Cold Chicken Soba Noodle Meal prep is better than takeout and a lot less expensive to prepare. We love this healthy meal prep for lunch or dinner!
We're especially excited about this cold chicken soba noodle meal prep because it is colorful, flavorful, and doesn't need to be reheated. Talk about the ultimate healthy meal prep; all you need to do is remove it from the fridge and dig in! Kids love this healthy prep, too, thanks to the chicken and peanut butter. Any time you use peanut butter in a sauce, it's a win.
This is an easy gluten free noodle bowl served cool with raw veggies, soba noodles, and baked chicken in a light peanut sauce. That's it, full stop. We love a good peanut sauce because they come together pretty easily with some regular old pantry staples. (Check out a similar recipe, our Gluten-Free Thai Peanut Stir Fry Meal Prep!)
Cold Chicken Soba Noodle Meal Prep Ingredients
For the soba noodle bowl:
- 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- Himalayan sea salt, to taste
- black pepper, to taste
- 1 8 oz. package soba noodles
- 2 carrots, jullienned
- 1 cup purple cabbage, shredded
- ½ cup cilantro, roughly chopped
And for the peanut sauce:
- 2 tablespoon natural peanut butter
- 2 tablespoon lite tamari sauce
- 1 tablespoon lime juice
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
- ¼ cup filtered water
Optional garnishes for serving
- Black and white sesame seeds
- Cilantro, chopped
- Fresh lime wedges
How to Make Cold Chicken Soba Noodles
We like this recipe for a few reasons and one of them is that you can make the chicken ahead of time. We tell you how to bake it in the oven but poaching it in boiling water would work, too. Set it aside, and make the peanut sauce. You can make that ahead of time, too!
Prep the veggies by chopping and setting them aside in a large bowl, while the noodles are boiling. This won't take long; soba noodles cook relatively quickly in comparison to standard wheat pasta. Drain and rinse them, and transfer them to the bowl with the veggies. Add the peanut sauce, and then the chicken, to the soba noodles. Toss to combine. And that's it!
How to Store Cold Chicken Soba Noodles
If you're going to make this and eat it right away, combine everything as directed. If you're prepping this for the week, you can make it as is—the veggies are crunchy and should hold up to the sauce. However, if you want, you can always toss the noodles, veggies, and chicken together just before you're ready to eat. Just store the sauce in a separate container, or several little ones, if you're taking the meal on the go, as for lunch, for example.
How to Serve Cold Soba Noodles
We love this just as it is; it's a complete meal. However, a few segments of lime would perk up the flavors if you've got extra for serving. Extra cilantro emphasizes the fresh flavor, and the sesame seeds add some savory nuttiness to the dish.
Substitutions and Alterations
You can make this using rice noodles instead of soba noodles if you like; the dish will still be gluten-free as soba is made from buckwheat. Furthermore, if you're in a pinch and you really want to make this recipe, you can absolutely use spaghetti or linguine; chickpea or other plant-based versions of those pasta types can fill in, too.
This dish would also taste great with some chopped avocado.
Switch out your proteins if you are tired of chicken. Tofu is great here, and so is shrimp. Both cook really quickly, which would shorten the amount of time you spend on this healthy meal prep!
READ MORE: More noodles and chicken! Pesto Noodles with Crispy Chicken Bites
