While the people responsible for all things weather say that the heatwave is over, the temperature has only dropped by about 5 degrees. In scorching heat, it is just a tad better. It does make the hours of the day when it is impossible to exist, shorter. But in the meantime, they are getting shorter on their own too, because the Solstice has also passed. Every year I am in shock that it is already July, and in a blink of an eye it will be August and then September. Let’s just hope that I will still have the same love for autumn once it comes.
Easy peanut sauce noodles
On one of the hottest days, this was my go-to recipe since I only had to boil the noodles, and if you choose different ones, you get to skip any cooking of any kind completely. This is the ultimate hot weather recipe, which takes about 10-15 minutes to make and is packed with flavor.
As you can see we only have a few ingredients to make these cold sesame noodles. The first is the noodles, I chose egg noodles, you can use any kind of pasta you would like, any kind of Asian noodles, anything really. Would also work great with zucchini noodles or zoodles, but then you would probably have to cook those for a bit too.
The peanut sauce for these peanut sauce cold noodles is super creamy. That comes from creamy peanut butter, tahini, or sesame paste and a splash of starchy pasta water. The sesame oil, gochujang, and soy are just there for the flavor. You can experiment with other nut butter too, just find what works for you.
For these to be a cold dish, you will have to rinse the noodles under cold running water to stop the cooking process and cool them. After that, all you have to do is toss them with the sauce, and voila!
To make this dish a bit more interesting I also made quickly pickled, salted, or whatever you want to call them, – cucumbers. These are something I would usually make as a side for grilled meats and fish. Ideally, you would use a container with a lid and shake all the ingredients together and let sit in the fridge for a while. That way the garlic flavor will get stronger and other flavors will marry together better. But they are absolutely ready to be eaten the second they have been mixed.
I served these easy peanut sauce noodles and garlic cucumbers family style so we just attacked the bowl from two different sides. You can serve these any way you want because they won’t get cold. That is the whole point.
Enjoy these with some of your favorite toppings and a cold beer. Cause you bet I need one in this weather.
Easy peanut sauce noodles
Ingredients
- 200-250 g dried noodles of any kind
- 1 tbsp tahini
- 3 tbsp peanut butter
- 4 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- 1 tsp gochujang or other chili paste
- 100 ml pasta water
Quick salted garlic cucumbers
- 3 cucumbers
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 tbsp olive or sesame oil
- 1 tbsp rice vinegar
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 sliced green onions
- Chopped cilantro
- Chopped peppermint
Instructions
- Boil the noodles according to package instructions, then drain (reserve some pasta water) and run under cold water to stop the cooking process
- In a bowl mix the wet ingredients with a whisk until smooth
- Add in the noodles
- Mix it all together
- In a different bowl mix all the ingredients for the garlic cucumbers
- Ideally you would let these sit in the fridge for 10 minutes before eating, but they are good to go
- Serve it all together
- Sprinkle some sesame seeds or chopped peanuts on top