Cold Lime Udon

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When describing how this cold lime udon (冷ライムうどん) looks and tastes, my family only has one repeating word which is REFRESHING! This cold lime udon is perfect for summer, which happens to be the whole year here :P I tried this dish recently as a takeaway from a Japanese restaurant and fell in love with it immediately. It’s quite easy to recreate too using basic Japanese ingredients already in my pantry. Being fast and easy to make, it’s definitely worth the effort and cost savings to make it at home.

See Also:

• Zaru Soba (Cold Noodles) Recipe
• Seafood Udon Noodle Soup Recipe
• Easy Japanese Cooking

More Refreshing Treats:

• Apple Infused Tea Recipe
• Smoked Salmon Cucumber Salad Recipe

Don’t let the many lime slices deceive you into thinking that the soup is sourish – it is not sour at all, as the lime slices are only soaked in the dashi broth, giving the soup a pleasant and mild lime infusion. The combination of lime & daikon in the soup is really harmonious!

STEP-BY-STEP PHOTOS (COLD LIME UDON)

1. MAKE THE SOUP BASE 

I used the cheating & fast method (as always) to make the soup broth. I used tsuyu which is soba noodle sauce (bottle on the left), granulated dashi powder and water.

Just bring a pot of water to boil, add the dashi powder and stir to fully dissolve the granules. Then add tsuyu noodle sauce to taste. It should be slightly salty. When the soup is cooled, just bottle it to chill in the fridge where it keeps for around 2 days. Since I am working from home, I woke up 10 minutes earlier than usual to prepare this soup base, so that the soup will be cold by the time I am making lunch. A better way for a sleepyhead like me would be to make it the night before! Also, any remaining soup base can also be used in your cooking (I add a splash to my stir-fries and fried noodles).

2. PREPARE LIME

Use Thai lime for this recipe, but you can substitute with lemon slices. The Thai lime variety is larger than the local lime and it is seedless. Compared to lemons, limes have a pleasant and subtle “perfumy” scent which I love.

Grate some daikon (I got this daikon grater from Daiso).

3. COOK UDON NOODLES

If you love your udon thick and chewy like those served at the restaurants, use frozen udon, specifically Sanuki frozen udon. There is no need to thaw, just put frozen udon into boiling water and cook according to timing on packaging (about 2 minutes).

Then rinse in a colander to cool down. For chilled udon, let the udon cool down further in some ice.

5. ASSEMBLE NOODLES.

Add udon noodles to bowl. Cover with lime slices and garnish with daikon. Pour enough soup to cover the lime. When the soup is infused with the lime and mixed in with the daikon at the end of the meal, I enjoyed the soup to the last drop!