This is serious soup. For hungry diners, with lots of veggies! It reminds me of the fare at a ramen place we love in the West End… except instead of ramen noodles, healthy buckwheat soba noodles are the star of the show.

Soba is actually the Japanese word for buckwheat, but usually refers to buckwheat noodles. These soba noodles are made with just organic buckwheat flour and sweet potato. What a fantastic combo – and a great gluten-free noodle option!

I found them at my fave grocery store, the East End Food Co-op in Vancouver. This is the first time I’ve seen them there, but I’ll be back for more. This brand, King Soba, carries all sorts of different flavour combinations, and the best part to me – they don’t contain wheat. At our neighbourhood Japanese specialty store, many of the soba noodles contain wheat flour as a binder, but I was looking for something gluten-free. Typically the noodles with a high buckwheat percentage and no wheat or rice flour are harder to find, and more expensive, so you can imagine my excitement at finding these at the Co-op!

SOBA NOODLE SOUP WITH MISO SEAWEED BROTH AND MIXED VEGGIES
serves 2-3 big hungry portions, or 4 regular portions

For the soup:
2 bunches soba noodles (I don’t know how to measure this – I bought a package that had 3 bunches in it, each of them were bundled together and about 2 cm in diameter… use your best judgement!)
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 red onion
2 cloves garlic
8 cups water (or substitute a low-sodium vegetable broth for half of the water)
heaping tbsp miso paste
1-2 tbsp soy sauce (I used Braggs)
2-3 tbsp dried wakame seaweed (the soy and seaweed amounts will depend on how salty you want your broth)

For the toppings:
2 small carrots, shaved with a peeler
1 cup frozen corn, thawed
6 radishes, sliced thin
1 cup mushrooms (I used a mixture of fresh enoki and oyster mushrooms, shiitakes would also work nicely)
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
handful of pea shoots
3 green onions, sliced

Other topping ideas:
medium boiled egg
menma (bamboo shoots)
sliced green cabbage
bok choy or other asian greens (I would add them to the soup a little early to slightly cook them first)
shredded daikon radish

Bring some water to boil for the soba noodles (not the 8 cups for the soup, just enough to boil the noodles). Cook the soba noodles for only 2-3 minutes, as they will soak up water once you add them to the soup. Drain the noodles and rise them in cold water to remove the starchiness. Set aside noodles.

Prepare your toppings. This can take a bit of time, depending on how much you’ll be adding to your soup. I love to pack the soup full of everything I can think of for a hearty, nutritious meal. I also prefer to add most of the toppings raw into the piping hot soup, as it will gently warm them.

In a large pot, saute the onion until softened. Add garlic and cook another 2 minutes. Add 8 cups of water (or broth), miso paste, and soy sauce. Stir to dissolve miso and bring to a boil. When you’ve got all your toppings ready, turn the heat to low, add the seaweed, the noodles, and any other veggies you’d like to cook (I didn’t cook any this time) and let simmer briefly, for 1 minute. Serve the soup and divide the toppings up between bowls.

The noodles will get soggy if you leave them in the soup, so it’s not really a leftovers kind of thing. If it looks like you have too much soup, you can ladle out the broth first and add the noodles to each bowl just before serving. That way you can store leftover soup and noodles separately.