl, combine the tamari or soy sauce, vinegar, oil and honey and whisk. Remove two tablespoons of the dressing to another bowl with the shrimp and toss to combine.

In a large bowl, combine the chopped cabbage, julienned cucumber and kimchi along with the brine.

Cook your noodles according to package directions. As soon as they are done, add them to the bowl of vegetables, then pour the dressing over it all and gently toss to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper and top with the shrimp, then the green onions and peanuts as desired. Enjoy!

Print PDF