On May 5, Lawson Japan debuted まんまる鶏 梅しそ (Manmaru Chicken Ume Shiso, ¥259) and ペヤング 超大盛やきそば ソース＆塩 (Peyang Super-Large Yakisoba Sauce & Salt, ¥325), marking the chain's second major hot-snack drop of the season and its latest instant-noodle collaboration with Maruka Foods.

The plum-shiso play

Lawson's new plum-shiso Manmaru Chicken wraps ume paste inside the rolled chicken thigh, then coats it in batter laced with yukari (dried red-shiso powder) before frying. The flavor combo is a known winner in Japanese summer home cooking—shiso's bright herbal bite cuts the richness of fried chicken, while pickled-plum tartness adds a savory-sour punch that reads "refreshing" even when the mercury climbs.

Manmaru Chicken itself launched in July 2025 at ¥248, designed for "customers who want to enjoy the taste and texture of meat" by hand-rolling boneless, skinless chicken thighs to trap juices and boost thickness, then coating them in batter roughly 10 percent thinner than the chain's L-Chiki flagship. The debut SKU moved 1.43 million units in its first three days—roughly six pieces per second. The plum-shiso variant ups the price ¥11 (about US$0.07), likely to offset the ume-paste filling and the specialty yukari topping, and slots into Lawson's rotating seasonal hot-case flavors alongside existing shichimi-spiced Manmaru (also ¥259).

Ume-shiso chicken is hardly new—FamilyMart has sold grilled ume-shiso chicken breast packs, and 7-Eleven featured a similar deep-fried sasami-age (chicken tenderloin) in March 2026. But pairing the flavor with Lawson's meatiest, lowest-breading chicken format is the move here: the recipe banks on that thick, juicy bite to balance the sharp ume and avoid drying out under the herbal dusting.

Sauce-and-salt Peyang

Peyang's Sauce & Salt yakisoba offers both classic Peyang sauce yakisoba and salt yakisoba in a single cup; Lawson's official line promises "three ways to enjoy" by eating each half separately, then mixing the two. The 238-gram cup (180 g of noodles) clocks 1,081 kcal, placing it squarely in the "super-large" (超大盛) tier Maruka reserves for konbini exclusives.

The idea is pure Peyang-core: double the sauce packets, split the toppings, let eaters experiment. One reviewer noted that the sauce-half flavor is stronger, so the "third taste" when fully mixed still skews heavily toward classic Peyang sauce with only a hint of the gara-and-scallop salt blend. That tracks—Maruka's standard sauce is thick, sweet-savory, and built to dominate; the salt variant relies on lighter chicken-and-scallop stock per the nutrition label. Mixing them isn't quite "創作 third flavor" territory, but it does nudge the sauce toward a slightly more umami-forward, less sweet finish.

Lawson has run three rounds of Peyang tie-ups since early 2026, including a February "盛りすぎチャレンジ"激辛 cup with 50 percent more noodles and a bonus spice packet and an April 激辛やきそば collab in Kanto/Koshinetsu stores. The Sauce & Salt release is the chain's first wide-distribution Peyang drop since the激辛 campaigns wound down, and it's aimed at variety-seekers rather than heat-heads—three flavor experiences for ¥325, no commitment to a single sauce lane.

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