Chicken Yakisoba
Recipe from Rachel Gurjar
This simple chicken yakisoba recipe combines the savoury flavours of stir-fried noodles with bite-size pieces of soy-soaked chicken thighs for a satisfying dinner you can pull off, any weeknight. A classic Japanese noodle dish, yakisoba (literally "fried noodles") is made with wheat-based egg noodles that are stir-fried and slicked in a savoury-sweet yakisoba sauce, often made from Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, oyster sauce, and more.
Our version skips the Worcestershire, in favor of heavier doses of soy and oyster sauces, to really home in on their particular umami profiles, and rounds out the sauce ingredients with a bit of mirin (Japanese cooking wine). The resulting glaze coats the noodles and chicken, helping them caramelise, as they sauté in the pan, adding depth and complexity to each bite. We’ve opted to use bell peppers, cabbage, and mushrooms to enhance the dish, but you can swap in whatever vegetables you have on hand, such as bok choy, thin strips of zucchini, bean sprouts, scallions, or carrot matchsticks.1
If you can’t find yakisoba noodles at your local market, seek them out at an East Asian grocery store, or swap in fresh ramen noodles (like the ones from Sun Foods), or homemade udon or miki noodles.
Yields:
4 servings
Time Required:
- 20 mins.
Ingredients:
- ¼ cup2 (60 mL) oyster sauce3
- ¼ cup (60 mL) soy sauce
- 2 Tbsp. (30 mL) mirin4
- 1 Tbsp. (30 ml) plus 1 tsp. (5 ml) ketchup
- 1 lb. (0.45 kg) skinless, boneless chicken thighs (4–6), cut into 2" (5 cm) pieces
- 4 Tbsp. (60 mL) vegetable oil, divided
- 1 small onion, thinly sliced
- 1 medium red bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, cut into 2" (5 cm) pieces
- 6 oz. (170 g) shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, caps thinly sliced
- 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 1 1" (2.5 cm) piece ginger, peeled, finely chopped
- ¼ small head of green cabbage (about 6 oz. = 170 g), cut into 2" (5 cm) pieces
- 16 oz. (455 g) fresh (or frozen, thawed) yakisoba noodles
- Thinly sliced scallion greens (for serving)
Preparation:
Stir oyster sauce, soy sauce, mirin, and ketchup in a small bowl to combine.
Toss chicken thighs, cut into 2" (5 cm) pieces, with 2 Tbsp. (30 mL) oyster sauce mixture in a medium bowl to coat.
Heat 2 Tbsp. (30 mL) vegetable oil in a wok or large skillet over medium-high. Arrange chicken in wok in a single layer and cook, undisturbed, until golden brown underneath, about 2 mins. Turn over with a spatula and cook, undisturbed, until golden brown on the other side, about 2 mins. Transfer to a plate with a slotted spoon.
Heat remaining 2 Tbsp. (30 mL) vegetable oil in wok over medium-high. Cook 1 small onion, thinly sliced, tossing often, until softened and starting to brown, about 1 min. Add 1 medium red bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, cut into 2" pieces, shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, caps thinly sliced, 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped, and one 1" piece ginger, peeled, finely chopped. Cook, stirring often, until fragrant and bell pepper and mushrooms are starting to soften, about 3 mins.
Add green cabbage stir, to combine. Return chicken to wok; toss to combine. Cover with a lid, and cook until cabbage is tender, 5–7 mins. If cabbage releases too much liquid, uncover, and cook until liquid has almost completely evaporated. Add yakisoba noodles, and gently toss to separate. Add remaining oyster sauce mixture, and toss to coat. Remove wok from heat, and top noodles with thinly sliced scallion greens.
Author's Notes
Equipment needed: Wok or large skillet, slotted spoon, spatula, two mixing bowls.
1 Julienning is a culinary knife technique, in which the food item is cut into long thin strips, similar to matchsticks. Usual method's to trim the ends, then trim edges to make four straight sides, to make the subsequent uniform cut easier.
This cut's commonly used for carrots, celery, potatoes, and cucumbers.
2 Quarts, pints, cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, and fl. oz. are as defined in US Customary Units, not to be confused with differing British imperial, "legal", "coffee", Commonwealth of Nations, Canadian, Latin American, Japanese, Russian, or Dutch definitions — further proof that everyone needs the metric system.
3 Oyster sauce is made from mixing oyster extracts, sugar, salt, water, and corn starch (US/Canada), aka cornflour (UK/other), sometimes darkened with caramel, heated and bottled. I would advise being careful to pick a quality sauce, owing to risk of dangerous contaminants.
Be aware that some oyster sauces and soy sauces have excessive salt, and both together being oversalted could overpower this dish. Taste as you prepare, to check.
4 Mirin is variety of sweet Japanese rice wine commonly used in cooking. Make sure it's "hon mirin" (true mirin), not the variant with 1.5%+ salt added to avoid alcohol taxation. Mirin adds a bright, sweet note to dishes.
Taken from: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/chicken-yakisoba as the work of Rachel Gurjar. Thank you!
Collected and re-published at http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/recipes/ by Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> on Oct. 3, 2026. Individual recipes are free from copyright. Share and enjoy!
(If I have any copyright title in my own very minor contributions to this page — not my intention — they were created in 2026 by Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> and licensed for use under CC0. I have thereby waived all copyright, compilation copyright, and related or neighbouring rights to this work. This work is published from: United States of America.)