Vegan Peanut Noodles

These vegan peanut noodles are loaded with crunchy veggies and topped with a creamy-savory peanut sauce.  They come together in about 20 minutes for an easy dinner or lunch.  They also work great as a packed lunch for kids or adults.  My little chickpea has been loving leftover cold noodle salad for his school lunch.

The peanut sauce can be prepped ahead of time to make this recipe come together quickly.  The sauce may firm up in the refrigerator, you can whisk in a tablespoon of water if needed to thin it back out to make it easier to toss with the noodles and veggies.  

Ingredients for Peanut Dipping Sauce

• Use natural peanut butter, the kind made with just peanuts and maybe salt.  Before measuring stir the natural peanut butter to combine any oil separation.
• Use tamari or low sodium soy sauce, regular soy sauce may be to salty.  I normally stick to tamari and if I can’t find that I use low sodium soy sauce.
• Fresh lime juice, about 1 lime
• Maple syrup for a little sweetness
• Rice vinegar for a little tang
• Fresh grated ginger for more flavor
• Garlic powder, can be substituted with 1-2 cloves of fresh garlic minced
• Crushed red pepper for some heat

Vegetables

I used red cabbage, cucumber, and a couple of carrots.  Use whatever veggies are your favorite (as long as they go with a peanut sauce)!  

The carrot can be shredded instead of peeled if you prefer.  To make ribbons, use a vegetable peeler and peel the carrots lengthways until you can’t peel anymore; then eat the rest of the carrot, save it for homemade vegetable broth, place in the compost, or give it to your dog (they love carrots).

A Mandoline slicer makes shredding cabbage quick and easy.  It creates thin and consistent slices, but please use the handguard to protect your fingers.

Tips

I tested with a few different brands of rice noodles, they each had different instructions on how to cook them.  Make sure you cook the noodles according to your package instructions.  All of the ones I tested with direct you to rinse the noodles after cooking.  Even after draining the noodles, the rinsing process added too much excess liquid for my preference and diluted the sauce.

So if you rinse your brown rice noodles, skip the ¼ cup of water.  If you substitute with whole wheat pasta that doesn’t need rinsing, then add ¼ cup of water to the sauce when preparing it.  If you don’t have brown rice noodles, 8 ounces of whole wheat spaghetti can be substituted.  In that scenario, add ¼ cup of water to the peanut sauce to thin out.

I’ve only had the excess water issue when using the noodles in a cold noodle salad, like this recipe. The recipe was only tested with brown rice noodles, white rice noodles, and whole wheat pasta. Some gluten-free pasta usually needs to be rinsed after cooking, but I don't know if it holds on to water like brown and white rice noodles.

How to Make Vegan Peanut Sauce Noodles

Cook the noodles according to the package instructions, then drain and rinse under cold water.

Whisk all of your dipping sauce ingredients together.  Use a blender instead of a whisk for a smoother consistency.

Prep your veggies!  

Use a large bowl for your peanut noodle salad to toss everything together!

Top the peanut noodles with chopped roasted nuts, fresh cilantro, or more crushed red pepper (if you like it extra spicy).

Leftover Red Cabbage?

Here’s a recipe for a Vegan Vegetable Sushi Bowl to use that leftover red cabbage.

As always, I hope you enjoy the recipe for vegan peanut butter noodles!

More Easy Meals

• Spicy chickpea stew with zucchini
• Vegan sushi bowl
• Peanut tempeh bowl
• Roasted sweet potato bowl

Originally posted on September 16, 2020, updated on September 7, 2021.

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