The Japanese stir-fried noodle dish often served with a sweet sauce is yakisoba.
Yakisoba is made by stir-frying wheat-based Chinese-style noodles with ingredients such as cabbage, onions, carrots, bean sprouts, and pork. Despite its name, the noodles are usually not made from buckwheat, as traditional soba noodles are. The characteristic seasoning is a Japanese Worcestershire-style sauce that is savory, tangy, and often mildly sweet.
The dish developed in Japan in the early 20th century, with roots in street food and okonomiyaki-style cooking. It became especially popular when wheat-flour noodles were more practical and affordable than some other ingredients. Regional versions now appear across Japan, with variations in noodles, meat, seafood, vegetables, and sauce.
Common toppings include aonori seaweed, beni shoga pickled ginger, katsuobushi bonito flakes, and Japanese mayonnaise. Yakisoba is also distinct from yaki udon, which uses thick udon noodles, and from chow mein, its Chinese-style relative.