Asian Noodle Salad with Chicken

Election week. I won't dwell on politics — that's not what this space is for — but I'll say this: being a woman of color in America felt different after Tuesday. The particular flavor of being Korean-American, adopted, visibly Asian in a country where someone just won a presidential election on a platform that included, among other things, the casual demonization of people who look like me — that hit differently than I expected. I'm not an immigrant. I'm an adoptee, which is a different category entirely, but the people who look at me on the street don't know that. They see an Asian face. What they project onto that face changed this week, or rather, what they felt permission to project changed.

I didn't cook for two days after the election. I ate takeout, which I haven't done in months — a regression, a retreat to the pre-cooking state, the state of not caring enough about myself to feed myself properly. On Thursday I snapped out of it. I made kimchi jjigae — the spiciest batch yet, extra gochugaru, extra heat — because if the world is going to be hostile, I'm going to eat food that fights back. The jjigae burned my mouth and I ate two bowls and felt the fire spread from my stomach outward and it was — clarifying. Korean food is not polite food. It doesn't apologize for its heat or its funk or its fermented pungency. In a week where I felt small and visible and targeted, the food made me feel large.

In therapy, Dr. Yoon and I talked about what it means to be a visible minority in this specific moment. She said, "Your identity work was already political. Now it's explicitly political." She's right. Learning Korean, cooking Korean food, claiming a culture that was taken from me — these were always acts of resistance, but they felt personal. Now they feel public. I am a Korean woman in America, and the America I live in just told me, via ballot box, that my presence is conditional, my belonging is negotiable, and my face is a target. The kimchi in my fridge is a statement. The Hangul on my phone is a statement. The dosirak I bring to work is a statement. I didn't ask for any of it to be political. But here we are.

Work was subdued. Half the office was stunned, the other half was pretending everything was normal, and the dissonance was exhausting. Jenny and I ate lunch together every day this week — Korean food, Chinese food, solidarity in a corporate cafeteria. She said, "This is why we cook." I said, "Yeah." Nothing more needed.

Saturday: Bellevue. David voted the way David always votes (quietly, privately, without discussion). Karen voted the way Karen always votes (similarly). We didn't talk about the election. We ate Karen's roast chicken and my kimchi and we talked about Kevin's coffee roasting and the weather and the Seahawks, and the things we didn't say sat on the table alongside the things we did, and the dinner was warm and the house was warm and I love my parents and I wish they understood what it feels like to have a face that some people have decided is the face of the enemy. But they can't understand that. They can't. Their faces have never been targets. And that gap — the racial gap, the one that adoption doesn't bridge — was wider this week than it's ever been.

I made jjajangmyeon on Sunday — Korean black bean noodles, a dish I've been wanting to try. It's comfort food of the highest order: thick noodles in a sweet, savory black bean sauce with diced pork and vegetables. The sauce is made from chunjang — a fermented black bean paste that I found at H Mart after twenty minutes of searching because it wasn't where I expected and I can't read most of the Korean labels. The noodles were cathartic to make — the chopping, the stirring, the physicality of feeding myself something hearty and filling on a Sunday night when the world felt uncertain. The jjajangmyeon was excellent. Dense, sweet, salty, the noodles chewy, the sauce clinging to every strand. I ate the whole pot. I'm not sorry.

I ended that Sunday with a pot of black bean noodles and the specific satisfaction of feeding myself something that asked nothing of me except presence. The jjajangmyeon was cathartic precisely because noodles — long, chewy, sauce-holding noodles — have a physicality that soups and rice don’t quite match. This Asian Noodle Salad with Chicken carries that same energy: bold, unapologetic, deeply savory, the kind of dish you make when you need to feel grounded in your body and your kitchen and yourself. It’s not jjajangmyeon, but it speaks the same language — and after the week I had, that was exactly enough.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

8 oz soba or rice noodles (or lo mein noodles)
2 cups cooked chicken breast, shredded or thinly sliced
1 cup shredded purple cabbage
1 cup shredded carrots
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
3 green onions, sliced on the diagonal
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 tablespoon honey or maple syrup
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
2 cloves garlic, minced
1–2 teaspoons chili garlic sauce or sriracha, to taste
1 tablespoon neutral oil (vegetable or avocado)

Instructions

Cook the noodles. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Cook noodles according to package directions until just tender. Drain and rinse under cold water to stop cooking. Toss with neutral oil to prevent sticking and set aside.
Make the dressing. In a small bowl or jar, whisk together soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, honey, grated ginger, minced garlic, and chili garlic sauce. Taste and adjust heat to your preference — go bold.
Prep the vegetables. While the noodles cool, shred the cabbage and carrots, slice the bell pepper and green onions, and roughly chop the cilantro.
Combine. In a large mixing bowl, add the cooled noodles, shredded chicken, cabbage, carrots, and bell pepper. Pour dressing over the top and toss thoroughly until everything is well coated.
Finish and serve. Transfer to a serving platter or individual bowls. Top with green onions, cilantro, and toasted sesame seeds. Serve immediately at room temperature, or refrigerate up to 1 hour before serving for a chilled version.

Nutrition (per serving)

Asian Noodle Salad with Chicken — The Week I Cooked My Way Back to Myself