Veg noodles or vegetable noodles refers to the simplistic Indo-Chinese dish that can be cooked fast as a supper or dinner meal. This kind of vegetable noodle meal is homely and it is prepared using your favorite noodles, some simple vegetables, a pinch of black pepper, and your favorite sauce. There will be no sides put to this entire supper. But the spicy Gobi Manchurian, Paneer Manchurian, Vegetable Manchurian, and Chili Paneer make great accompaniments. Various pairing of noodles and meat or even vegetables are really popular all over the world. They are now a comfort food consumed by a lot of people. Everyone at the dinner table will smile widely when a plate of freshly cooked noodles of the wok is presented to him.
Vegetable Noodles
Vegetable noodles is a healthy Chinese inspired meal, ready noodles are stir fried with fresh veggies in excess. The dish is also sprinkled with a speck of vinegar, black pepper and sauces, to improve the taste and flavor.
The single most impressive factor about this dish is that there is no long list of ingredients, nor is there any major preparation work to be done, only the mixture of vegetables needs chopping. Due to this fact, vegetable noodles are the best meal to take on a busy weekday among working people.
The great thing about it is that you will not require two woks because as long as you have already cooked noodles, you just need one. You will be surprised at how delicious such a bowl of vegetable noodles is both in the beginning by the garlic to end by adding the respective favorite sauces!
Moreover, the dish is so colorful, delicious, and healthy that even picky children will desire to consume it. The vegetables that have done well here include carrots, cabbage, bell pepper, green beans and zucchini. You may swap refined flour noodles with whole grain to make the dish more suitable to a healthy diet. The recipe can match with soba, udon, hakka and ramen.
Recipe for veg noodles
Although this vegetarian noodles is more of an indo-chinese family recipe which is very close to a Hakka noodles recipe. Include your own mixture of vegetables, noodles and/or sauce.
The introduction of noodles, vegetables, and a little portion of fat of the frying oil constitute a complete meal. To add more to the dish, one can always have a Chinese side dish that can be either paneer, tofu, or chile.
Soy sauce ?
Whereas the soy sauce adds an umami flavor to the vegetable noodles, the high heat used during a stir-fry process of the meal in a carbon steel wok gives it a smoky aroma that might cause you to forget that the soy sauce is missing.
If you are on a low-sodium diet and would prefer to avoid soy sauce altogether you can leave it out altogether.
What about vinegar though?
Rice vinegar is popular in most Chinese restaurants where it is added to give it a special taste. But with it slightly sweet and sour, I love to use apple cider vinegar here.
Which Oil goes best together with Noodles
A number of Chinese noodle recipes utilize peanut oil. That is, of course, if you wish and you should take care not to stir-fry the noodles in the toasted sesame oil. Regarding flavor, it is preferable to include such oil to the meal at the final stage of its preparation. Unrefined cooking oil is okay, but use any cooking oil that suits into your diet.
Step Wise Guide to Make Vegetable Noodles
Getting Noodles Ready
- When making noodles, put a large pot of water and add about 5 cups and boil. Once the water is boiling in rapidly, introduce 5 ounces (150 grams) of noodles into the water and cook as directed on the package until al dente. I selected organic soba noodles which ideally are meant to simmer in the same amount of time of 4 minutes, as well as consist of wheat and buck wheat flour. When over-cooked they go mushy.
- Put in 1 teaspoon of oil in noodles. In so doing, they prevent themselves to end up being lumpy.
Prepare Vegetables
- There is no more than 3 1/2 cups of a combination of vegetables.
- Wash under running water the noodles to stop them from cooking. My ingredients were 2 heaped cup of cabbage, 3/4 cup of carrots, 1/4 cup of beans and 3/4 cup of capsicum. Draw out as much of the water out of the cabbage as possible.
- Put cabbage into a dish of hot water, and absorb a fourth. In a vessel of fresh cold water, after the lapse of a little time, repeat a few times. Drain the noodles in the colander. Decreased Far In – Vegetables will be deep fried. Possible also: cut the onions and green chilies in slivers. Too much water will render the vegetables wet.
- Chop and cut the bell pepper, zucchini, green beans and carrots (optional).
- Vegetables should be stir fried.
- There will be the frying of vegetables.
Keep The Sauce Ready
- You may also pop in 1 tablespoon of vegetarian mushroom sauce to bring in additional umami.
- During cooking, you will not be able to waste time searching the sauce. That is why be ready.
Assemble Everything to Make Noodles
- In a pan or wok skillet heat up. Turn on high and infused peanut oil. Add in 2 slit green chilies & 1 clove chopped garlic. I also add one thread of star anise, mace and javitri. You may not add sauces but use the spices to spice up the noodles.
- Stir fry the garlic in a minute or until their aroma rises. Unless you do not want to add any hot sauce, you will need to compensate with ample amount of green chilies to make it hot enough; otherwise the noodle would taste quite bland.
- Stir-fry the cut onions in a minute or two. Onions have to be crisp as opposed to becoming soft. Get some more veggies coming up.
- Cook 2-3 minutes stirring once in a while. Overcooked but on the contrary, soggy or squishy (sorry, I cannot think of a better word) vegetables are not what we want.
- Stews are served between vegetables noodles.
- In order to add that smoky aroma to the noodles, it is good to note that the heat and flame should be at maximum.
- Add to that the cooked noods and 1/2 teaspoons of the black pepper. Pour the ready to use sauces.(1 You can add one teaspoon of a toasted sesame oil optionally to give it flavor. Since the sauces contain salt, be careful to add salt.
- We stir-fry 2 min. not burning, in place of tos or mixing. It off of fire pinch.
Ingredients and Utensils Required
- Noodles: This recipe can include any noodles, such as soba, hakka, egg and whole grain noodles. Here, I have made use of soba noodles.
- High flame is the major ingredient which makes Chinese food have the smokey smell. Therefore, the vegetable noodles should be prepared in a high heat and the same thing applies to other dishes in China
- Wok: Most Chinese restaurants apply a carbon steel wok that assists in frying the food and a smokey flavor is imparted. A heavy bottomed pan or bare cast iron skillet will do this as well. Add the vinegar on top of the noodles and not the pan in case of bare cast iron cooking pots.
- Soy sauce is the primary ingredient that provides any Chinese noodles with the umami level. Health reasons should also compel one to use organically brewed or organic soy sauce. Or coconut aminos or tamari. Just put in right quantity of oil, salt and green chilies; or you may also dispense with all these.
- Extra Sauce: I haven t used any but you can add if you want your favorite sauce like sriracha, schezwan sauce, or chilli sauce. In this case, recently, we have been taking mushroom sauce. You may also leave all the sauces aside and simply add garlic, a star anise and one strand of mace. These make the vegetable noodles have a lovely smell.
Tips you should not miss:
- Be sure to bring the water to a rolling boil before adding in the noodles.
- Do not use excess oil and salt as instructed in the package. They do not require both, because certain noodles are already salted.
- Be careful not to overcook the noodles so that they become mushy. You have to cook noodles as directed by the package. The kind of noodles determines the duration it should take to cook.
- Wait till the noodles drain into the colander and run it through with cold water. See what the cover of your noodle pack says. Other varieties of noodles soften when they are placed in cold water. Thus, you are not supposed to rinse them.
- You may also add 1 tablespoon of oil to prevent the cooked noodles to become sticky.