Pantry Cooking: Asian Peanut Noodles

I'm a huge fan of pantry cooking.  I keep many things in my cabinets that can be used with or without fresh ingredients.  I think having a well-stocked pantry is essential for any home.  If you happen to have a night where you haven't really thought about dinner or it's the end of the week and you've run out of fresh ingredients, you can head to your pantry and get creative if you have the right things on hand.


One of my favorite pantry dishes is Asian Peanut Noodles.  This dish is created from ingredients you would normally have on hand and can be "dolled-up" if you happen to have some additional fresh ingredients.  This is one of my favorite dishes to make when my husband is at his brew club meetings and it's just me alone with my huge bowl of peanut noodles - SO good!!

Asian Peanut Noodles

Ingredients:

1 lb. spaghetti

1 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup soy sauce

1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

1/4 cup rice vinegar

1 glove garlic, chopped

1 teaspoon asian chili sauce (more or less depending on how spicy you like things)

Pasta cooking water

Ingredients

Directions:

Cook pasta according to package directions.

In a mixing bowl add all of the rest of the ingredients.

As you pasta begins to boil, spoon in some of the pasta cooking water into the bowl with all of your other ingredients.  You will probably use about 1/2 cup total, but keep adding the water until you reach your desired consistency (see picture above).

 Asian Peanut Noodles

Drain pasta, mix with sauce and enjoy!!

Cottage Mama's Note: If I were really going to plan on making this dish (rather than just throwing it together last minute), I would make sure to add two green onions (sliced), 1 carrot (grated), 1 cup snap peas, a handful of cilantro (chopped), and a sprinkling of sesame seeds.