I needed to send some test packets over UDP to make sure connectivity was working. I found this site which outlined how to do it really well

nc -u <IP/hostname> <port>

Then on the next line you can send test messages, then hit CTRL+D when done. In my case I wanted to test sending syslog data, so I did nc -u <hostname> 514, then wrote test messages. the -u specifies UDP and 514 is the syslog port. I was then able to confirm on the other end the message was received. Handy.