The Good Ole’ Days
Today’s Chilled Peanut Butter Udon recipe is a nostalgic one, for me. When I was younger, I used to go to Chinatown every Friday to eat dinner with my grandpa, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We would always eat at the same Chinese restaurant, but on special Fridays, my grandpa would treat us to our favorite dumpling restaurant. It was known as “Goodies,” at the time, but it’s unfortunately no longer around. My older cousin and I were specifically obsessed with one of their appetizers, which was a chilled peanut udon dish. My memories of this restaurant and dish are from when I was young, so they’re pretty vague. I was a child and wasn’t really focused on dissecting the flavor profiles of food yet LOL. Nonetheless, I remember loving that dish so I felt inspired to create my own Chilled Peanut Butter Udon recipe!
A Delicious “Salad”
A lot of the time peanut butter can make a dish feel heavy. However, that’s definitely not the case with this Chilled Peanut Butter Udon! The cold noodles make this dish feel, dare I say, almost refreshing? The fact that this dish is chilled and the peanut butter sauce isn’t too thick and heavy makes it feel more like a salad, which is ironic because there are literally no vegetables in this recipe XD
This recipe is also great because it’s pretty darn easy to make! Mix up all the sauce ingredients in a bowl and set it aside for later. Then cook your udon noodles according to your package instructions. Once they’re cooked, run the noodles under cold water until they’ve chilled and then drain them! Mix in just enough of the peanut butter sauce to coat the noodles. I like to let my udon sit and chill out in the fridge for about 15 minutes so that the sauce and noodles can meld together. But TBH, for maximum flavor and quality, it’s probably best to let it chill overnight because then the noodles really have time to absorb that yummy sauce!
Save Your Sauce!
But before you jump and start cleaning and tossing random scraps away, please be sure to save any extra sauce! If you store these noodles for the next few days the udon noodles will absorb any sauce it’s mixed with. As a result, there isn’t much sauce coating the noodles. So I would definitely suggest mixing in a little extra sauce and then you’re good to go! Let me know if you try this recipe out and thank you very much for joining me here today. As always, it’s been a pleasure and I’ll catch you in my next post!
Chilled Peanut Butter Udon
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup Natural Peanut Butter
- 3 Garlic Cloves (minced)
- 1 tsp Sriracha
- 1/4 cup + 1/2 tbsp Soy Sauce
- 2 1/2 tbsp Rice Vinegar
- 2 tbsp Vegetable Oil
- 1 tbsp Sesame Oil
- 1 1/2 tbsp Honey
- 3 tbsp Hot Water
- 36 oz Udon Noodles
- As Needed Sliced Green Onions (for garnish)
- As Needed Chopped Peanuts (for garnish)
Instructions
- Add the peanut butter, garlic, sriracha, soy sauce, rice vinegar, vegetable oil, sesame oil, and honey to a bowl. Whisk the ingredients until combined. The peanut butter may seize at this point and create a very thick mixture. Add in the hot water a tablespoon at a time, whisking after each addition. The sauce should become looser after this step. At this point, you can leave the sauce how it is or you can blend it in a bullet blender to make it smoother. Set the sauce aside for later.
- Cook the udon noodles according to the package instructions. Once the noodles are cooked, drain them then rinse them under cold water until the noodles are cold. Drain any excess water and transfer them to a large bowl. Pour in some of the sauce, just enough to coat the noodles and mix it together. Place the noodles in the fridge for at least 10 minutes to allow the noodles to absorb some of the sauce. Garnish with sliced green onions and chopped peanuts. Enjoy!*Save any remaining sauce if the noodles absorb too much of it and become dry.
