Rice Noodle Salad

Saturday morning we found this recipe in Cooking Light (August 2011) and decided to modify it a little for lunch.  We went to the Farmer's Market for all the fresh ingredients (herbs and bean sprouts) then came home and made this.  The original recipe called for ketchup to make this a tomato-based sauce, which sounded terrible to me, so we just omitted it. This was also a vegetarian recipe (with tempeh), but we used some of our Farmer's Market turkey chorizo sausage instead, which added some good oil to help stir fry the noodles. Tofu would have been great too.

The recipe calls for a lot of herbs to garnish - half a cup EACH of basil leaves, mint leaves, and cilantro. I loved the combination and balance of all of them, but hubby thought it was too much mint for his tastes. Definitely want to make this again, especially since we have a huge package of rice noodles to use!

Note: This was great warm, and even better cold

Rice Noodle Salad
8 oz uncooked rice noodles
2 Tbsp + 1 tsp sesame oil (or less)
1/2 cup broth
2 Tbsp lime juice
2 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
1 tsp Sriracha
2 uncooked chorizo sausages (or other meat/tofu as desired)
6 gloves garlic
2 shallots (thinly sliced)
2 large eggs, beaten
2 cups fresh bean sprouts
1 English cucumber, thiny sliced
5 thinly sliced green onions
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, sliced
1/2 cup fresh mint leaves, sliced
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantrol
2 Tbsp chopped, roasted peanuts

Cook the rice noodles in boiling water, according to directions; Drain and toss with sesame oil if needed.

Combine broth, lime juice, soy sauce, and Sriracha, stirring with a whisk.

Cook sausage (or other meat/tofu) in a large wok (with sesame oil, if needed) over medium-high heat.  Add garlic and shallots. and cook about 1 minutes.  Add eggs and stir-fry for 30 seconds, until soft-scrambled.

Add soy sauce mixture to the stir-fry and bring to a boil.  Add the cooked rice noodles and bean sprouts, stirring to coat.

Remove from heat and top with cucumber, green onions, herbs, and roasted peanuts

Rice noodles

Green onions and herbs

The stir-fried noodles topped with herbs

The final dish

Nice plating! :)