Easy Spicy Thai Noodles

What’s Asian food?

Growing up, Italian food is what I ate the most of. The more noodles the better. I ate so much macaroni and cheese that I can remember my mom telling me I was going to turn into a noodle.

Asian food was never on the menu for us. I’m not sure why. Maybe there weren’t any good ethnic food places around. Maybe my mom didn’t like it. I don’t know. But since that time I have discovered lo mein and pad thai. They are the spaghetti of the Asian food world.

Now days, if we go eat Chinese… We’ll, actually, it’s more… Now days, when we get Chinese takeout, I go between sesame chicken, General Tso chicken, sweet and sour chicken (the chicken nugget of the Chinese world as I used to tell my second graders at our end of unit celebration), chicken fried rice and lo mein.

And I really, really love some Pad Thai from a Thai restaurant.

All of this is making me hungry as I write this nursing the baby at 4 AM.

Asian food is one thing that I don’t usually make at home. It’s one of those foods that’s just left best to the experts.

No matter what people say, the teriyaki chicken in the instant pot is just not the same! I’ve tried many recipes. They are edible but usually not worth repeating.

But I have found one recipe that I make over and over again. Yes, it’s a simple version (which is why it gets made over and over again).

Into the Kitchen

The ingredient list isn’t long (or expensive). The hardest part is the sesame oil but I always have that on hand. And I prefer the white rice vinegar over the lime juice.

The first thing you do is heat the sesame oil with some red pepper flakes for 10-15 minutes. I’ve done this recipe without the flakes because Matt isn’t a fan of too much spice. On the contrary, the first time I made it I used the whole 2 tablespoons and lit our mouths up! Last night I went halvsies and it was good.

It takes no time to chop up the cilantro and green onions. And I like my peanuts to be nice and squished so I either use a rolling pin, smash them with a spoon or let Liam jump on them in a baggie. The latter did backfire once when a hole popped in the bag and peanuts went everywhere. He laughed hysterically. Me? Not so much.

The recipe doesn’t actually call for chicken but I always make it with some. Otherwise it just doesn’t seem like a complete meal. I just pour some soy sauce in a bag and let the chicken marinate. The longer the better! Then throw it on the grill, cut it up and toss it with the finished noodles. Easy peasy.

And the last simple part is mixing up the sauce for the noodles. An easy task for Liam to help with.

And let me just give a shout out to my in-laws for this honey straight from the bees in their backyard 2000 miles away!

To go with this dish, I usually have potstickers or wontons. As with almost any meal I fix, though, there was a problem last night.

I buy potstickers from Costco so the bag had already been open from the last time we made this meal. For whatever reason, the remaining ones were frozen together. Matt put them in the oven to try to get them to break apart. No luck. It was just a giant mess.

So, a big pile of noodles and chicken is what we had…and it was delicious!

What do you say? Want to give it a try? I’d love to know how you like it!

Check out the recipe here.

Here’s one more easy recipe if you feel inspired!! Check out these pulled pork nachos that are perfect for using any leftover BBQ you might have from you backyard BBQ!