Soba Noodle Salad Recipe

If you follow me on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter or Instagram, you've probably seen how huge the plants in our garden are. Thanks to the recent sunny, warm weather we’ve experienced, they have really taken off.

To celebrate our first crop of Persian cucumbers, I prepared a chilled noodle salad. I used soba noodles, a variety of fresh vegetables, flavorful peanut sauce, fresh mint (again from our prolific garden) and dill. Soba noodles are Japanese-style buckwheat. If you can’t find them, you could use whole wheat angel hair pasta for a similar texture.

I prepared everything in advance in the morning and assembled the salad later at the last minute. That's what I call healthy, fast food!

If you live in the Bay Area, don't forget to pencil in this Saturday (May 25^th) for my cooking demo and cookbook signing for Haute Potato at Los Altos Library. Hope to see everyone there.

Vegetarian Chow Fun Noodles (Hu Tieu Recipe)

Chow fun is called hủ tiếu xào chay (literally "vegetarian rice noodle stir fry") in Vietnamese and consists of wide, chewy rice vermicelli noodles stir-fried with tofu and vegetables. I made the dish chay ("vegetarian") but you can certainly add meat, such as beef, which will make the dish all the more delicious.

I make these noodles very often at home. I could eat freshly made hủ tiếu by the platter! It's quick and simple, healthy and very tasty. Living in the Bay Area means that I'm lucky enough to have fresh rice noodles readily available. I just need to drive to downtown San Jose. San Jose has a large Vietnamese community so it's very easy to find all sorts of my favorite ethnic ingredients.

Shirataki Yam Noodles: Noodle Salad Recipe (+ Giveaway)

Similar to tofu, shirataki noodles can look and taste pretty bland on their own. When I received the package from AsianFoodGrocer.com, I knew I had to enhance the flavor with a sauce. I made a peanut salad dressing that I've used often to flavor tofu, but this time I made it with oyster sauce, miso paste and hot sauce. I added colors to the noodle salad with red bell pepper, pickled garlic, cilantro and green onions. I topped the salad with crushed nori, for a briny flavor and  also sesame seeds and crushed peanuts for texture. We eat with our eyes first, and I think the dark color of the bowl serves as a very attractive contrast to the noodles.

The noodles themselves are very healthy (almost no calories, gluten and cholesterol free). So if you're looking for a light meal, this recipe might be it!