Can You Eat Pasta With Soy Sauce? (Is It Tasty?)

Some of you may be rolling your eyes or barfing metaphorically as you read the title of this post. However, I always encourage experimenting with food and different types of cuisines. While pasta is an Italian staple and soy sauce is an Asian condiment/cooking ingredient, there’s no good reason to keep them apart. 

Eating pasta with soy sauce totally works and isn’t weird or strange at all. Soy sauce goes well with noodles. Since pasta has a similar texture and is made with the same basic ingredients, it can be mixed with soy sauce for a sweet and savory flavor. It’s an easy, lazy, and cheap dinner.   

Let’s dive deeper and check out the benefits of making pasta with soy sauce along with a few recipes that use this combo.

Benefits of cooking pasta with soy sauce

As the world becomes more globalized and different cultures and cuisines clash and combine, people are going to combine ingredients from different sources and try them out. Sometimes, it leads to awful combinations like Pineapple on Pizza, and other times it leads to wonderful creations like pasta with soy sauce. 

I discovered this amazing combination when I was still in college and dirt poor. I mixed whatever I had in the kitchen and hoped it would taste good and fill me up. Let’s check out the benefits of cooking pasta with soy sauce. 

It’s cheap and easy to make 

A pack of whole-grain spaghetti costs around a couple of dollars while a bottle of soy sauce doesn’t even cross the $10 mark. Add a stick of butter and you’ve got the ingredients to make the most basic pasta and soy sauce dish. Each serving would cost you less than a dollar and you can make it within a few minutes.

Both whole-grain pasta and soy sauce are highly nutritious 

While low in calories, both soy sauce and pasta have an impressive nutritional profile. The combination of those ingredients is packed with carbs, fiber, protein, and minerals like copper, phosphorus, and iron. It’s a delicious and healthier alternative to instant noodles. As long as you’re using whole-grain pasta instead of refined white pasta, you’re good. 

Increased digestion

Research shows that soy sauce can also promote and improve digestion. Similar to caffeine, when you have soy sauce, your stomach juice secretion increases and can help to break down food more easily. 

You get antioxidants

Dark soy sauce has many antioxidants. While it is unclear how antioxidants help the human body, studies show that they have positive effects on your cardiovascular health and can even lower bad cholesterol in your body.  

With that out of the way, let’s check out a few amazing pasta and soy sauce recipes. 

Butter Garlic Soy Sauce Pasta

I love this beautiful dish since it combines beautifully crafted Italian pasta with rich Asian flavors, two of my favorite things. It’s nutritious, healthy, and low in calories and I was able to make it in less than 15 minutes. 

Ingredients

• One cup of pasta (2 ounces).
• Mushrooms (one or two types can be mixed).
• Half a tablespoon of butter.
• ¼ Onion.
• 2 tablespoons of soy sauce.
• Scallions.
• 2 cloves of garlic.

One serving of this dish would give you around:

• 300 calories.
• 9 g protein.
• 42 g carbs.
• 11 g fat. 

You can choose any kind of pasta you like. I stuck to linguini. If you want more protein, you can add chicken, bits of bacon, shrimp, and other lightly seasoned ingredients to the dish. For the mushrooms, I stuck to button and shitake mushrooms. 

Here’s how you can cook this delicious pasta:

• Portion your choice of pasta and cook it in salt water according to the directions on the label. Keep it al dente so that the starch from the pasta is absorbed by your body slowly, keeping your blood insulin levels normal.

• As the pasta is boiling in the pot, chop up the mushrooms, set the pan on high heat, and add some oil. 

• Add the mushrooms to the hot pan and proceed to peel and chop a few cloves of garlic as the mushrooms sizzle. 

• Season your mushrooms with salt and pepper and press them against the hot pan. 

• Once the mushrooms get nice and brown, add the butter and add your chopped garlic as it starts to melt. 

• Next, add some soy sauce and bring all the ingredients together. 

• As the mushrooms are cooked along with the sauce, add your pasta and add some pasta water if necessary. Season it once more and add garnish with chopped scallions.   

Snake Alley Pasta 

Snake Alley Pasta is a surprisingly simple dish that packs in a lot of flavors. It has shrimp, pork, aromatics, green onions, and soy sauce that looks amazing on the plate and explodes in your mouth with all sorts of umami flavors. However, it takes a bit more time to cook compared to the other dish. I usually save his dish for dinner. 

Ingredients

• 3/4 pound spaghetti.
• 1/4 cup soy sauce.
• One pound of ground pork.
• Half a pound of baby shrimp. 
• 2 tablespoons of dry sherry.
• 2 cloves of garlic.
• 4 teaspoons of cornstarch.
• 1 tablespoon of fresh ginger.
• Half a teaspoon of red pepper flakes.
• 3/4 cup green onions.

One serving of this dish would give you around:

• 500 calories.
• 53 g protein.
• 52g carbs.
• 7g fat.

Here’s how you cook this dish:

• Cook your spaghetti according to the instructions on the label. However, this time don’t salt the water. When it’s cooked, drain it and keep it warm.  

• As your spaghetti boils, get a pan on the stove and combine sherry, soy sauce, a cup of water, and a bit of cornstarch in it. This is the sauce that needs to be set aside. 

• Get a large skillet or a hot wok and add oil, minced garlic, ginger, and red pepper as they start to sizzle, add the minced pork. Cook over medium heat till it goes brown and thoroughly cooked. 

• Move the pork to expose the grease and add green onions to it. Stir fry for a minute before you add the sauce that was mixed earlier. Add shrimp and combine everything thoroughly before pouring it over the spaghetti.  

I usually make this pasta as dinner for my family and that’s why the portions are larger than the above-mentioned recipe. If you follow this recipe, you’ll be able to cook enough for four people. 

Conclusion

A lot of people like to gatekeep things and are always on the hunt for authenticity. However, authenticity is overrated. As I travel, meet new people, learn their culture, and get introduced to new cuisines, I have started to view cuisines as a technique instead of authentic methods of cooking that need to be guarded.  

Cooking is like language. It’s made by people and evolves as more people get connected to and by it. So, I’d say eat what you love and keep experimenting. If someone doubts the incredible combination of soy sauce and pasta, you can cook the recipes I mentioned above and dispel their doubts.