10 Noodle Dishes from Fridge Staples: What to Cook With One Packet of Noodles

Type chinese noodle recipes into a search box and the same handful comes back every time: lo mein, chow mein, Dan Dan. This index carries twenty-eight noodle dishes past those, and the ten below all start from one packet of dried noodles plus whatever the fridge already holds. They are ordered so the first four need nothing beyond a scallion and a bottle of soy sauce. If easy chinese noodle recipes are what you want, begin at number one and stop when the packet runs out. Two sections lower down cover the parts that actually go wrong: picking the noodle, and the broth ratio that decides whether a bowl goes soft before you finish it.

Which noodle you actually have

Four types sit in the same cupboard, and swapping one for another is the usual reason a bowl of noodles comes out wrong.

• Thin dried wheat noodles: the default for soups and quick tossed bowls. They cook in three to four minutes and keep cooking in hot broth, so pull them early.
• Thick hand-pulled style noodles: chewier, correct for You Po and Zhajiang where a sauce has to cling to something with weight.
• Sweet potato or glass noodles: starch-based, they go translucent and slippery. Suan La Fen is built on them and nothing else works in that slot.
• Fresh noodles: already soft, they need a minute less than the packet says and turn claggy if they sit in broth after cooking.

Ten chinese noodle recipes, easiest first

One packet, ten dishes. The first four are on the table inside twenty-five minutes.

1. Yangchun noodles (阳春面) at /recipes/yangchun-noodles. Twenty minutes, easy. A clear soy and scallion broth with nothing in it, which is why it is the one to learn first.
2. Tomato egg noodles (番茄鸡蛋面) at /recipes/tomato-egg-noodles. Twenty-five minutes, easy. The tomato slumps into a sauce and doubles as the broth, so no stock is needed.
3. Xian-style You Po noodles (陕西油泼面) at /recipes/you-po-noodles. Twenty-five minutes, easy. Chili flakes and scallion on top, hot oil poured over them, then toss.
4. Wuhan hot dry noodles (热干面) at /recipes/wuhan-hot-dry-noodles. Twenty-five minutes, easy. Sesame paste thinned with the cooking water and no soup at all.
5. Scallion oil noodles (葱油拌面) at /recipes/scallion-noodles. Thirty minutes, medium. Scallions fried slowly in oil until they go brown and crisp, then the same oil dresses the noodles.
6. Chongqing xiao mian (重庆小面) at /recipes/chongqing-xiao-mian. Twenty-five minutes, medium. A bowl of chili oil, Sichuan pepper and stock assembled before the noodles go in.
7. Chengdu dan dan noodles (成都担担面) at /recipes/dan-dan-noodles-chengdu. Thirty minutes, medium. Minced pork fried dry, sesame paste and chili oil at the bottom of the bowl.
8. Suan la fen (酸辣粉) at /recipes/suan-la-fen-hot-and-sour-noodles. Thirty-five minutes, medium. Sweet potato noodles, black vinegar, chili oil, and more sourness than feels sensible.
9. Beijing-style zhajiang noodles (京味炸酱面) at /recipes/zhajiang-noodles. Forty-five minutes, medium. Fermented soybean paste fried with pork until it darkens, then cold vegetables on top.
10. Qishan minced pork noodles (岐山臊子面) at /recipes/qishan-saozi-noodles. Forty-five minutes, medium. A vinegary pork and carrot sauce over thin noodles, the Shaanxi end of the range.

Easy chinese noodle recipes for a weeknight

Four of the ten work on a Tuesday with nothing planned and nothing shopped for.

• Yangchun noodles, because soy, scallion and boiling water are the whole list.
• Tomato egg noodles, because tomatoes keep for a week on the counter and make their own broth.
• You Po noodles, because the sauce is four things you already have and the oil does the cooking.
• Hot dry noodles, because sesame paste keeps for months in the fridge door.

The broth ratio that keeps a bowl from going soft

Soup noodles fail in one of two ways. Both trace back to numbers rather than technique.

1. Cook the noodles in a separate pot of plain water, never in the broth. Starch goes into the cooking water instead of thickening the soup into paste.
2. Pull them one minute before the packet says. They finish in the hot bowl, and a noodle that was perfect in the pot is overcooked by the time you sit down.
3. Use roughly 350 ml of broth per portion. Less than that and the noodles drink it all within three minutes; more and the seasoning dilutes.
4. Season the broth hotter than you want to eat it. The noodles arrive plain and unsalted and pull the salt level down.

A quick chinese noodle dinner in fifteen minutes

If the cupboard has one packet of thin wheat noodles, a scallion, soy sauce and an egg, this order gets dinner out fastest.

1. Put a kettle on. Fry the white parts of the scallion in a small pan of oil while it boils, not in the serving bowl, so the oil actually gets hot enough.
2. Boil the noodles one minute short of the packet time while the scallion oil browns.
3. Fry the egg in the same pan, sunny side, and slide it onto the noodles.
4. Pour the hot scallion oil over the greens of the scallion in the serving bowl, add soy sauce and a splash of the noodle water, then drop the noodles in and toss.
5. Egg on top, chili oil if there is a jar of it. This is yangchun noodles with an egg, and it is what most of the ten below are variations on.

Start with /recipes/yangchun-noodles tonight, and read /blog/chinese-noodles-buyers-guide before you buy the next packet, because the type matters more than the brand. Every dish above is on haoweirecipes.com with timings and a full ingredient list. More lists like this are at /blog, and the full recipe index is at /.