Our Asian noodle guide covers the most popular types of fresh and dried Asian noodles, how to use the noodles, with links to noodle recipes for each type of noodle, and tips to shopping for noodles in Asia and the rest of the world. If you’re an Asian noodle lover, save* this page, as we’ll add more recipes for noodle dishes from time to time.
I have to confess that I was suffering noodle withdrawal symptoms soon after I arrived at my mother’s home in regional Australia. Local supermarkets had only a fraction of the types of noodles you can find in big multicultural cities such as Sydney and Melbourne, and only a handful of instant ramen brands. It was so depressing I couldn’t bring myself to cook Asian food.
Back in Cambodia’s Siem Reap, our home for the last 12 years, our best supermarket has a long aisle devoted to dried noodles. There are hundreds of packets of noodles and dozens of different types of noodles from every country in the region, with even more fresh noodles vacuum-packed in the cold section.
Local markets sell fresh noodles, such as the fresh-daily rice noodles called nom banhchok in Cambodia and kanom jeen in Thailand; fresh rice pin noodles or silver needle noodles, used to make Cambodian lort cha; and the flat wide rice noodles called sen yai in Thai, used in pad see ew in Thailand.
*To save this guide in your own Pinterest-like space, click on the heart on the right of the post (and on every post/page on the site) to create a private account where you can save as many recipes, guides and stories as you like.
Here’s our Asian noodle guide covering the most popular types of Asian noodles and recipes to use them in, as well as tips to shopping for noodles in Asia and abroad.
Asian Noodle Guide – Types of Asian Noodles, Noodle Recipes, Noodle Buying Tips
Some of the noodles featured in our Asian noodle guide, below, are pictured above.
Rice Noodles
The most ubiquitous Asian noodles in rice-growing Southeast Asia, Southern China, rice noodles are made from rice flour or lightly fermented rice dough, sold fresh and dried at local markets and in supermarkets. While there’s a wide array of noodles eaten, these are the most popular rice noodles.
Rice Vermicelli
Ask a local tour guide in Cambodia, Vietnam or Laos the name of the thin white round noodles that are ubiquitous in markets, at street food stalls and in the baskets of mobile cooks in the region, and after telling you the local name, they’ll probably translate it as “vermicelles” – as in the French ‘vermicelles de riz’ (rice noodles) – then use the English translation, the Italian loanword ‘vermicelli’.
In the former French Indochine protectorates, a French translation of an Asian noodle is the first obvious reference to give to European travellers, especially by older tour guides, and ‘vermicelli’ is the next by the younger guides, as the fine round pasta or noodle known commonly as ‘vermicelli’ is now used right around the world.
Ironically, in Italy vermicelli is made from wheat and these days vermicelli is larger than spaghetti – although ‘vermicelli’ means ‘little worms’ in Italian and was originally a short pasta, and one of the oldest, appearing in The Art of Cooking in 1464 in Italy. Pasta makers were once called ‘vermicellari’.
Of course there’s long been a debate as to whether pasta travelled from Italy to China or noodles from Asia to Europe. There’s also no reason why they weren’t indigenous to both. Regardless of where it originated, vermicelli is now found everywhere from the Middle East to Latin America.
Used in everything from savoury to sweet dishes, from rice to desserts, that vermicelli most closely resembles the Italian angel hair pasta and is sold in bunches of long thin noodles, in delicate short pieces, in skeins of yarn-like balls, and in beautifully form coils – just like this variety of rice noodles are in Asia, particularly in northern mainland Southeast Asia, where they’re indigenous.
Fresh and Dried Round Rice Noodles
Sold fresh and dried, fine round white rice noodles come in various sizes, textures and forms, from the very delicate, ultra-fine, brittle white noodles at the centre of the image above, and similarly-sized semi-transparent coil of noodles to the right of them, to the slightly larger yet still fine white noodles left of centre.
In Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand, fresh rice noodles are handmade daily by artisanal noodle-making families in villages, towns and small cities, sold in markets or delivered to eateries and restaurants, while dried rice noodles are manufactured in factories in Southeast Asian capital cities and imported from Southern China.
These round white rice noodles have all kinds of names: the fresh rice noodles in Cambodia are called nom banhchok (or nom banh chok, nom pan chok, nom pachok, nom ba jok, and so on); in Thailand they’re called khanom jeen (or kha nom jin, khanom chin, etc); in Vietnam, they’re called bún; and in Laos they’re khao poon.
In Cambodia, Thailand and Laos, nom banhchok, khanom jeen and khao poon are typically used to describe both the noodles as well as the dishes made with the noodles, with the names of the sauces or ingredients only added to the end when you’re ordering from a cook at a market stall, eatery or restaurant.
In Vietnam, bún describes the noodles and while Vietnamese might very well say “Let’s go eat some bún!” you wouldn’t immediately assume what dish you’ll be eating in the way you would in Cambodia, Thailand and Laos with nom banhchok, khanom jeen and khao poon.
To identify the dish in Vietnam, you need to look for what comes after ‘bún’ and that might be anything from bún bò Huế, the spicy noodle soup from Huế in Central Vietnam, and bún riêu, a tomato-based broth with crabs, fish and/or snails, and congealed pig blood cake (huyết), depending on where it’s from.
In Laos, a local guide-cum-translator once told us that ‘poon’ came from ‘pan’ (French for ‘bread’, to mean something made from flour) while a Luang Prabang chef said ‘boon’ came from the Chinese Hokkien bi hoon for the Chinese vermicelli – which incidentally is called bee hoon in Singapore, mee hoon in Malaysia and Southern Thailand (which was once part of Malaysia), bee hoon or bihun in Indonesia, bihon in the Philippines, and bifun in Japan.
So while fresh rice noodles are indigenous to mainland northern Southeast Asia, dried rice noodles are widely thought to have originated in Southern China, from where they spread throughout Asia with Chinese sailors, traders, merchants, and immigrants.
‘Mee’ or ‘mi’ means ‘noodles’ in Cambodia and Laos, referring primarily to dried noodles, while in Thailand it refers mainly to dried rice vermicelli, as in mi krob/krop, which is crispy fried rice vermicelli with fried tofu, pork, shrimp, and a sweet and sour sauce, with the tangy notes coming from the Thai citrus fruit, som saa. In Cambodia the dish is called mee Siam.
How to Use the Noodles
Fresh rice noodles bought from markets in Southeast Asia can be rinsed and added directly to soups, while ‘fresh’ rice noodles bought from supermarkets should be quickly blanched in hot first if they’ve hardened, so that they don’t break up into smaller pieces.
With dried rice noodles, it’s best to follow the packet instructions, as boiling times will vary depending on the size of the noodles. But you can assume that the noodles will need to be boiled if on the larger size, comparable to a thin spaghetti, capellini or angel hair pasta.
If the noodles are more brittle and on the thinner vermicelli-size, like those in the centre of the image, above, they’ll probably only need blanching in hot water. If using the noodles in a cold salad, you can probably soak them briefly in hot water, then drain them and allow them to cool. But once again, best to follow the packet directions.
What to Cook with the Noodles
We have so many noodle recipes using the round rice noodles, both fresh and dried, including Cambodian nom banhchok (below); mee Kola, a specialty of the Kola people that’s made with either rice vermicelli or rice stick noodles; the Hanoi street food favourite, bun cha, rice noodles with pork meat patties and pork belly (below); and a Vietnamese rice noodle bowl with meatballs and fresh herbs, among other dishes.
Cambodian Nom Banh Chok Recipe
If you can source fresh rice noodles, make this Cambodian nom banh chok recipe for nom banh chok samlor proher, a popular breakfast dish of freshly-made noodles doused in a yellow-green coconut-based fish curry that at its best is richer and creamier than many iterations of the dish. It’s garnished with fragrant herbs, seasonal vegetables and edible flowers, and is one of my favourite breakfasts in Siem Reap.
Authentic Nom Banh Chok Recipe for Cambodia’s Beloved Khmer Noodles
Vietnamese Bún Chả Hanoi Recipe
This Vietnamese bun cha recipe makes one of our favourite Asian noodle recipes and one of Vietnam’s street food specialties, bún chả Hanoi, in the style of the bun cha we used to eat on the streets when we lived in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi (on ‘Food Street’) – smoky char-grilled pork patties and pork belly, served in or with a warm dipping sauce, fresh rice noodles, fragrant herbs and greens, and Vietnamese fried spring rolls.
Vietnamese Bun Cha Recipe for Char-Grilled Pork Patties, Pork Belly, Noodles and Herbs
Rice Stick Noodles
Called rice stick noodles in English, these are the most popular noodles in northern mainland Southeast Asia after the indigenous rice noodles. Rice stick noodles are deliciously slippery when cooked, but retain their firmness and while tender are a little chewy. Rice stick noodles are sold fresh and dried in markets and supermarkets.
Sold fresh, rice stick noodles are firm, opaque and white; when sold dried they come in long skeins of semi-transparent, off-white, flat dried noodles, pictured above (far left). Coming in three sizes, thin, medium and thick, the ‘thin’ size is still of medium-width compared to other types of rice noodles. To compare rice stick noodles to Italian pasta, they’re comparable in size to linguine, fettuccini and pappardelle, although they’re not quite that wide.
Rice stick noodles are called kuy teav in Cambodia’s Khmer language (pronounced ‘ku-tieu’), having originated in the Cambodian-Chinese community. In Thailand they’re called sen lek and in Vietnam they’re banh pho or more correctly, bánh phở – dried pho noodles are bánh phở tươi and fresh pho noodles are bánh phở khô. Traditionally sold as fresh noodles in local markets, these days you can find dried and fresh noodles sold in the supermarket in Southeast Asia.
In the Mekong Delta of southern Vietnam and Cambodia, bánh phở Sa Đéc are considered to be the finest bánh phở in our part of the world, made from rice flour milled in Sa Dec – formerly called Psar Dèk when it was part of Cambodia. We buy dried bánh phở Sa Đéc in our local supermarket in Siem Reap.
Packets of the fresh noodles are also sold in the cold section. The packets typically say ‘Bánh phở tươi Sa Đéc – Hủ tiếu – Vermicelle de riz’. The use of the French ‘vermicelle’ appears on many packets of noodles in Vietnam and Cambodia, which were part of French Indochina. Many elites and old-timers speak French.
How to Use the Noodles
In Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand, rice stick noodles are used in loads of soups and stir-fries, as they hold their shape and firm texture well. Dried rice noodles need to be boiled, fresh noodles in packets only need to be blanched using a stainless steel spider or mesh basket with handle, while fresh noodles from markets can be thrown directly into soups and stir-fries.
What to Cook with the Noodles
Rice stick noodles are best known for being used in pad Thai, one of the most popular street food dishes with travellers to Thailand, but you’ll also find them in many noodle soups in Cambodia and Vietnam.
Kuy Teav Sach Moan Recipe
You could make our Phnom Penh noodle soup recipe for kuy teav Phnom Penh, called hu tieu Nam Vang in Saigon, where it’s hugely popular. It originated in the markets of Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh (called ‘Nam Vang’ in Vietnam) and makes one of Cambodia’s most popular noodle soups, especially for lovers of pork and prawns. Or make our kuy teav sach moan, the chicken meat version, below.
Classic Cambodian Kuy Teav Recipe for a Soul Nourishing Chicken Noodle Soup
My Kuy Teav Recipe
Or make my take on a kuy teav from Siem Reap, a juicy meatball noodle soup recipe with jammy soft boiled eggs, aromatic herbs, crunchy fried onions, chillies, and chives, with deliciously rustic homemade pork meatballs, which is one of our favourite Asian noodle recipes.
When eggs are served with noodle soups and rice porridges here in Cambodia they’re typically hard boiled, while the meatballs are firm, dense and chewy. In our recipe, the eggs are soft and jammy and my meatballs are soft, rustic and juicy.
Juicy Meatball Noodle Soup Recipe with Jammy Soft Boiled Eggs and Aromatic Herbs
Hor Fun, Chow Fun and Kway Teow
The Cantonese flat wide rice noodles called hor fun and chow fun – also transliterated as ho fun, he fen, shahe fen, and chow fun; in Mandarin, guotiao (guǒtiáo) – and in Malaysia, kway teow, are a bit wider than the widest Thai kway teow, Cambodian kuy teav (pronounced ku tieu) and Vietnamese hủ tiếu or banh phở, above. You can see the linguistic connections.
In Thailand these wide rice noodles are called sen yai, and like Chinese hor fun and chow fun and Malaysia kway teow, they are essentially just a wider form of the rice stick noodles, with the same tenderness and chewy texture, comparable in size to Italian pappardelle.Due to the larger surface they better maintain their form when stir-fried.
How to Use the Noodles
You can buy these flat wide noodles both fresh and dried in Southeast Asia. The fresh noodles are sold at local markets and at the supermarkets in the cold section. Fresh noodles can go straight into the wok or soup bowl, while the ‘fresh’ supermarket noodles need to be blanched and the dried noodles need to be boiled.
These noodles are fantastic stir-fried, but you’ll need a good seasoned carbon steel wok for charring the noodles. The larger surface area means that the noodles char better without breaking apart, giving them a smoky aroma and flavour, and sauces better cling to and coat the noodles, making for addictively delicious wet noodles.
What to Cook with the Noodles
These noodles are a great choice for dishes such as Malaysian char kway teow, Cambodian mee katang (Cantonese noodles; see below), Thai pad kee mao (drunken noodles), and Thai pad see ew (with soy sauce and greens), but try our Thai rad na gai recipe.
Thai Rad Na Gai Recipe
This recipe, one of our favourite Asian noodle recipes, is adapted from David Thompson’s Thai Street Food cookbook, and makes Thai rad na gai – also spelt raat nar gai, laat nar gai, and lad na gai. It makes smoky stir-fried rice noodles that are topped with stir-fried chicken and gravy; ‘rad na’ means ‘on top’ and ‘gai’ means ‘chicken’ – and while we’re using chicken in this case, this dish can also be made with pork or beef.
Thai Rad Na Gai Recipe for Charred Rice Noodles with Chicken and Gravy
Cambodian Mee Katang Recipe
You could also try this Cambodian mee katang recipe for a delicious Chinese-Cambodian dish of wok-fried wide rice noodles, browned by dark soy sauce, and stir-fried with marinated pork, crunchy carrots, Chinese broccoli, and scrambled eggs. Called ‘mee Kontang’ in Khmer, which means Cantonese noodles, the dish is pronounced ‘mee Katang’ – ‘mee’ means ‘noodles’ and ‘Cantonese’ is ‘Kontang’ in Khmer.
Cambodian Mee Katang Recipe for Quick and Easy Cantonese Style Noodles
Rice Pin Noodles
Rice pin noodles – also called silver needle noodles and rat’s tail noodles – are short, fat, opaque, white, worm-shaped noodles with pointy tips. Rice pin noodles are made from rice flour and tapioca starch, which give the noodles a chewy texture.
These rice flour and tapioca noodles tend to be called silver needle noodles in Taiwan and Hong Kong, rat’s tail or mouse tail noodles in Singapore and Malaysia, and rice pin noodles in Cambodia and other Southeast Asia countries.
Here in Cambodia, rice pin noodles are sold fresh at local markets and in the cold section at supermarkets. Rice pin noodles are very popular, even though the main dish they’re used in is the Cambodian street food dish called lort cha (recipe below).
How to Use the Noodles
Tapioca starch comes from cassava, which is grown in Northern Cambodia and widely available at local markets, so you’d expect that we’d see more savoury noodle dishes made with rice pin noodles.
Yet tapioca is mainly used to make tapioca dessert noodles and tapioca pearls, which are also used in Cambodian sweets, so you’ll see much more diversity when it comes to its uses for desserts rather than savoury dishes.
Rice pin noodles have so much more potential and could be used in noodle soups and stir-fries in much the same way that shorter pastas are used in Italy, but they’re nowhere near as widely used as the noodles above are, so this is a rice noodle that you could get creative with if you’re able to source it – or make your own!
What to Cook with the Noodles
Our authentic Cambodian lort cha recipe will make you the popular afternoon-cum-early evening snack of rice pin noodles stir-fried with garlic, bean sprouts and scallions or chives in a sauce of palm sugar, fish sauce and dark soy sauce. Lort cha is typically eaten with a soft fried egg, a liberal squirt of chilli sauce, and perhaps a chive cake or two, which lort cha cooks fry up in the same pan.
Authentic Cambodian Lort Cha Recipe for Market Style Stir Fried Rice Pin Noodles
Rice Paper
While you probably wouldn’t consider rice paper to be a type of noodle, here in Southeast Asia, especially in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, fresh rice paper sheets are used to both wrap around ingredients to create fresh spring rolls and fried spring rolls, as well as used to make hand-cut noodles including fresh Vietnamese pho noodles.
How to Use the Noodles
Dried rice paper (bánh tráng in Vietnam, thought to be their place of origin) and fresh rice noodle sheets – also called rice paper wrappers and rice paper skins – are used to roll up fresh and cooked ingredients such as fresh prawns, dried shrimps, minced pork, wood-ear mushrooms, vegetables and salad ingredients, vermicelli, and fresh fragrant herbs, to create fresh spring rolls, which our American readers call summer rolls.
Dried rice paper that wrapped around ingredients can also be deep-fried to create fried spring rolls, which our American readers also call egg rolls and imperial rolls.
What to Cook with the Fresh Rice Noodle Sheets
Firstly, if you aren’t able to buy fresh flat rice noodle sheets locally you can make your own Vietnamese fresh rice noodle sheets using the guide in the post, below, based on our experience learning to make them in a cooking class in Hoi A.
Fresh Rice Noodle Sheet Recipe
These fresh noodle sheets make both the Hanoi-style fresh Vietnamese spring rolls called pho cuon (phở cuốn Hà Nội) and the pho noodles or bánh phở that are used in Vietnam’s world famous rice noodle soup called pho (phở) right across Vietnam.
Vietnamese Fresh Rice Noodle Recipe – How to Make Rice Noodles for Pho and Pho Cuon
Hanoi Style Phở Cuốn
After making your own Vietnamese fresh rice noodle sheets, make one of our favourite Asian noodle recipes for these fresh Vietnamese rice noodle rolls known as Hanoi style pho cuon (phở cuốn Hà Nội), which are essentially a street food snack in Vietnam that you can buy on the street or in a simple eatery that specialises in the spring rolls.
Vietnamese Fresh Rice Noodle Rolls Recipe – Hanoi Style Phở Cuốn
Vietnamese Gỏi Cuốn Recipe
Try our recipe for classic gỏi cuốn or Vietnamese fresh prawn and pork spring rolls, which is a cold spring roll of cold cooked prawns, unseasoned pork belly, cold vermicelli noodles, and fresh aromatic herbs, rolled up in damp dried rice paper sheets. Click through for more Vietnamese spring roll recipes.
Vietnamese Fresh Prawn and Pork Spring Rolls Recipe for Classic Gỏi Cuốn
Wheat Noodles and Egg Noodles
Wheat noodles are made with wheat flour and water, but may also include eggs, when they tend to get called egg noodles. While rice-growing Southern China has traditionally eaten more rice noodles (as well as rice), the rest of China has historically consumed more wheat noodles and egg noodles.
Outside China, wheat noodles are widely eaten in Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, The Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, and in Chinese communities across Asia. Along with rice noodles, wheat noodles are also enjoyed in rice-growing mainland Southeast Asia and the Indian Sub-Continent.
Lo Mein and Hokkien Noodles
Lo mein are Chinese wheat noodles made with wheat flour and egg and are also called Hokkien noodles. They’re sold as fresh noodles, cooked noodles and dried noodles. While egg noodles are typically yellow, lo mein also comes in off-white and cream as well as that distinctive yellow we’d associate with lo mein and Hokkien noodles.
Fresh noodles and cooked noodles will be available in the refrigerated section of your supermarket, while dried lo mein will be in packets in the dried noodle aisle. Fresh lo mein look like freshly made pasta, dusted with wheat flour, while cooked lo mein look like cold cooked noodles.
In our Siem Reap supermarket, fresh locally made lo mein is sold on Styrofoam covered in plastic, whereas the imported cooked noodles are vacuum-packed and labelled both as lo mein or Hokkien noodles.
While we’d typically think of dried lo mein as medium-sized long round noodles, a bit like thick spaghetti, in our local supermarket, where nearly all the lo mein is imported from China, some dried lo mein varieties look like creamy linguini.
Egg Noodles
Chinese egg noodles are usually always yellow – although the colour doesn’t come from eggs, but from alkaline agents – and come in fresh, cooked and dried forms, depending on where you live.
Egg noodles also come in all colours, shapes and sizes, depending on the country, region or city of their origin. Most of our egg noodles are imported from China, but some are also manufactured in Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia.
Our supermarket stocks an array of dried egg noodles, from packets of yellow ramen-like noodles to bags of skeins of fine yellow noodles that look like balls of wool, while cooked egg noodles are sold in a mountain of tangles piled into Styrofoam.
How to Use the Noodles
Lo mein, Hokkein noodles and egg noodles are mostly stir-fried in sauces containing Chinese soy sauces and oyster sauce, or stirred into clear soups with meats and vegetables. The fresh noodles need to be boiled, while the cooked noodles can be tossed directly into a wok or soup pot. The dried noodles also need to be boiled and drained well before being wok-friend but could be directly thrown into a pot of soup stock.
What to Cook with the Noodles
As we’ve lived in Southeast Asia for over 14 years – in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia – we mostly use rice noodles, however, Terence has a couple of great recipes that use lo mein, including the classic ginger scallion sauce, which is perfect for lo mein, and a delicious Hokkien noodle recipe.
Ginger Scallion Sauce with Noodles
This ginger scallion sauce recipe for ginger scallion noodles makes the much-copied Momofuku homage to the classic Southern Chinese sauce that chef David Chang and food writer Francis Lam popularised outside China over a decade ago. I’ve been making these delicious ginger scallion noodles with the sauce ever since, well before their recent comeback. You should too.
Ginger Scallion Sauce Recipe for Ginger Scallion Noodles, A Momofuku Take on a Chinese Classic
Hokkien Noodles Recipe with Chinese Barbecue Pork
This Hokkien noodles recipe with char siu pork or Chinese barbecue pork is an old favourite inspired by a dish from legendary Australian chef Neil Perry. Terence has been cooking this dish for well over two decades. since 1998 after trying a Hokkien noodles dish cooked up by the chef. Terence’s version is modified from a recipe published in the chef’s first cookbook, Rockpool.
Hokkien Noodles Recipe with Chinese Barbecue Pork or Char Siu Pork
Glass Noodles or Cellophane Noodles
Named for their transparency, glass noodles or cellophane noodles are made from starch – mung bean starch, cassava root starch (tapioca), potato starch and sweet potato starch, and so on – and are used all over Asia.
Dangmyeon
Popular in Korea, where glass noodles or cellophane noodles are called dangmyeon, these dried noodles are made from potato starch or sweet potato starch (pictured above; far right). Sold in long strands looped into a skein of silvery-grey or silver-brown noodles, once soaked in water or quickly blanched the glass noodles are soft, smooth and translucent, hence the name ‘glass noodles’.
After being coated in a sauce, the semi-porous noodles soak it right up, taking on the colour. The noodles are so slippery they can be tricky for new chopstick users as they simply slide through the chopsticks. A tip: pick up a mix of noodles, vegetable and meat so the noodles don’t slip through.
How to Use the Noodles
Glass noodles are best for stir-fries, soups and salads. Make sure to follow the packet instructions because some glass noodles only need to be soaked, but one brand that I buy requires a quick blanch in hot water until al dente. Take care not to over-fry them. If not using glass noodles immediately, coat them in a little sesame oil to prevent them from sticking together.
What to Cook with the Noodles
You could try our classic Korean japchae recipe for a delicious Korean noodle dish of stir fried glass noodles with mixed vegetables. The noodles are tossed in sesame oil, soy sauce and sesame seeds, then combined with stir-fried carrot sticks, onion, mushrooms, and spinach.
Korean Japchae Recipe
This is one of our favourite Asian noodle recipes, but just a couple of tips: when it comes to boiling the glass noodles, follow the instructions on the packet. The Korean brand of dangmyeon I buy takes 5-6 minutes to soften, although I note that some recipes call for 7-8 minutes. That’s too long for the noodles I use. The noodles should not be al dente, they should be soft, but you still want them to be a little chewy.
Classic Korean Japchae Recipe for Stir Fried Glass Noodles with Mixed Vegetables
Kya Zan
Used in soups, stir-fries and salads in Myanmar, especially in Shan State, glass noodles are commonly called kya zan, which translates to lotus thread, or more accurately pe kya zan, which is lotus bean thread.
Having said that, most glass noodles in Myanmar are made from mung bean flour these days, while hsan kya zan is actually rice vermicelli. Confused? Well, our Shan vermicelli salad recipe is made with glass noodles not rice vermicelli although it can look like vermicelli.
Even more confusing for those new to Southeast Asia, you might find a glass noodle salad (or any noodle salad) listed under salads on a restaurant menu, while at a market or street food stall it might be on a laminated menu or blackboard described as a ‘dry’ noodle dish, which means it will also come in the form of ‘wet’ noodles or soup.
How to Use the Noodles
In Myanmar, these glass noodles are used in stir-fries and soups – for instance, kya zan hinga is a popular glass noodle soup made with wood-ear mushrooms, dried shrimps and eggs, among other ingredients – but we especially love the cold salads with glass noodles that we sampled on our travels in Myanmar.
You must follow the packet instructions for cooking the glass noodles as different types and brands require different times. I use one type of glass noodles that calls for soaking the noodles in boiling water for 10 minutes, while another calls for soaking in water for just 3 minutes.
While I call for ‘boiling’ water in the Shan vermicelli salad recipe below, I should clarify: I mean water that has just been boiled, so once it reaches boiling point, turn it off and then soak your noodles in the boiled water. If your noodle packet instructions recommend you soak your noodles in cold water, do as those guidelines say.
What to Cook with the Noodles
Try our Shan vermicelli salad recipe made with glass noodles – in our case, it was dried bean-thread noodles that we bought in Myanmar’s capital, Yangon – and sesame, coriander and peanuts.
Shan Vermicelli Salad Recipe
Another of our favourite Asian noodle recipes makes a deliciously light vegetarian noodle salad from Shan State in northeastern Myanmar, although you’ll spot variations of this dry noodle dish or noodle salad in markets and on menus around the country. Typically eaten as a contrasting accompaniment to rich oily curries it could also be eaten as a satisfying single-bowl meal.
Shan Vermicelli Salad Recipe with Coriander, Sesame and Peanuts from Shan State
Shopping for Asian Noodles
Our tips for shopping for Asian noodles in Asia and abroad.
Buying Asian Noodles in Asia
In Asia, make a beeline for the nearest local market for noodles. You’ll typically find fresh noodles in the wet market area and dried noodles and dried rice paper in the dry goods section. At our nearest local market in Siem Reap, the noodle seller stalls are actually located on a path between the fresh and dried sections and sell the gamut of noodles.
If you don’t have a local market nearby, head to supermarkets, which tend to have long aisles of dried noodles from all over Asia, organised by types of noodles and/or the countries they come from, as well as types of rice paper in various sizes. Fresh noodles can be found in the refrigerated section.
At the huge Angkor Market on Highway 6, our favourite Siem Reap supermarket, they stock noodles from right around Asia, with the largest sections featuring Korean and Japanese ramen, and the latest brands of fancy fusion noodles from Chinese regions that are hugely popular with young Cambodians.
Buying Asian Noodles Outside Asia
Outside Asia, depending on how multicultural your city or town is, you might only find a wide range of Asian noodles in your nearest Chinatown, specialised Asian grocery shops, supermarkets in the big cities and large towns, or in Asian communities, such as Cabramatta in Sydney or Richmond in Melbourne, both centres of Vietnamese-Australian communities.
For instance, in Australia, large supermarkets in all the big cities but especially in Sydney and Melbourne have a wide range of Asian products, including Asian noodles, which you might find located in the pasta and noodles section or in sections dedicated to different cuisines.
Most Asian noodles exported will have the name of the product in the country of origin, as well as some of the language of the country they’re exporting to. While I love few things more than browsing specialised supermarkets, to save time ask the staff for help and have the name of the noodle in the language of its origin as well as your language, or, ideally, an image of the noodles on your phone.
And while it’s nowhere near as fun as shopping in Chinatown, say, you can always find a wide range of Asian noodles online on Amazon or from specialised supplier websites.
Please do let us know if you use our Asian noodle guide and cook any of our Asian noodle recipes, as we’d love to know how they turn out for you.
