Toasted bread tastes good, and yakisoba tastes good. Put them together = amazing.

Hot sandwiches can really level up your sandwich, as proven by our recent favorite, the grilled croquette sandwich. Another hot sandwich our Japanese-language reporter and camp food enthusiast Masanuki Sunakoma tried recently was one made with yakisoba noodles inside.

Yakisoba and bread isn’t a new combination in Japan. Go to any convenience store and you’re likely to find yakisoba bread, with the noodles stuffed into a soft bun. But what inspired Masanuki to make a hot sandwich version was a video from Stay-At-Home Dad Ken’s Outdoor Cooking, a YouTube channel that regularly posts videos of tasty eats to enjoy when you’re on a camping trip.

▼ Here’s the video he used for reference.

Unlike the small amount of noodles typically included in commercial yakisoba bread, this recipe includes an entire serving of noodles. Yakisoba is often sold in square packs like the ones featured in the video, and it’s magically the same size as a typical piece of bread. It was like an entire meal that was certain to satisfy Masanuki.

Ingredients

● 2 slices of bread
● 1 pack of yakisoba noodles (sauce included)
● 5 grams (1.76 ounces) thinly sliced pork
● 1 leaf of cabbage
● Margarine (as needed)
● Beni shoga/red pickled ginger (to taste)
● Yakisoba sauce, if it’s not included in the noodle pack

With the ingredients assembled and ready to go, Masanuki set to work. First, he spread margarine over one side of each slice of bread.

Side note: you don’t need to cut the crusts off; that’s just Masanuki’s preference.

The side with the margarine becomes the outside of the sandwich, or the side that would be toasted. The margarine coating would ensure it browned evenly and became crisp.

Next, he plopped the square of yakisoba noodles on the non-margarine-d side of the bread.

Then, he sprinkled about two-thirds of the yakisoba sauce packet on top of the noodles.

For a vinegar-y, spicy kick, he added some red pickled ginger. If you make this on your own, this step is optional.

And for some crunch, he spread some cabbage on it. If you have pre-shredded cabbage, even better.

Masanuki then topped it with the remaining yakisoba sauce powder. But he still wasn’t done assembling!

The final piece of the puzzle: the pork slices, close to the top so they can get nicely cooked.

And with that, it was time to close up the hot sandwich maker. Note that he closed it without adding that second slice of bread yet; you’re going to apply heat directly to the fillings first.

On low-medium heat, he cooked it pork-side-down to allow the pork to cook thoroughly. Undercooked meat would be a surefire way to ruin his good time.

After three or four minutes, Masanuki opened up the sandwich maker to see how the sandwich was coming along. It looked evenly cooked, so he flipped the sandwich maker in order to cook the bread on the other side.

It browned nicely after about two and a half minutes. Masanuki had his second slice of margarine-d bread at the ready.

He entered the final cooking stretch. He turned the maker upside down to allow the new slice of bread to cook, and after about two and a half more minutes…

It was done! If you didn’t know what was inside, you would be really surprised by what happened when Masanuki cut it in half.

▼ Just look at how beautifully it came out! It was absolutely packed with yakisoba.

When Masanuki plated it up, it looked like it could be served at a restaurant.

The concept of cutting open a sandwich to reveal a whole pack of yakisoba seemed almost like a magic trick to Masanuki, and he was definitely impressed. He was even more pleasantly surprised to find that the yakisoba sauce had formed nice and moistly, too. He had no complaints about the flavor as well, saying it was a definite step up from yakisoba bread sold at convenience stores. Just one of these sandwiches was enough to satisfy him.

So if you’re looking for a camp meal that’s junky, filling, and Japanese, consider giving this yakisoba toasted sandwich a try! It’s even more worth it if you surprise someone else by making it, surprising them with a sandwich full of yakisoba noodles.

Source: YouTube/兼業主夫ケンのキャンプ飯チャンネル
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