Creamy, but without cream!
When I saw this viral recipe on my feed, I knew I had to recreate it! If you know me by now, you’ll know that I LOVE healthier noodles.
I’ve previously created a popular DIY homemade instant noodles series that’s got healthier instant noodle flavours (including dupes for shin ramen, buldak ramen and more!) You can check out my Homemade Instant Noodles eCookbook!
This is creamy udon noodles, but instead of using heavy cream, it uses silken tofu!
Silken tofu works incredibly well to make your sauce creamy but without the heaviness from traditional cream. It also adds more protein to your dish! It’s a win win!
You know what goes well with silken tofu? Minced meat with spicy bean paste. This combination then transforms the dish into Mapo Tofu noodles.
Big thanks to audreyishome for the recipe inspiration! This idea is from her. My variation to her recipe features minced turkey stir fried with spicy bean paste, but you can use whatever protein you prefer!
The sauce!
The key to making this recipe is all in the sauce! Of course, high quality udon noodles are preferred too, but the special part in my opinion is the creamy yet spicy sauce!
Creamy sauce
The creamy sauce comes from blending silken tofu in the blender for about 10 seconds. It’s so smooth and easy to blend. Tofu is also packed with protein (though silken tofu has less protein than firm tofu) and the thing I love the most is that this sauce is creamy without being heavy!
If you love mapo tofu, or if you find traditional creamy pasta to be too heavy, then using silken tofu is a great choice!
Spicy sauce
The spicy component of this dish comes from spicy douban jiang (豆瓣酱), or Chinese spicy bean paste! This sauce is used in famous Chinese dishes such as mapo tofu. It has a spicy and earthy taste, full of savouriness and umami!
Udon noodles
While I’ve used udon noodles for this recipe, you can experiment with other types of noodles.
I would also recommend ramen noodles, pasta noodles and even rice noodles. You would preferably want to use noodles that hold onto creamy sauces.
Another secret tip is to leave some hot water with the noodles in the bowl, before mixing in the sauce. This hot water combined with the sauces will emulsify into a creamy sauce when you stir it all together.
This is actually a hack from my DIY homemade instant noodles, which you can recreate at home from my Homemade Instant Noodles eCookbook!
Other combos
I feel like you can try this creamy noodle combo with other recipe variations, such as creamy tofu curry udon, creamy tofu black bean udon, creamy tofu buldak udon etc. The list is endless!
Tips for you!
Here are some more tips if you’re making this for the first time:
- Don’t overcook the udon: to have that chewy texture that we all love from udon noodles, cook the udon noodles in boiling water for 1-2 minutes only. Keep an eye out for it. If they’re frozen udon, you don’t have to wait for the water to be boiling after you’ve put the udon in the pot.
- Add more savoury sauce: as you probably know, silken tofu is bland on its own. It needs sauce to be more flavourful. Depending on how flavourful you like your food, keep in mind that adding the silken tofu cream makes the dish more bland overall. You’ll need to compensate by adding more of other sauces, like spicy bean paste and soy sauce. But use my recipe measurements as a guide, then add more later if you need it saltier.
Creamy Silken Tofu Udon
Ingredients
Method
- Bring a pot of water to a boil.
- Add udon noodles and cook for 2 minutes until softened but still slightly chewy.
- Drain and set aside in a bowl.
- Heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan over medium heat.
- Add minced turkey and cook, breaking up any lumps, for 5 minutes until browned and mostly cooked through.
- Stir in spicy bean paste, light soy sauce and dark soy sauce.
- Cook for 3 more minutes, stirring frequently until turkey is fully cooked.
- Toss in freshly chopped scallions and cook for 1–2 minutes until fragrant.
- Blend silken tofu in a blender until smooth.
- Add the tofu to the cooked udon noodles.
