Cold Sesame Noodles With Crunchy Vegetables

A good summer dish, but it needs some oomph, unless you prefer somewhat bland food. The hot sauce helps. I added a teaspoon of chili garlic sauce, a clove of fresh garlic, and a little more vinegar to the sauce. More ginger would help, too. I used only one teaspoon of sugar. I added cold chicken, and, like others suggested, I blanched the snow peas. Cold shrimp or drained tofu would work, too. An easy, tasty meal for hot days.

If you are taken by a cold noodle craze, it is worth investing in a Japanese mandolin, brand name Benriner. Any Asian shop will have several sizes behind the counter. It creates match stick slices of cukes, radishes, apples, pears, melons and carrots used as garnish on noodles. It is indispensable and inexpensive.

This was too salty, but otherwise the flavor was good. Less soy sauce next time. Also, I used about 2:1 sesame paste:peanut butter but the pb still dominated too much. I'll just use the tahini next time. And the fresh ginger added a lot.

Easy and delicious. I've made sesame noodles before, but this was the best recipe yet. Pretty rich and strong tasting. I used regular spaghetti and combined tahini and peanut butter. I topped it with chopped roasted peanuts.

An easy way to blanch the peapods without dirtying another pot is to cook them in the boiling water that will be used for the pasta. Remove with a skimmer or a slotted spoon, then proceed to cooking the pasta.

Please note, tahini, which made from raw sesame seeds, tastes very different from Chinese sesame paste. If you are trying to replace Chinese sesame paste, you can try mixing one part tahini with one part natural peanut butter, with a few drops of toasted sesame oil.

I added garlic to the dressing and used fish sauce instead of soy, I also used a shallot instead of scallions--this worked although it occasionally was a little dominant. I had more than the 4 cups of vegetables and still had enough dressing. I included diakon radish (worked well) and broccoli (doesn't work so well) and corn. The recipe requires a lot more than 20 minutes, given the chopping and management of the noodles. Whole thing took me about 45.

As most Bittman recipes, this is very good as written & great to use as inspiration to modify as you choose. Comments: 1) Blending tahini with peanut butter (@ 6T tahini + 2T pb) will get flavor more like Chinese sesame paste. 2) Prefer eensie less sesame oil & a lot more fresh ginger.. 3) Prefer a little less soy then add (Diamond Crystal) kosher salt as needed to taste. 5) Rancho Gordo's pineapple vinegar (low acid) is great here but so is rice vinegar. 6) Like to finish w/cilantro.

Made this with carrots, snow peas, red bell pepper, and cucumber - so good! Followed the recommendation to parboil the snow peas, made a huge difference. Also added some minced garlic to the sauce. A great weeks worth of lunches.

I made this dish for 8 friends for lunch. It was a huge success!

1. Prepared ingredients the day before and assembled them just before we sat down
2. Doubled recipe and tripled dressing
3. Added extra peanut butter in dressing
4. Snow peas must be blanched
5. Added 5 lbs. shrimp and roasted peanuts
6. Served with a good chilled Chablis
7. Takes much longer to prep, but worth all the trouble

A "must make again" in our family. I have printed this for my "go-to recipe binder"

I made this with soba noodles, bok choy, broccoli, yellow pepper and carrots. I tossed everything together and it still turned out yummy!

Perfect by itself or as a side. I made only a few tweaks, as I read in the comments. I zazzed up the sauce with a clove of garlic, a little fish sauce, & chili-garlic sauce. For the veggies: I used blanched snap peas, red bell pepper & a bag of broccoli slaw (match stick broccoli, carrots and red cabbage), which I highly recommend. Super easy. I tossed it all together and it was great, next day even better. Drizzle a bit extra sesame oil before serving.

I've created a collection called "Weeknight Noodles" and this has become part of my regular summer rotation. Simple, satisfying, flexible and delicious!

* I concur with others: blanch the the snow peas and spice up the sauce with vinegar, garlic, more ginger, soy sauce, salt, whatever floats your boat.
* Easy to get right the first time because you can easily adjust the flavor of the noodles and sauce.
* Easy to store the noodles, veggies, and sauce separately for multiple meals without losing the freshness and flavor.
* Definitely took me more than 30 minutes.

Next time, and I think there will be a next time, I'll make a few changes. The veggies have to be cut into thin strips. Cucumbers would be good, as well as red peppers. Raw snow peas were a major disappointment to my family. The sauce was very good, made with natural peanut butter. It's important that the Chinese egg noodles are thin: I used thick ones. I cut the sugar in half; next time I think I'll omit it.