Savory Japanese stir-fried noodles stuffed in hot dog bun, Yakisoba Pan is the ultimate sandwich for carb lovers and featured on Netflix® “Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories”.
Bread or noodles? Noodles or bread? When you couldn’t make up which savory carb to satisfy your hunger, Yakisoba Pan (焼きそばパン) would be your answer.
Called Yakisoba Dog, this iconic carb-on-carb Japanese stir-fried noodle sandwich is also featured on the popular Netflix® show – Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories (Season 2, Episode 5).
What’s Yakisoba Pan?
Yakisoba (焼きそば) is a well-loved Japanese stir-fried noodle dish, which is one of the classic street food. And if you are familiar with Japanese bakery Melon Pan and An-Pan, “pan” (パン) means bread in Japanese.
When these noodles are stuffed into the Japanese hot dog buns (we call Koppepan コッペパン), it is called Yakisoba Pan (焼きそばパン). Unusual this pairing may sound, Yakisoba Pan works out to be a delicious partner in crime, only in a sandwich form.
How Yakisoba Pan Was Created
The origin of the yakisoba pan goes back to the 1950s in Tokyo. When Nozawa-ya used to sell their bread Koppepan (コッペパン) and Yakisoba separately, a customer requested to put them all in one to save some trouble. Hence, an unexpected but delicious sandwich was created.
To make Yakisoba Pan, you make a slit on top of the hot dog bun and stuff yakisoba noodles in between the buttered bread. Then, garnish the stuffed bread with red pickled ginger, Japanese mayonnaise, aonori, or parsley for a flavor and visual boost.
There are many variations of sauces for the noodles (thin/thick sauce, different seasonings). You can also choose to include or exclude shredded cabbage. To avoid the noodles from falling apart, a typical yakisoba pan is wrapped with plastic wrap.
As the yakisoba pan is inexpensive but hearty enough to fill a hungry stomach, it is a popular snack and lunch at school cafeterias. You can also find it available all over Japan at convenience stores, festivals, and local bakeries.
3 Yakisoba Pan Cooking Tips
1. Spread butter on the bread.
A layer of fat such as butter prevents buns from absorbing extra moisture from the noodles. You could spread Japanese mayo instead.
2. Use plain noodles in the bun.
Unlike the regular yakisoba that contains cabbage and carrots, yakisoba in the yakisoba pan typically does not include anything but the noodle itself. As the yakisoba pan is made ahead of time for lunch, vegetables are avoided to keep moisture out of the bread that could potentially become soggy. Nobody wants soggy bread.
Of course, if you’re serving Yakisoba Pan immediately, you can make regular Yakisoba with protein and vegetables and stuff in the buns!
3. Be generous with the sauce.
Being a mom, I try to go easy with the seasonings when flavoring the food. I believe that children shouldn’t get used to overly salty and sweet food from a young age. It’s important to cultivate a healthy eating habit and for them to know what the actual ingredient tastes like.
Having said that, I make an exception when comes to Yakisoba Pan. The flavor can be boring and bland when the noodles don’t get much sauce in the hot dog buns. As there are no other seasonings that go into the hot dog buns, I recommend adding a good amount of sauce to the noodles.
Find Split-Top Buns
To make Yakisoba Pan a bit more authentic, look for split-top buns.
The majority of hot dog buns I see at the grocery stores are split-side buns. You might be lucky to find a bag of split-top buns like these (see above) for Lobster Rolls, etc. I recommend checking your local gourmet grocery stores.
More Japanese Sandwiches You’ll Like
Don’t forget to check out more amazing Japanese sandwich recipes here.
- Japanese Egg Sandwich (Tamago Sando)
- Wanpaku Sandwich
- Japanese Fruit Sandwich
- Spam Onigirazu (Rice Sandwich)
Wish to learn more about Japanese cooking? Sign up for our free newsletter to receive cooking tips & recipe updates! And stay in touch with me on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram.
Yakisoba Pan (Yakisoba Dog)
Ingredients
- 8 hot dog buns
- butter (for the buns)
- 1 Tbsp neutral oil
- 11 oz yakisoba noodles (2 5.5-oz packages)
- 4 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 Tbsp oyster sauce
- aonori (dried green laver seaweed) (to serve)
- pickled red ginger (beni shoga or kizami beni shoga) (to serve)
- Japanese Kewpie mayonnaise (to serve; optional)
Instructions
- Gather all the ingredients.
- Make a slit on top (or side) of 8 hot dog buns and spread butter (it will act as water-resistant).
- Cut 11 oz yakisoba noodles in half.
- Heat 1 Tbsp neutral oil in a large frying pan or cast iron skillet and cook yakisoba noodles while loosening it up.
- Season the noodles with 4 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce and 1 Tbsp oyster sauce. Mix all together and remove from the heat.
- Stuff the bread with the yakisoba noodles. Sprinkle aonori (dried green laver seaweed) and put a little bit of pickled red ginger (beni shoga or kizami beni shoga) in the center. Optionally, you can drizzle the top with Japanese Kewpie mayonnaise and Yakisoba sauce, if you‘d like. If you don’t eat it right away, wrap the sandwich with plastic wrap.
- You can use side-split hot dog buns, too.
Nutrition
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on July 3, 2017. The content has been modified/edited slightly and republished in March 2020.
It sounds to me like this uses Worcestershire and Oyster sauce on plain yakisoba noodles, so is that essentially yakisoba sauce? They have yakisoba sauce at my local Asian market as well as noodle packets with dried powder, and I’m wondering how they’d compare?
Hi Brayton, Thank you so much for reading Nami’s post and trying her recipe!
Yes. This is a quick version of the Yakisoba sauce recipe. You may also use Yakisoba sauce or sauce packets to make Yakisoba Pan.
If you’re interested, here’s Nami’s Yakisoba sauce recipe🙂:
https://www.justonecookbook.com/yakisoba-sauce-recipe/
We hope you enjoy Yakisoba Pan!
Now I know why these are popular. Not only cheap and easy as [expletive deleted] to make, but biting into that bun and noodles is so satisfying. I’ll be making this instead of a hot dog once in a while. And, nice to add to the carb loading recipe book. Arigato gozaimasu, sensei!
Hi Richard! Haha, this is totally equivalent to eating spaghetti with garlic bread to me and I love it too! Thanks for trying this recipe! I’m so happy you enjoyed it!
Hello! I have a question: Exactly how many grams of soba noodles do you use for 8 servings? I have packages of soba noodles in different sizes at home and I don’t know what “2 yakisoba noodles” mean here.
Hi Marvin! I’ve updated the recipe. 11 oz total, two 5.5-oz packages.
I wanted to make this today… But when I checked for yakisoba noodles, I didn’t have any.
So, instead I used udon noodles. I also added some furikake and mayonnaise to the udon noodles.
End result: The Udon Pan turned out great! 🙂
Hi K! That’s wonderful! Thanks so much for trying this recipe and for your kind feedback. 🙂
Omg that looks yummy!!! Definitely going to show it to my husband and see if he wants to put it on our next shopping list. <3
Thanks Stacey! Hope he’ll be interested in trying this recipe. 🙂
Hi Nami,
Where do you buy your hot dog buns? And which brand do you find best? Don’t the buns come sliced sideways? Thank you! I have enjoyed so many of your recipes!
Sandy
Hi Sandy! All the hot dog buns are sliced sideways. Japanese bakery may have plain buns like this without a slit. I’ve used the regular American buns to produce the image of what Yakisoba pan looks like. I will need to make Japanese savory bread dough recipe in the future.
Nami, do you have a recipe for Japanese hot dog buns? I could only find one but it requires a sourdough starter. I would love to start making sourdough bread, but I’m really eager to try yakisoba pan as soon as possible.The author of the recipe I found is not Japanese. Do Japanese hot dog buns use a sourdough starter? I’ve made Japanese milk bread several times and the recipe I follow doesn’t call for a sourdough starter. But the author of that recipe isn’t Japanese, either. Thanks for any help you can give! I love your recipes and learned a lot from them and your videos.
Hi Randy! No, not sourdough bread. My notebook says:
250 g bread flour
4 g salt
15 g sugar
3 g instant dry yeast
8 g skim milk
155 warm water
15 g butter
But I haven’t made it for a long time… I hope I can test it again and publish the recipe one day. 🙂
Thanks, Nami! I’ll be making them tomorrow.
Can I substitute the Aonori for furikake? Is it same thing?
Hi Carolyn! Aonori is green color seaweed powder while furikake has mixture of different ingredients (often includes nori seaweed). If you like, you can add furikake too, but you can also skip Aonori. It has slight fragrance and flavor but you can skip it. It’s added for the color and taste.
Oh so yummy, i will try this recipe out! I had this one from a convenience store! Despite it being a little cold (i think it been sitting there for a while) I loved it and filled me up real good! Can’t wait to try a homemade one!
Hi Aubrey! Yes it’s usually sold at room temperature in the convenience stores and bakery. Hope you enjoy the homemade one! 🙂