This rainbow soba noodle salad combines colorful produce (zucchini, yellow squash, snow peas, carrots, cabbage, and spring onions) with a flavorful ginger sesame dressing. It’s a winning recipe. In fact, we’ve been calling it one of our favorite “winner for dinner” creations.

Sensational Soba Noodles

I made this salad a few weeks ago after hitting a couple of my go-to farmer’s markets: the Lyndale Market, and Mill City farmer’s market. I got a boatload of vegetables plus these great buckwheat soba noodles from Dumpling & Strand, “Noodlers at Large.” Their artwork is awesome too.

These soba noodles are gluten-free and cook up in seconds, like 120 seconds. I really had only used them in one other recipe, a “fast food” one where I thawed some frozen peanut dipping sauce–I had made a quadruple batch last time around and put half cup portions in freezer bags–and simply mixed it in with some noodles and a tiny bit of water. It is like a 2 ingredient salad. Like I said: fast food.

This time however, I imagined something with a bit more heat and a lighter, vinaigrette-type dressing. That’s how this rainbow soba noodle salad came to be. I love the chili oil in it. It goes great with the sesame oil/liquid aminos combo. Well, the salad turned out delish and was a BIG winner at dinner. I had hosted a potluck party. I marinated and cooked some tempeh to go on top of the soba salad. Together those two elements make a vegetarian main dish for some, and a hearty side dish for others. By the way, I’ll have to share the tempeh recipe another time. I wasn’t able to snap any photos this time around.

I will definitely be making this rainbow soba noodle salad time and time again. It was so easy and flavorful. I hope you enjoy it soon too, and that you enjoy the rest of your summer!

-Cyndi