Ooodles of Asian Noodles and More

When warm weather hits like it has this weekend, it's nice to be able to turn to a fairly quick and easy and filling pasta salad to sit on the plate with chicken fresh off the grill. Sweetie brushed on some teriyaki sauce while he grilled them, so that had  a nice dark color and Asian flavor. I contributed a dish I'd seen on the Food Network a week or so ago.

It's called Sesame Peanut Noodles, and it has two kinds of peanuts - peanut butter and chopped peanuts, plus cilantro, lime, fresh ginger, rice vinegar and soy sauce which combine together to make a great sauce, along with a little honey and some toasted sesame oil. The recipe called for toasted sesame seeds, too, but I'm supposed to take it easy on sesame seeds, so I skipped that part. The pasta is whole wheat linguine and the salad part includes sliced cabbage, green onion, red pepper (and some broccoli slaw because I had some and wanted to add it). Sweetie and Straight Shooter both loved it and even though it makes a big bowl, we somehow managed to polish off every strand and chunk.

The most time consuming part of this was measuring out the ingredients for the sauce, grating the fresh ginger and lime zest, and juicing the lime. The pasta cooks while you make the sauce and chop up the veggies and then you just toss the drained pasta with the veggies and sauce and sprinkle chopped peanuts on top. Yum!

Sesame Peanut Noodles
from the Food Network

Ingredients
12 oz. linguine
Peanut Dressing:
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon Sriracha (I used some cayenne pepper instead)
1 teaspoon sesame oil
Zest and juice of 1/2 lime
Salad:
1/2 cup loosely-packed chopped fresh cilantro
2 green onions, sliced
1/2 head green cabbage, thinly sliced (I used some broccoli slaw mix, too)
1/3 red bell pepper, in thin strips
1/4 cup roughly chopped skinless roasted peanuts, for garnish

Directions
Put a large pot of water on to boil. When water is boiling, add the pasta. Cook the pasta until al dente. Do not overcook. Drain, reserving some of the starchy pasta water, rinse and set aside.

For the peanut dressing: Place the peanut butter in a large measuring cup and microwave to soften, 15 seconds. Whisk in with the soy sauce, vinegar, canola oil, ginger, honey, Sriracha, sesame oil and lime zest and juice in a small bowl. Thin with the starchy pasta water if needed, 1 tablespoon at a time. (Dressing should be thick, but pourable.)

For the salad: Place the pasta in a large mixing bowl and add the cilantro and vegetables and toss with the dressing. Top with the chopped peanuts  and serve.