Whew! After making all that Super Bowl food (which you can see here, here, here and here) we were in the mood for something easy. We also knew we needed to eat a little healthier after our game day indulging, so we wanted to find something that was simple and veggie-based, but also tasty. Luckily we had saved up this recipe from Bon Appétit, which comes stuffed with vegetables and is almost vegan, so we decided to adapt it for ourselves. It was also fairly quick to throw together and gave us a nice spicy meal that wasn’t too heavy – perfect for getting back into better eating. Here’s how to make this at home!
You’ll need:
- Soy sauce
- Thai chili paste
- Rice vinegar
- Honey
- Sriracha
- Scallions
- Vegetable oil
- Garlic
- Ginger
- A red bell pepper
- A green bell pepper
- An onion
- A 12-ounce package of dried udon noodles
- Black sesame seeds
You’ll want to start by boiling water and cooking your udon noodles. Also begin prepping your veggies: take one bunch of scallions and cut the white ends off, then slice up the darker green parts and separately slice up the white parts. Also finely chop 4 garlic cloves, peel and slice a thumb-sized piece of ginger, de-seed both bell peppers and cut them into strips, and cut your onion into large pieces. Now in a wok, warm 1/4 cup of vegetable oil over medium-high heat and cook the garlic, ginger and white scallion parts for around 2 minutes, then add in the peppers, onion and some salt and cook for another 5 minutes or so, until everything is softened and only just starting to brown.
Then mix together your sauce: whisk 1/3 cup of soy sauce, 2 tablespoons of Thai chili paste, 2 tablespoons of rice vinegar, a tablespoon on honey and a tablespoon of sriracha. When the noodles are done cooking, add them to the wok, then pour your sauce over everything and continue to cook this all together, mixing so that the sauce coats all the noodles and vegetables.
Add in the dark parts of the scallions plus a sprinkling of sesame seeds.
And now you can serve up your udon!
We’d say that the hardest part of this recipe was chopping and slicing all the vegetables – after that, you only have to stir-fry them in a wok, then boil the noodles, mix up a sauce, and put it all together. And you can see the result above: somewhat spicy noodles paired with colorful vegetables, plus some sesame seeds and scallions for crunch on top. This is a good meal for when you’re a little pressed for time, but also want something interesting and flavorful. We had fun with these noodles, and we think you will too!