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Noodles never go bad. They boost happiness and increase longevity, which is why they are frequently associated with longevity (this reasoning holds water). However, tucking into warm bowls of soup udon, stir-fried chow mein, or soy ramen doesn't necessarily sound appetising when it's 98 degrees outside.
Any type of noodle, such as soba, udon, or vermicelli, would work well in a cool summer salad with crisp veggies and a balancing dressing to tie everything together. Carry these noodle salad recipes with you to your beach vacations, cookouts, and summer picnics.
Fortunately, there are many different types of cold noodles to try, so you can still enjoy that chewy, springy texture without the extra heat—unless you're slurping Sichuan cold noodles.
9 Cold Noodle To Try For Midnight Cravings
1. Salad Pasta
Pasta salads are a traditional summertime cold noodle meal that's a must-have for potlucks and outdoor cookouts, and they may be tart and sharp and loaded with olives and vinaigrettes. Pasta salads come in two varieties: Greek and Italian. You can convert any of your favourite salads—including sandwiches like Caprese, chicken pesto, and BLTs—into pasta salads. There is an infinite variety of pasta shapes, so the options are truly boundless. However, whatever you decide, it will surely be tasty and refreshing.
2. Hiyashi Chōka
The Japanese delicacy hiyashi chōka, which roughly translates to "chilled Chinese," was influenced by Chinese cuisine. A bed of cold ramen noodles is the base for the dish, which is garnished with ginger, slivers of ham, julienned carrots and cucumbers, tamagoyaki, or sliced egg omelettes and barbecued pork. The tare sauce, which is chilly and a blend of savoury and sweet flavours, envelops the mixed components.
3. Naengmyeon
Boiled eggs, pickled radish, julienned cucumbers, and buckwheat noodles come together to make the Korean chilled noodle dish known as naengmyeon. Two types of naengmyeon exist: the first, called mul naengmyeon, is a cold broth cooked with beef, chicken, or dongchimi, a type of kimchi made with Korean pears, radishes, scallions, and green chillies.
The broth is fermented and briney. The other variety is called bibibim naengmyeon, and it's prepared similarly to bibimbap except that it's mixed with a hot sauce made from gochujang, a spicy sweet chilli paste from Korea. Whether you stick to hot dogs or go all out KBBQ, KBBQ is a fantastic side dish for a backyard BBQ.
4. Sichuan Chilled Noodles
With the help of Sichuan peppercorns, these cold noodles, despite their low temperature, will undoubtedly make your mouth burn. Sichuan cold noodles provide a distinctive dining experience since they are pleasantly savoury, spicy, and numbing. The thin noodles maintain the characteristic springiness of liang mian, also known as cold noodles, and your tongue will experience an intriguing contrast between their fiery heat and cool temperature. Consume these noodles together with sweetened lemon tea to prevent the chiles from burning your mouth.
5. Zaru Soba
The best part about zaru soba is that it has all the flavours and textures of a wonderful soba dish without the extra steam of a hot broth. These flavours include light and savoury sauce or soup, crispy tempura on the side, and springy buckwheat noodles. Zaru soba, on the other hand, calls for a dipping sauce called tsuketsuyu, a concoction of soy sauce, mirin, kombu, or sea kelp, bonito flakes, and sake. You can easily satisfy your craving for cold soba noodles at home by buying readymade sauce in a bottle if assembling the ingredients for the dipping soup seems too difficult.
6. Yum Woon Sen
The Thai glass noodle dish, yum woon sen, is frequently located under the salad area of the menu despite being mostly composed of noodles. Its term comes from the refreshing combination of chillies, lime juice, herbs, and starchy cellophane noodles. Yum, woon sen is a Thai meal that usually contains seafood and ground pig. It is known for its well-balanced flavours of spicy, sweet, salty, and sour.
7. Bún chả
Vietnam's temperatures can rise quite a bit, just like in most of Southeast Asia. When you combine it with the oppressive heat, it becomes evident why bún chả, a chilly noodle dish from Vietnam, exists. For those unfamiliar with bún chả, it consists of pickled vegetables, thin vermicelli noodles, fresh herbs, and some type of protein, usually pork belly, hog shoulder, or meatballs. A mixture of diluted and sweetened fish sauce is used to dip the noodles, meat, and sides of fried egg rolls. Additionally, it is the dish that the late Anthony Bourdain and former President Barack Obama shared in Hanoi.
8. Bukkake Udon
There is bukkake udon available for people who prefer thicker, chewier noodles over the thin vermicelli strands. As the name implies, the dish consists of thicker, rounder Japanese noodles called udon, soaked in a chilled broth prepared with daishi and shoyu. This meal is enhanced by a variety of toppings, such as grated radish, pickled ginger, sesame seeds, shredded seaweed, soft-boiled eggs, and crispy tempura flakes.
9. Nam Khao Poon
Suppose you've tried "tum mak hoong," or Laotian papaya salad. In that case, you know about the layers of flavour that result from pounding fish sauce, sugar, tomatoes, chillies, unripe papaya, and padaek (fermented fish paste). Stringy vermicelli noodles are added to tom khao poon to create an even more intriguing textural salad. Even if the weather is cool, be warned that tum khao poon has the potential to be extremely fiery in the greatest way possible.
Nothing compares to the cool flavour of chilled summer noodles on hot, muggy days, no matter how good a hot, steaming dish of noodles tastes. Continue your exploration!
