March is National Noodle Month. This Hawaiian Garlic Yakisoba Noodle Recipe is my homage to the humble noodle. This is an easy, throw-together meal that you can have on the table in just a few minutes. You might already have the ingredients on hand, if not they are readily available at your local grocery. Serve these noodles for a quick lunch, as a side dish for dinner, or the base for another dish. These noodles are garlicky, buttery, and packed with flavor from the Shoyu, Mirin, and Maggi seasoning.

Happy National Noodle Month from my table-for-two to yours!

Bowl of Hawaiian Garlic Yakisoba Noodle Recipe.

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What is Shoyu?
Ingredients
Ingredient Notes
Instructions for Hawaiian Garlic Yakisoba Noodle Recipe
Video Instructions
Substitutions
Variations
Equipment
Storage
Top Tip
Hawaiian Garlic Yakisoba Noodle Recipe

What is Shoyu?

Shoyu is regular soy sauce. Shoyu is the name soy sauce goes by in Hawaii. I first heard the word Shoyu when I met my husband, who grew up in Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. I had no idea what he was talking about. There was no Google back in the day, so I couldn't just go look it up. Eventually I figured it out. Some of the others took a bit longer like, huli huli chicken, malasada, manapua, and li hing mui, a weird, shriveled, salty, dried Chinese plum that Michael coerced me into tasting on a visit to Honolulu. There are no recipes for li hing mui on Oh, That's Good!

Ingredients

Looks simple, right? Well, it is. Here's what you need.

For the full recipe with quantities, see the recipe card at the end of the post.

Ingredient Notes

Yakisoba noodles
- Buy the fresh, partially cooked noodles, not the dried type. We like Fortune brand Yakisoba noodles. They taste great and are easy to find.
Garlic
- This recipe calls for a crazy amount of garlic. Use less if you must or more if you dare! See my tip for using a garlic grater. No big chunks of garlic in your noodles.
Scallions
- In this recipe the whites and green tops of the scallions are kept separate. If you are in a hurry, please feel free to put them both in at once. Just save a few for garnish.
Butter
Shoyu (Soy Sauce)
- Use whatever brand you like, but in my kitchen we use Pearl River brand. It's the Hawaiian thing to do!
Mirin
- Mirin is a sweet Asian cooking rice wine, similar to sake. It is readily available in most grocery stores in the Asian food aisle.
Maggi Seasoning
- Maggi seasoning sauce is a dark, soy sauce-type hydrolysed vegetable protein-based condiment sauce. There, I said it. Just think of it as Switzerland's gift to the world.
Sesame Seeds (optional for garnish)

Instructions for Hawaiian Garlic Yakisoba Noodle Recipe

Thinly slice the scallions, separating the green tops from the white bottoms.
Finely mince or grate the garlic.
Add the oil to the bottom of the pot. Place on burner over medium heat.
Add the Yakisoba noodles to the pot and let them just start to heat up. Use a chopstick or skewer to move them around without breaking them.
Add the garlic to the pot and stir to mix with the noodles being careful not to break the noodles.
Add the scallion whites and stir with the chopstick. Cook for one minute. Splash in 2-3 tablespoons of hot water to help soften the noodles.
When the water is absorbed, about a minute, pour in the Mirin, soy sauce and Maggi seasoning.

Cook, stirring with the chopstick until the liquids are adsorbed. Add the butter and stir until melted.
Remove from heat, sprinkle with the green scallion tops and sesame seeds. Serve immediately.

Video Instructions

Picking up a bite of garlic noodles with chopsticks.

Substitutions

Yakisoba noodles - use another partially cooked, thin, Asian style wheat noodle if you prefer.
Soy Sauce - use lower sodium soy sauce if preferred. If you use a sweet soy sauce, omit or reduce the Mirin by half.
Mirin - If you can't find Mirin you can substitute a sweet Marsala cooking wine or my favorite, Shaoxing Chinese Cooking Wine. Shaoxing Wine can be found in most Asian markets as well as online.
Maggi Seasoning - If you need a substitute look no further than Tastylicious's article about Maggi Seasoning substitutions. They offer lots of alternatives.

Variations

Spicy - Things get a little controversially in my house when I talk of adding spicy heat. That said, after plating the noodles, I drizzle hot Chili oil on my portion.
Deluxe - This Hawaiian Garlic Yakisoba Noodle Recipe can become a full meal with the addition of cooked chicken, shrimp or pork. Dare I say it can be out of this world topped with slices of crispy fried Spam? I stand by that.
San Francisco Style - In the city by the bay they love to add a little Parmesan cheese to their Garlic Noodles.

Equipment

Not much is needed in the way of equipment to make this recipe. A sharp knife or garlic grater and a heavy bottomed sauce pan are all you really need. My favorite pot for cooking this dish in is my small, porcelain clad, cast iron Dutch oven. You can use a heavy bottomed saucepan, a cast iron skillet, or a non-stick pan as well. If you are doubling or tripling the recipe, take that into consideration when choosing your cooking vessel.

Storage

This dish is best eaten immediately, but is good for a couple of days in the refrigerator. Microwaving is the best method to reheat.

These ingredients don't stand up well to freezing.

Top Tip

You can finely mince the garlic for Hawaiian Garlic Noodles, or put them through a garlic press. My favorite way prep garlic is to use a garlic grater. For Christmas, my daughter and grandkids got me a beautiful garlic grater made by Bona Cera. It is amazing for grating garlic, horseradish, ginger, or turmeric. It comes with a brush to scrape out what you grate, and because it is so pretty, it comes with a display stand!

When you grate the garlic for this recipe it blends perfectly with the noodles and they become one, with no little chunks of garlic.