This happened to Eric the other day. He was trying to ask Charlotte, our 12-year-old, to put a Tupperware back in the fridge, but instead he kept saying, “Put that…thing in…there.” Charlotte began mocking him mercilessly. Eric, playfully: That is not nice! Charlotte: It’s not mean. It’s just a thing! Eric: It’s either nice or it’s not nice. Charlotte: It’s a media-core thing. Eric: what?? Charlotte, confidently: Media-core. Eric: Are you trying to say “mediocre”?? We were dying laughing. Oh how the tables have turned! This is what happens when you have kids who love to read. They learn vocabulary that they’ve never heard pronounced out loud. Kind of like when I was her age and pronounced it “ren-des-vus” instead of rendezvous. Or how I thought the word “arrogant” was actually “aggorant” for years and years, like well into my teens. I guess it runs in the family!? How is everyone’s summer kicking off?? Our kids are soo excited to be done with school and I’m sooo excited not to have to be out the door by 8am for a while! We have a few fun road trips planned for this summer, and Taco Tuesdays are back on track, but other than that I’m ready for lazy days by the pool and EASY DINNERS PLEASE. Preferably cold ones, if I can manage it. Enter these Sesame noodles! Have you tried these??
Easy? Check. Cold? Check. Veggies included so that I don’t even have to scrap together a side dish to feel like a half decent mom? WIN.
This is a DELICIOUS meal that all my kids vacuumed up. Eric and I didn’t eat anything else until it was gone. Cold noodles means it might be just a little too easy to snag a bite from the fridge every time you pass through the kitchen, ha!
Turn it into salad dressing: add water or a bit more vinegar to thin it out. Dip veggies in it, would be a real contender with Homemade Ranch. Serve this with zucchini noodles instead of spaghetti Add protein (pan-seared chicken, shrimp, etc) to make it a full blown dinner. See more ideas below on how to bougie up this simple meal!
Start out by making the sauce. It’s as easy as dumping ingredients in the blender, but first we have to peel our ginger. OR DO WE?? My sister Laura casually mentioned the other day that she never peels her ginger anymore, the skin is soft and she just gives it a good scrub and tosses it in. MIND BLOWN. Well. I don’t know if I’m at that level of cool yet. Maybe I’m just a scaredy cat. I peeled: Put that peeler away and use a regular spoon to get the skin off. So much easier. Now smash up some garlic. Peel and toss it in the blender with all the other ingredients for the sauce. Yes, yes, I know this is a food processor, but I promise a blender works better. Learn from my mistakes!! Cilantro is not a traditional ingredient in sesame noodles sauce, you can leave it out if you want. (Especially if you didn’t get “the gene.”) But I love the extra dimension it adds! You don’t need a ton, just a few sprigs. Meanwhile, boil your spaghetti (or udon) noodles according to the package. I decided to add a handful of asparagus to the pasta as it finished boiling, totally optional. Drain it right away and dump it in a colander. Then douse it with cold water. This is the fun part! Toss the noodles around with your fingers until they are cold. This also helps remove extra starch from the noodles, which helps keep your sauce from getting too gloopy. A technical term. Add a lil sesame oil to the noodles once you’ve drained them well. This adds amazing flavor (sesame forever) and keeps the noodles from sticking to each other. You can stop here and just add the sauce and green onions. Or you could add a bunch of veggies! I didn’t add all these veggies in, but this gives you a visual of what you might want to try: any veggie that you can eat raw, or that you would want to serve on a veggie tray. Tomatoes, corn, cauliflower, radish, really anything goes here. Be sure to get the soft centers out of the cucumbers. Do you know how to chop bell peppers? I learned this a few years ago, so much easier than slicing it in half first! Once you’ve got all your veggies prepped, it’s time to put it all together. Mix it all together with the sauce. Snag a bite! It’s so good! And thaaaat’s it. Store leftovers in the fridge and you’ve got lunch for days!
Asian Seared Chicken with Stir Fried Green Beans » so much flavor, and already has the veggies so you can ditch them in the noodles! PF Chang’s Lettuce Wraps » an amazing copycat that is SO good (and healthy!) Asian Pork Tenderloin Recipe (Slow Cooker) » another great summer option that won’t heat up the kitchen. Chicken Satay Recipe (Thai) with Peanut Sauce » the perfect amount of delicious protein to add. Thai Lettuce Wraps with Crispy Fish and Peanut Sauce » super easy and light!
Can you freeze sesame noodles?
Hard pass. Freezing this combo of pasta and veggies is a recipe for disaster. If you don’t add any vegetables or only cooked vegetables to your noodles, then I would say you can freeze leftovers, but the texture is a bit more squishy than fresh cooked. Freeze in a freezer safe ziplock bag and then thaw overnight in the refrigerator. Don’t freeze the noodles if you added fresh vegetables! They will not survive the freezing and thawing process and you will end up with a mushy mess! If you have leftover sauce and want to freeze that for future noodles, that will work fine. Freeze and thaw as described above.
