Soft Noodles (Sofuto-Men): A School Lunch Classic
ソフトめん
By the Aoi's Japanese School Lunch team · November 9, 2026 · 2 min read
What soft noodles (sofuto-men) are, how they came to Japanese school lunches, how children ate them, and what to use at home instead.
In the video "You Won't Believe How EASY Japanese Meat Sauce Spaghetti Is To Make," the sauce is served with soft noodles, or sofuto-men. These are spaghetti-style noodles that are cooked in advance and were made for Japanese school lunches. Many adults in Japan remember them from their school days.
What are soft noodles?
- Already cooked. The video describes them as spaghetti that has been boiled in advance.
- A school lunch invention. The formal Japanese name is ソフトスパゲッティ式めん, meaning "soft spaghetti-style noodles."
- Built to hold up. Ordinary noodles get mushy as they sit, which is a problem for school lunches. Nippon.com (in Japanese) says the fix was to use bread flour, then steam the raw noodles, soak them in cold water and boil them.
- They contain wheat. Bread flour is the main ingredient.
A short history
Accounts differ on the early dates. The video says soft noodles were developed around 1955 and were called a "dream noodle" because they kept for a long time. Nippon.com says the noodle industry asked to get noodles into school lunches around 1960, and a Yokohama manufacturer devised them. macaroni (in Japanese) says Tokyo first adopted them in the 1960s.
They later became less common. Nippon.com links this to udon and Chinese noodles made with special flour, and macaroni says Tokyo removed them from its standard lunch items in 2015. Macaroni also says some areas still serve them, such as Aichi with a miso-based sauce.
How children ate them
Each child got a portion in a plastic bag, moved the noodles to a bowl, and mixed them with curry or meat sauce. The video adds that the way people eat them differs from person to person.
Making this at home
Soft noodles for home use are sold in parts of Japan, but you're unlikely to find them elsewhere. To get close at home:
- Boil regular spaghetti past al dente. In her Tomato, Tuna and Garlic Spaghetti video (in Japanese), Aoi says nursery school pasta is cooked longer than the package says, and boiled without salt to keep the salt level down.
- Loosen the noodles right away. Aoi notes that stuck parts stay hard.
- Mix in a thick sauce. Meat sauce or curry sauce both fit the school lunch style.
Also in this video: tonkatsu sauce, tube garlic and the Bunbun Chopper.
