I love a good simple recipe. Especially of the semi-homemade variety. While the vast majority of the time I try to make food from scratch, there are days where that is just not feasible. Aside from working full-time, I also am my beasts’ chauffer to their various afterschool activities. During the week I thrive off of quick simple recipes and it is a definite win when the kids want to take leftovers to school the following day.
While the beasts enjoy a good chicken nuggie meal or pizza, I often find that they really enjoy a good homecooked meal. One of their favorites lately is this soy sauce noodle dish. It is quick to come together and I keep a lot of these ingredients on hand and you may very well have them too! My soy sauce noodles comes together in less than 30 minutes from prep to table. Making it a regular in my dinner rotation.
To start off, fill a pot with water and bring to boil. While you are waiting for the pot of water to come to boil it is vegetable prep time. In this case, I used only carrots. This recipe you can totally use any vegetables you prefer: Celery, Onion, Broccoli, etc. You can julienne the carrots if you want or just use a coarse shredded. Better yet, you can purchase the pre-shredded carrots and further cut down on prep time. I only had a quarter bag of baby carrots left so I sliced them length wise and called it a day. Was it as pretty? Definitely not but just as delicious. At this point if you are using fresh garlic you would also mince that. Feel free substitute fresh garlic for garlic powder if you do not have any fresh garlic on hand or if you prefer garlic from the jar, aka jar-lic, that works just as well.
Once the vegetable prep is complete you can make the sauce. I use a 2 cup measuring cup and just add all the ingredients to it: Low Sodium Soy Sauce, Dark Soy Sauce, Sesame Oil , Ginger, Hoisin Sauce, and Dark Brown Sugar. Feel free to omit the sugar if you want but I like the addition for the flavor profile.
For those that are unfamilar, this is the hoisin sauce that I use. I use this for a number of my stir fry sauces as well as for flavor when serving pho, and making peanut sauce for summer rolls at my house. If I had to make a comparison to something similar in American culture, I’d say it was close to a sweet BBQ sauce.
At this point I start to cook my protein. One of the best things about a recipe like this is the versatility. You can use any veggie you want to as mentioned before but you can also choose whatever protein your heart desires. For my noodles, I chose ground beef because that is what I had on hand. I’ve made this dish with ground chicken, with sliced chicken breasts, sliced beef, etc and it has all been well received by the whole family. For those that maybe vegetarian you can omit any meat products, you can also add extra firm tofu, fried tofu, or even egg. If you are adding tofu or egg I would wait to add the protein later to avoid completely demolishing the protein.
Side note: If you are cooking with ground meats. This tool, from pampered chef, I am using here is great for keeping the meat from clumping together. My sister-in-law gifted me one after I fell in love with the one she had at her house. I’ll like the tool here: https://www.amazon.com/Pampered-Chef-Mix-Chop-2583/dp/B0011UFPXU
As a disclaimer, I am not affiliated with this brand. I use it and I love it so I am recommending it. There are other similar tools out there that I am certain will work just fine.
Once your meat is nearly done cooking , add in your veggies. I also want to mention I do add salt and pepper at all stages of cooking. I add it when I cook the meat, I also add when I add in veggies. I add in garlic shortly after adding the veggies as well.
While you’re cooking the meat and veggies your water has likely come to a boil. At this point you would also cook the egg noodles. I almost always have these prepackaged dry egg noodles on hand from Lidl. Any brand will work, just cook according to the instructions on your noodles. These noodles, in my opinion, are great! They cook in about 4 minutes and hold up really well to stir-fry.
Once the noodles are done cooking I added the noodles straight to my pan with the meat and veggies. Toss the noodles and then add the sauce you prepped earlier. Let this simmer on med-low heat and then serve once the sauce thickens a bit. If you prefer for the sauce to be saucey you can always add a corn starch slurry to the dish.
Voila, you’re done! Let me know what you think of it if you try it. The recipe will be posted shortly.