Quicker than Takeout

featuring Soy Ginger Popcorn Chicken, Yakisoba Noodles, Tiki Burgers, and more

After weeks of adding tomatoes, basil, and dill to everything to satiate my summer cravings, I figured it was time for a cuisine switch-up.

This time of the year, to me, screams light, refreshing, quick dishes - the perfect opportunity for Japanese cuisine to shine.

While not everything on the menu this week is authentically Japanese, most dishes are inspired by Japanese cuisine, including soyaki meatballs inspired by the flavors of gyoza, a soy ginger glaze inspired by the ginger sauce you’d get at a teppanyaki restaurant, and my take on yakisoba noodles inspired by, well, yakisoba noodles.

All that’s to say, let’s just dive right into it…

This week’s grocery haul was a bit difficult to keep track of since I had to make several trips to the grocery store for recipe-testing purposes (it took me 3 to 4 tries to craft a few recipes for this week’s menu).

That said, I’d estimate that while excluding protein (per standard protocol), one trip to the grocery store to get all of the listed ingredients would come out close to $50.

Many of the ingredients are either inexpensive produce or things you likely have on hand. For some of the ingredients you might be unfamiliar with or don’t buy often, here are a couple of notes:

• Chow Mein Noodles
  We’ll be using our chow mein noodles a couple of times this week - once in our salad and again as the star of the show in our yakisoba noodles.

  • I’d highly recommend Wel-Pac Chow Mein Noodles or an adjacent brand.

• Oyster “Flavored” Sauce
  If you haven’t cooked with oyster sauce much, it’s an incredibly delicious source of umami, salt, and sugar in dishes. Just note that the oyster sauce sold in most stores is oyster “flavored” sauce.

  • True oyster sauce is made in a much more involved way (boiling down oysters until brown and thick), making it more expensive and difficult to source, whereas oyster “flavored” sauce is made by adding oyster concentrate to a base sauce (made with water, salt, cornstarch, sugar, etc).

  • We’ll be using oyster “flavored” sauce - if you have access to it, I’d highly recommend the Lee Kum Kee brand.