Spicy peanut noodles

Ok, two of my favorite foods are peanut butter and sriracha hot sauce, so when it happens that I can make a delicious and healthy meal involving both of said ingredients - well let's just say I am a happy girl! This meal can take you 15 minutes to make, it really depends on the ingredients you have at hand and what you want to put on top. Usually I top my noodles with lots of fresh vegetables: carrots, cabbage, kohlrabi, radish, cucumbers, etc... Really you can add any vegetables or protein you think would taste good with noodles and peanut sauce; this is a very versatile recipe!

I cannot express enough just how simple this recipe is. Start by making some noodles, now I have used rice noodles, egg noodles, and thin spaghetti noodles and all of them work with this sauce! The sauce recipe is generally enough for two servings, so keep that in mind when you make this. When they are done rinse them quickly with some cool water to keep the noodles from getting too starchy and sticking together. This is a cold salad dish so you want them cool.

For the sauce you will need: Boiled water, creamy peanut butter, sriracha, fresh grated ginger, juice of 1/2 a lime, salt, and maple syrup.  Here I have made a step-by-step pictorial recipe: 

In a bowl add together 2 heaping spoonfuls of peanut butter, the juice of half a lime, 1-2 tsp sriracha (go by how spicy, or not you want this to be), 1/2 tsp salt, 1-2 tsp of freshly grated ginger, 2 tsp of maple syrup and then add some of the boiling water. Start with just about 2-3 tbsp of water, mix the sauce until it is creamy and slowly add more water if you want it more watery. I add enough to make the sauce thin enough to pour over your noodles and easily cover them with it - go with how thin/thick you prefer your sauce!

Now chop your veggies! I like adding snow peas that have been briefly sauteed in olive oil, fresh cucumber slices, chopped kohlrabi, freshly grated carrots, corn, sweet potatoes... you name it! Garnish it with a little cilantro and a dash more sriracha... Yum! 

To serve I first toss about half of the sauce with the noodles so they are nice and covered, then I garnish each plate with the vegetables and drizzle the remaining sauce on top.  In this particular plate I used some of my leftover "faux fish" eggplant slices along with my fresh veggies - it was delicious!

Hope you try it out, this really is one of my favorite dishes to eat and to make! All those beautiful colors and the vibrant, spicy and creamy sauce...Mmmm! Delish!