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<\/p>\nEveryone loves peanut noodles right? I mean, what\u2019s not to love about a nutty, slightly sweet, savory bowl of noodles?! These noodles come together quicker than it\u2019d be to decide on where to order takeout from. Best of all, the sauce is made from pantry ingredients so you\u2019re pretty much good to go whenever the craving hits.<\/p>\n
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Instead of peanut butter for noodles, I went with almond butter, but you can use any sort of nut butter you want. Or you could even go with seeds and use sesame paste. Heck, you could even make this with peanut butter. The reason I skipped out on that is because Mike is allergic and even though he pretty much doesn\u2019t care if I eat peanuts (he\u2019s not severely sensitive, thank goodness) I don\u2019t really like having peanuts in the house. Instead I have a little section of our pantry devoted to nut butters.<\/p>\n
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Because the ingredients are so simple for this recipe, it goes without saying that the ingredients you do use should be good. In this case that means nut butters without sugar, real soy sauce (not the chemically brewed kind), and of course, good udon. I actually made this with udon that I don\u2019t normally buy. To be honest, I was randomly hungry in the middle of the night and our usually stash of udon in the freezer was out. I found a sad package of that udon you can buy in a clear plastic bag and used that. Don\u2019t be like me! Buy the good stuff!<\/p>\n
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How to Buy Good Udon<\/strong> Between the two other types of udon, you definitely want to make the special trip out to the Asian grocery store for the frozen sanuki style udon. Sanuki udon is thick and chewy, square cut slurpable strands that have the best texture ever. They\u2019re sold in the freezer section, cleverly portioned out in individual serving bricks and usually come in a package of five. They\u2019re essentially pre-cooked and all they need is a quick defrost in a bowl of warm water (if you\u2019re going to be stir frying) or a very quick dip in a pot of boiling water (if you\u2019re going to be saucing). They are the udon you should buy.<\/p>\n If you can\u2019t make it to the Asian grocery store then I guess you can buy the shelf-stable udon that comes in clear plastic bagels. They even sell these on amazon. They\u2019ll work well enough but they just don\u2019t have the supple chew of the frozen udon and then tend to break into sad short noodle strands if you heat them up too long.<\/p>\n Oh, there\u2019s also fresh udon too, of course. The kind where they make it with flour, salt, and water; roll it; then cut it out. We\u2019re not going to talk about that kind because unless you have a fresh udon shop near you that is willing to sell you udon, you\u2019re pretty much fresh out of luck for that kind.<\/p>\n Anyway, all that and I\u2019m going to say: you don\u2019t even have to use udon for this recipe! You can pretty much use any noodle you want, even pasta. I\u2019ve done it before and I love it. Especially short shapes that I can just spoon into my mouth. SO GOOD.<\/p>\n Happy noodling!<\/p>\n
\nUdon generally comes packaged three different ways. There\u2019s frozen udon, packaged shelf stable udon, and dried udon. For our purposes we\u2019re not going to talk about dried udon. Dried udon is usually thinner that what we imagine when we think of udon.<\/p>\n
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