My Soy Pickled Cucumber is a copycat of the popular cucumber pickles sold at supermarkets and grocery stores in Japan. They have a slightly sweet soy flavour, and the crunchy texture is so addictive.
There are different types of Pickled Cucumbers sold at shops in Japan, but there is one extremely popular brand of Soy Pickled Cucumber called ‘Kyūri no Q-chan’.
About Kyūri no Q-chan
Kyūri no Q-chan (きゅうりのキューちゃん) is the brand name of these popular pickles produced by a food company called Tōkai Tsukemono (東海漬物), based in Toyohashi City, Aichi prefecture.
Kyūri no Q-chan
Among the many different kinds of pickles, Kyūri no Q-chan is a long-time seller in the pickles industry. In addition to the fact that the pickled cucumbers were perfect to go with rice, there were 3 innovative points that contributed to it gaining such popularity when introduced to the market in 1962.
- Kyūri no Q-chan was sold in a sealed package. Up to the early 1960s, pickles were sold in large tubs placed at the shops, from which small quantities of pickles were transferred into a plastic bag when the customers wanted to buy them.
- The cucumbers were pickled in soy sauce. Before Kyūri no Q-chan hit the market, cucumbers were usually pickled in rice bran. Daikon and turnip were pickled in soy sauce, but there was no concept of pickling cucumbers in the same way.
- The name of the brand attracted consumers. According to commercial practice at the time, the product would have been named simply to explain what it was, i.e., Soy Pickled Cucumber (like my recipe title!). But Tokai Tsukemono named it with a nickname ‘Q-chan’, which was very unique and catchy.
At the beginning, the saltiness was quite prominent, amounting to about 10% of the salt in the pickles. But the product has improved over time and the current version of Kyūri no Q-chan contains only 3.8% salt.
What’s in My Soy Pickled Cucumber (Kyūri no Q-chan)
Ingredients excluding pickling liquid
- Japanese cucumbers or Chinese cucumbers, cut into thin discs
- Julienned ginger
- Salt
- Sugar
- Roasted white sesame seeds (optional, I forgot to include this in the photo above)
I usually use Lebanese cucumbers whenever I need cucumbers in my recipe. But today, I used Chinese cucumbers (photo below). This is because Kyūri no Q-chan uses cucumbers from China, instead of Japanese cucumbers.
Apparently, Chinese cucumbers are firmer than Japanese cucumbers and they don’t lose their crunchy texture even after marinating them. The crunchiness is one of the attractive aspects of Kyūri no Q-chan.
I can’t find Japanese cucumbers in Sydney, but I recently found Chinese cucumbers at Asian grocery stores. Japanese cucumbers are longer than Lebanese cucumbers and the flesh is firmer, but Chinese cucumbers are even longer than Japanese cucumbers.
I made my Kyūri no Q-chan with Lebanese cucumbers as well as with Chinese cucumbers, then compared the flavour and the texture. I found that the Soy Pickled Cucumber made with Chinese cucumbers was much better in both flavour and texture.
This is because the centre of the Lebanese cucumber, where the seeds are, is quite soft and watery so the pickling liquid became thin due to the water in the cucumbers. Although the outside of the cucumber pieces was crunchy, the centre of each slice was extremely soft.
Left: Chinese cucumber. Right: Lebanese cucumber.
On the other hand, the Chinese cucumber pieces did not release very much water into the pickling liquid, so the flavour was stronger. The texture of the cucumber pieces was crunchier even in the centre of the slices.
Pickling Liquid
- Soy sauce
- Mentsuyu
- Vinegar
- Brown sugar
- Chicken broth powder
This is the first time I have used mentsuyu in my recipe blog, so let me explain to you what it is.
About Mentsuyu
Strictly speaking, mentsuyu (麺つゆ) means a broth for traditional Japanese noodle soups such as udon noodle soup and soba noodle soup. It is made with dashi stock, soy sauce, and mirin as the minimum ingredients. Some mentsuyu might also contain sugar and salt. the dashi stock can be any types of dashi stock that I listed in my post Varieties of Dashi Stock.
For convenience, a condensed form of mentsuyu was developed in the early 1960s and sold in a bottle. You dilute the condensed mentsuyu by adding water or hot water to use it as a broth.
These condensed mentsuyu became so popular that when the word ‘mentsuyu‘ (麺つゆ) is mentioned in recipes, it usually means condensed store-bought mentsuyu.
Mentsuyu can be used not only for noodle soups such as Kitsune Soba and Tempura Udon, but also as a dipping sauce for the dishes such as Zaru Soba and Tempura. You can also use it as a base flavour for simmering dishes since the ingredients of mentsuyu is very similar to the simmering sauce.
Depending on the brand of mentsuyu, the concentration rate varies. My mentsuyu required 2 parts water to 1 part mentsuyu to make a standard noodle soup broth. Other brands might require 3 parts water. The label on the bottle of mentsuyu should indicate the ratio, as well as the suggested mentsuyu to water ratio for typical dishes.
You can also buy vegetarian mentsuyu online. The link here shows a Ninben brand vegetarian mentsuyu bottle.
How to Make Soy Pickled Cucumber (Kyūri no Q-chan)
- Sprinkle salt and sugar over the cucumber pieces in a bowl, mix well and leave for 20 minutes.
- Squeeze the cucumber piecers to remove water out of them.
- Put the Marinade ingredients, cucumber pieces, and ginger in a frying pan, heat over high heat.
- Cook for a few minutes, during which mix the ingredients from time to time.
- Turn the heat off and let it cool.
- Transfer everything in the pan and sesame seeds to a zip lock bag, seal the bag, and leave it in the fridge at least overnight.
The flavour of home-made Kyūri no Q-chan is a bit different from the real Kyūri no Q-chan, but it is quite tasty and so easy to make. It goes so well with hot rice that you can eat a bowl of rice just with Kyūri no Q-chan!
Soy Pickled Cucumber (Kyūri no Q-chan) keeps about a week in the fridge.
Yumiko
My Soy Pickled Cucumber is a copycat of the popular cucumber pickles called Kyūri no Q-chan that is sold at supermarkets and grocery stores in Japan. It has a slightly sweet soy flavour and the crunchy texture is so addictive.
Total Time does not include Pickling Time which is overnight as a minimum.
No Meal Idea today because you could include Soy Pickled Cucumber (Kyūri no Q-chan) whenever you are having rice!
- 400g/0.9lb Chinese cucumbers (note 1)
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp sugar
- 20g/0.7oz ginger , finely julienned
- 1 tsp roasted white sesame seeds (optional)
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Slice cucumbers into 5mm/3⁄16" thick discs and put them in a bowl.
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Sprinkle salt and sugar over the cucumber pieces, toss or mix well using your hand, ensuring that all cucumber pieces are coated in salt and sugar.
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Leave them for 20 minutes.
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Taking a handful at a time, squeeze the cucumber pieces to get water out of them (note 3).
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Put all the Pickling Liquid ingredients, cucumber pieces, and ginger in a frying pan and heat over high heat.
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Cook for 3 minutes, stirring from time to time so that all the cucumber pieces are cooked in the liquid and stained evenly.
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Turn the heat off and let it cool to room temperature.
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Transfer all the cucumber pieces with ginger and all the liquid in the pan to a zip lock bag (note 4).
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Put sesame seeds in the bag and gently massage so that the sesame seeds spreads evenly.
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Remove the air from the bag as much as possible and seal the bag.
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Pickle for at least overnight in the fridge.
1. Chinese cucumber (see the photo in the post) has a firm texture even in the centre of the cucumber where the seeds are (unlike Lebanese cucumbers) which works well in this recipe.
You can buy Chinese cucumbers from Asian grocery stores. The next best cucumber is Japanese cucumber or continental cucumber (telegraph cucumber).
If you can only find Lebanese cucumbers, you can still make this recipe, but you may want to condense the pickling liquid so that the liquid does not become too thin while pickling due to the water from the cucumbers. See note 4.
2. Mentsuyu (麺つゆ) is a concentrated noodle soup base that you can buy from Japanese/Asian grocery stores. You simply add water to a small amount of mentsuyu to make a noodle soup broth.
You can also buy vegetarian mentsuyu online. The link here shows a Ninben brand vegetarian mentsuyu bottle.
You can find more details about mentsuyu with sample photos in the post.
3. You will probably get only a few to several drops of water from a handful of cucumbers, unless you are using Lebanese cucumbers. That’s OK. Another reason for squeezing the cucumber pieces is to damage the cucumber flesh slightly for better penetration of the pickling liquid into the cucumber pieces.
4. If you are using Lebanese cucumbers, transfer only the cucumber pieces into the bag, then heat the liquid to condense slightly, and put the liquid into the bag after cooling it down.
5. Soy Pickled Cucumber (Kyūri no Q-chan) keeps about a week in the fridge.
6. Nutrition per serving (5 servings). It is assumes that 50% of salt and sugar while sweating, and 30% of pickling liquid are absorbed into the cucumber pieces.
serving: 92g calories: 28kcal fat: 0.4g (1%) saturated fat: 0.1g (1%) trans fat: 0g polyunsaturated fat: 0.3g monounsaturated fat: 0.1g cholesterol: 0mg (0%) sodium: 307mg (13%) carbohydrates: 5.8g (2%) dietary fibre: 0.6g (2%) sugar: 3.1g protein: 0.9g vitamin a: 0mcg (0%) calcium: 21mg (2%) iron: 0.4mg (2%) potassium: 153mg (4%)
I’d forgotten about how much I loved these when visiting my grandma in Japan over the summers as a kid. These tasted exactly like I remembered! Thank you so much. I just discovered your site and am so excited to start learning to cook food from my heritage as my grandma didn’t teach me her recipes.
Hi Kevin, welcome to RTJ! I hope you find many recipes that brings back you fond memory.
You weren’t joking when you said they were addictive! I’ve made four batches now and I can’t leave them alone. Perfect on their own with rice, and equally good in sandwiches in place of dill pickles.
I wondered if that brief cooking technique would work with other pickles, so I tried it with a version of shibazuke. I make a lot of fermented pickles, but it’s one I can never get right. Mine never seems to achieve the full flavour of the commercial ones, which I love. So I simmered the egg plant pieces for a few minutes and left the cucumbers raw to allow for some fermentation. It turned out much more like the commercial version, so thank you for introducing that technique. I would never have thought of it otherwise.
Hi Karen, that was a good thinking and I am glad your pickles turned out to be close to the commercial version!
Hi. Just an update on the versatility of your recipe. I wasn’t able to find mini cucumbers this week, so rather than use de-seeded regular ones (which worked better than I expected) I substituted with daikon this time. I diced it into 1 cm cubes, microwaved them in a covered bowl for 8 – 10 minutes, and then braised them in the Q-chan liquid. It’s more cooked than the cucumber version, but the texture is very similar, and the daikon soaks up the liquid beautifully. Your formula works brilliantly with quite a few vegetables!
Hi Karen, thank you very much for being creative and trying Q-chan with other vegetables. You certainly do like Q-chan as indicated in the previous comment!