Spicy Asian Peanut Butter Noodles – a Healthy Chinese New Year Recipe

kellie anderson

9 years ago

Ring in the Year of the Rooster with this "lucky" dish of spicy peanut butter and parsnip noodles. I can't promise health, wealth and happiness but I can pinky-swear that you will love this flavour-jammed quick, easy, lower carb vegan recipe. Adjust the spices to your liking.

Ring in the Year of the Rooster with this “lucky” dish of spicy peanut butter, soba noodles and spiralized parsnips. I can’t promise health, wealth and happiness but I can pinky-swear that you will love this flavour-jammed quick, easy, lower carb vegan recipe. Adjust the spices to your liking.

Food is probably the most popular and visible way to celebrate Chinese New Year – in this case, the Year of the Rooster. And one of the luckiest foods is noodles, long noodles, symbolising long life and good health. So, using store cupboard ingredients, a purse-friendly blender, mini spiralizer, and, um, parsnips, I’ve collaborated with Debenhams to create a fast, healthy vegan recipe, with oodles of options for topping your noodles.

I’m wanting you to be able to make this recipe NOW, so I shan’t dilly dally as I usually do. Have a scan of the recipe, including the suggested toppings, and see what you already have. The recipe is hugely flexible so if you don’t have peanut butter, use almond butter; if you don’t have rice vinegar, just use lemon or lime; no soba noodles, just use spaghetti. That kind of thing.

Now, what are you waiting for, start rummaging through your cupboards and get cooking!

Spicy Peanut Butter Parsnip Noodles

Servings: 2
Difficulty: easy
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A fusion peanut sauce, curls of parsnip, some slippery soba noodles and oodles of toppings make this a delicious and quick way to celebrate Chinese New Year – or a wet Wednesday. You may have more sauce than you need, but is that really going to be a problem?

For best texture use a blender, but it’s fine to heat the sauce ingredients gently over a low heat and stir, stir, stir. Ditto the parsnip noodles: a spiraliser is best, but you can grate them instead.

Spicy Peanut Sauce

130g (1/3 c) best quality chunky or smooth peanut butter

2 tsp toasted sesame oil

1 tbsp rice vinegar or lime juice (to keep its brightness, add lime at the end if you opt for it)

1 tbsp soy sauce or tamari sauce (lower sodium if possible)

1 fat clove garlic, minced

1 & 1/2 tbsp grated ginger

1/2 – 3/4 tsp garam masala (depends on age/strength)

1/8-1/4 tsp chilli powder or hot paprika OR chilli oil, to taste

5 tbsp coconut milk (I use coconut powder and reconstitute with hot water)

Noodles

2 parsnips, washed and peeled

90g soba (buckwheat) noodles, rice noodles or wheat noodles

Juice of 1/2 lime, optional

Menu of Toppings (use as many as you fancy)

Thinly sliced spring onions, steamed broccoli, sugar snap or snow peas, red pepper, spiralised cucumber, seaweed flakes or thin strips of nori, toasted sesame seeds, roasted chopped peanuts

Need More Protein?

Baked tofu cubes, shredded cooked chicken, stir-fried prawns, chopped hard-cooked egg/scrambled egg

Method:

1. Add all of the sauce ingredients into a blender and process until smooth. I used the large cup on the Nutribullet and blended for about 20 seconds. Taste and adjust the flavours as needed.

2. Boil water and cook the noodles as instructed. Meanwhile, use a spiraliser on the noodle blade to make parsnip noodles. When the soba noodles have one minute left, add the parsnip noodles. Drain and keep back a little of the hot cooking water. Add the sauce and (extra) optional lime juice to the noodles and toss well to coat, adding just enough cooking liquid to slake. Pop back on the heat for one-two minutes to heat through.