cold peanut sesame zoodles
I’ve been meaning to make these cold sesame peanut noodles for a long time. There has been a late summer burst of hot weather the last week, so it seemed like a good time to make them.
They are based on this recipe in the New York Times. As always, I’ve tinkered with it. Partly because I can’t help myself and partly due to the ingredients I had in the cupboard. I’ve upped the peanut butter, I didn’t have any Chinese sesame paste, so I substituted in some tahini. I also didn’t have chilli and garlic paste so I made a paste of garlic and added Sriracha. It is totally inauthentic, but it tastes great. I also swapped out the noodles for zoodles, partly to make it low carb but mostly because, you guessed it, I’m drowning in zucchini from the garden.
I like to pour some boiling water over my zoodles because it makes them a beautiful green while still maintaining the bite.
Dressed with the sauce, the result is a sour, spicy, salty and sweet flavour burst with crunchy texture from the added cucumber.
I made the full amount of sauce and I used about a half or third of it to dress 150g of spiralised zucchini garnished with cucumber and spring onion.
It would be great with crunchy raw veggies as a dipping sauce.
No matter how you eat it, it is perfect with a beer on a hot night.
- 1 tbs sesame oil
- 3 tbs peanut butter
- 1 tbs chinese rice wine
- 1¾ tbs light soy sauce
- 1 tbs tahini
- 2 tsp grated ginger
- 1 tsp sriracha (or more)
- 1 clove of garlic mashed to a paste
- ½ tbs sugar or other sweetener to your taste. I used stevia.
- Mix all ingredients together with a fork or whisk until smooth.
- Taste and adjust. It is really important to get the balance of sour, sweet, hot and salty right. So experiment with more or less of each of the rice wine, sugar, sriracha and soy.
- Serve with noodles, zoodles or raw vegies.