Noodles with Ginger Cilantro Sauce

Being a sucker for noodle dishes with Asian flavors and an enthusiast of pesto-type sauces laced with fresh herbs, I was obligated at my core to make this dish. The freshest cilantro is everywhere right now (even if my planting isn’t quite mature enough to be used yet), and I had a big chile pepper ready to be picked in my back yard (the first true fruit of my gardening labors!). It’s not often when so much comes together in my favor, and, for once, I failed to squander the opportunity.

Which is great, because these noodles are truly delicious! They’re cooled after cooking and then start their flavor journey by being tossed with some sesame oil. The sauce is a puree of mostly cilantro and ginger, enhanced by vinegar, chile, soy sauce, tahini, and more sesame oil. There’s a lot of big flavor together, but it manages to be zesty, and perhaps slightly and pleasantly bitter, without being fiery or overwhelming. That being said, if you want to punch up a particular favorite flavor, there’s room to do so. (I was thinking of making them with this infused sesame oil next.)

In addition to plenty of farmer’s market cilantro, I also had a pretty bunch of green onions, so I finely chopped those and added them to my noodles, too. I think this could be an exciting dish if the sauce was doubled and lots of other seasonal vegetables were added: I’m thinking matchstick radishes and cucumbers, and/or finely chopped snap peas and green beans. And don’t forget shredded cabbage and carrots, and finely chopped broccoli. Maybe we’ll need to triple the sauce batch?

I served this as a main-dish salad, but you could also offer it as a side with some grilled chicken or tofu, perhaps made with this Chinese Style Barbecue Sauce and Marinade. I’d even put it on a summer buffet table next to barbecue beans and potato salad.

 

Well, really, I’d eat it anywhere and any-when. And these seasonal ingredients keep coming to the market and to my garden, so all will be right with the world …of noodles.

Sesame Noodles with Ginger Cilantro Sauce

Based on a recipe from The Bon Appetit Cookbook

If you find the sauce to be too thick, you can thin it with water, or chicken or vegetable broth. I did not find a need for this addition.

8 ounces dry long pasta, such as linguine, or rice noodles

2 ½ tablespoons peeled, chopped fresh ginger

1 small chile pepper (or half of a large one), seeds removed if desired, coarsely chopped

1 cup coarsely chopped cilantro leaves and tender stems

1 tablespoon soy sauce or tamari

1 tablespoon rice vinegar

1 tablespoon tahini

3 tablespoons sesame oil, divided

Water or broth to thin sauce as needed

½ cup finely chopped green onions (scallions)

1. Cook the noodles in boiling salted water until done the way you like to eat them. (I like mine a bit softer than al dente.) Drain. Rinse with cold water until completely cooled. Drain well.

2. Combine the ginger and chile in the bowl of a food processor. Process to a coarse paste. Add the cilantro, soy sauce, rice vinegar, tahini, and 2 tablespoons sesame oil. Process until almost smooth, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl if needed. Add some water or broth if the sauce seems too thick.

3. Toss the noodles with the remaining 1 tablespoon sesame oil. Add the green onions and pour over the sauce. Toss to coat well. You can also add some water or broth at this stage if the sauce seems to thick. Adjust the seasonings, to taste. Serve at room temperature or cool.

Makes about 4 side-dish servings, or 2 big main-dish servings.

Other recipes like this one: Noodles with Cilantro, Green Onions, and Peanuts; Sesame Noodle Salad; Peanutty Noodles; Thai Peanut Curry Noodles; Warm Noodles with Cilantro and Coconut Lime Dressing

One year ago: Radish Cilantro Salsa

Thai Curry Peanut Noodles

I quit testing recipes for noodles with peanut sauce when I realized that none of them was going to top our favorite Peanutty Noodles. Recently, however, I came across one that had curry paste in the peanut sauce, and I guess I was really hungry for noodles, because I decided to try it right away. Well, as right away as I ever get to anything.

When I bookmarked this one in an electronic version of Eating Well magazine, I just looked at the photo and the ingredients and thought I was reading a recipe for a warm noodle dish. Actually paying attention revealed that the original recipe is for cold noodles, and I briefly considered making cold noodles, but the snow had come back by then and a cool supper was less appealing. I simply cooked the vegetables in a wok, added the noodles and the sauce and tossed it all together to heat up.

I stuck with the vegetables called for in the original recipe. The red bell pepper seemed like a no-brainer, but I thought it was kind of unusual for a Thai-style noodle recipe to call for kohlrabi. I’m in favor of kohlrabi, which is basically a mildly flavored, overachieving cabbage stem, and it’s popular around here, but I wasn’t sure I could get any. I was thrilled to find some, however, and locally grown, too! It seems a nearby farm had some awesome greenhouses and I could use super fresh kohlrabi from Minnesota in my Thai noodles!

This is a really delicious dish of hot curried noodles. It’s different enough from Peanutty Noodles to be appreciated as its own thing. It’s filling and satisfying, complex and flavorful. It’s not particularly spicy, but there’s plenty of complex warmth in the tastes and aromas of the sauce. I will say that I made it a little salty, but I think that’s because I salted the water in which I cooked the noodles, then used that water to thin the sauce. Cutting out that salt should keep things out of the too-salty range.

 

There are also probably dozens of variations, additions and subtractions one could apply to the basic concept of this dish. In my opinion, only the peanut butter, curry paste and noodles are absolutely essential components. Even the red curry paste I used could be replaced with green or yellow curry paste. You could add more spice. You could use cabbage in place of the kohlrabi, add other vegetables, or add some protein. I’ve thought of cooking the vegetables and making a saucier sauce and serving it all over rice instead of with noodles.

Of course, this could be turned into a cold dish, too. Although I suppose I could just go to back to the original recipe for that.

Thai Curry Peanut Noodles

Based on a recipe in Eating Well magazine (March/April 2015)

I recommend cooking the noodles without salt to keep the saltiness under control. Also, feel free to swap in whatever vegetables you like or have available, such as cabbage, snow peas, carrots, etc.

8 ounces whole wheat spaghetti

½ cup frozen edamame

½ cup smooth peanut butter

2 tablespoons red curry paste

¼ cup soy sauce

1 tablespoon sesame oil

2 tablespoons canola or peanut oil

¼ cup finely chopped red onion

1 medium garlic clove, minced

1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger

1 medium red bell pepper, cut into thin strips

1 medium kohlrabi, peeled and cut into thin sticks

½ cup chopped cilantro

½ cup chopped peanuts

1. Cook the spaghetti in boiling water until still a little bit firm. Add the edamame to the boiling water with the spaghetti and continue cooking until the spaghetti is cooked as you like it. Reserve about 1 cup pasta cooking water. Drain the pasta and edamame and set aside.

2. In a small bowl, combined the peanut butter, curry paste, soy sauce and sesame oil. Whisk together. Add about ¼ cup of the reserved pasta water and whisk until smooth. Set aside.

3. Heat the canola or peanut oil in a wok or large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring frequently about 1 minute. Add the garlic and ginger and cook, stirring constantly, about 30 seconds. Add the bell pepper and kohlrabi. Cook and stir about 5 minutes or until tender-crisp.

4. Add the noodles and edamame and stir everything together to combine. Stir in the peanut butter mixture. Add enough of the remaining pasta water to thin out the sauce such that it coats the noodles and vegetables. Stir in the cilantro and peanuts.

Makes 4 main-dish servings.

Other recipes like this one: Peanutty Noodles, Warm Noodles with Cilantro and Coconut Lime Dressing

One year ago: Millet and Rice Salad with Sweet Chile Dressing and Cocoa Chocolate Chip Brownies

Noodle Salad with Sweet Asian Dressing

 

When I posted the recipe for this sweet Asian salad dressing last summer, I called it “versatile,” since, hey, it’s salad dressing. You can put it on just about anything you like. Recently I poured it over a noodle salad with thinly sliced vegetables. It was delicious.

I kind of just used whatever long noodles and whatever vegetables I had on hand to make this salad. I’ve made it with linguine, which was quite nice, but when I took the photos for this post, I had used a spaghetti rigate (spaghetti with grooves or lines on it). Not exactly Asian, but still just fine. You could use Asian rice noodles as well, of course. I just tend to have Italian-style noodles on hand so I use those most of the time.

As far as the vegetables go, you can use whatever can be sliced into long, thin pieces. I used cabbage, scallions and green bell peppers here (and probably something else I’ve forgotten). You could also use carrots, celery, bok choy, red or yellow or white onions, radishes, or any vegetable you like to eat raw and can cut appropriately to lay nicely alongside long noodles. You could also season the salad further by adding chopped cilantro, thinly sliced Thai basil, or some fresh chile pepper.

 

I also added chopped peanuts to this salad, but you could entirely skip those if you want. You could also replace them with sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, almonds (how about some of those Tamari or wasabi-flavored almonds?!), or even pumpkin seeds.

 

There’s no reason to get too fussy about this one. Just toss together a few things on a hot day and enjoy.

 

 

Noodle Salad with Vegetables and Sweet Asian Dressing

This recipe is as adaptable as it is simple. Use just about any seasonal vegetable that can be thinly sliced. I particularly like cabbage, carrots, and bell peppers, but add whatever you like and have on hand.

1 recipe Sweet Asian Salad Dressing, prepared and chilled

8 ounces long noodles or pasta (such as fettuccine, linguine or long rice noodles)
3-4 cups thinly sliced vegetables and/or herbs of your choice
¼ cup chopped salted peanuts (optional)

 

1. Cook the noodles in salted water according to package directions until they are just a little more firm in texture than you would normally like to eat them. (They should soften a little more when they soak up some of the dressing later.) Drain and allow to cool slightly.

2. In a very large bowl, toss the noodles and sliced vegetables. (The noodles should still be slightly warm.) Add about ¾ of the prepared Sweet Asian Dressing and toss to coat. Allow to stand for 30 minutes or so. If the dressing seems to have been soaked up by the noodles (some of it should be), add more and toss to coat, or add more dressing to taste as desired. Cover and chill.

 

Makes about 6 servings. Keep refrigerated for a few days.


Other recipes like this one: Sesame Noodle Salad, Noodles with Cilantro, Green Onions and Peanuts (warm), Warm Noodles with Cilantro and Coconut Lime Dressing

One year ago: Chicken Wraps with Spicy Citrus-Mint Slaw

Re-Purposing

Don’t get me wrong. I love green salads, especially when I can get locally-grown lettuces that weren’t trucked, shipped or flown in from the Emerald City or some other faraway place where things are always green. It’s just that I know there are a lot of those salads in my not-too-distant future. I don’t want to overdose before I even get there.

And, so, I did something else with my leftover Coconut Lime Dressing. It doesn’t take much to imagine a salad dressing as a sauce for your greens and therefore a good candidate for saucing other things. Like warm noodles.

Oh, did this lunch make me happy! I cooked some spaghetti, tossed it with cilantro, scallions, a little chile pepper and sunflower seeds. The Coconut Lime Dressing was a perfect partner to these ingredients. In fact, I think I liked it even more in this dish than I did on a salad. The heat from the noodles allowed some lime and herb aroma to perfume the whole experience. I love cilantro, so its inclusion was a given and the chile pepper gave it all a great punch of spice. And there’s something almost magical about the combination of roasted, salted sunflower seeds and this Coconut Lime Dressing. (I’d bet peanuts would be good, too.)

When I finished preparing this dish, which I had intended to be lunch just for me, I thought it looked like an awfully big single serving. In the interest of full disclosure, I, erm, ate the whole thing. Also, since I’m nearly hopeless with chopsticks and this was somewhat of a “working lunch,” I gave them up early and ate my noodles and re-purposed dressing with a trusty, multi-purpose fork.

Warm Noodles with Cilantro and Coconut Lime Dressing

¼ pound dry spaghetti or other long noodles
salt (for boiling noodles)
½ cup chopped cilantro
2 scallions, finely chopped
1 small chile pepper (or ½ larger pepper), seeded and cut into thin strips
2-3 tablespoons roasted salted sunflower seeds
¼ cup Coconut Lime Dressing

1. Cook the spaghetti or other noodles in boiling salted water until they reach desired tenderness. I like them softer than al dente for this dish. Drain the noodles and return them to the pan off the heat.

2. Add the cilantro, scallions, chile pepper and sunflower seeds and toss together. Add the Coconut Lime Dressing and toss well to coat.

Makes 1-2 servings.

Other recipes like this one: Noodles with Cilantro, Green Onions and Peanuts; Noodle Bowl with Spicy Greens

One year ago: Lentil Barley Burgers

Two years ago: Penne with Chicken Sausage, Olives and Walnut Sauce