Our ideas for What to Cook this Week include five fast and frugal noodle recipes for quick and easy weeknight meals. These super easy and affordable mid-week dinner ideas include everything from spicy peanut butter noodles and a classic Japanese yaki udon to jazzed-up instant noodles and Korean ramen with char siu pork.
If you’re dropping by for the first time or haven’t visited us in a while, What to Cook this Week is a randomish recipe series, where some Mondays I’ll poke around the Grantourismo recipe archives – which are heaving with hundreds of recipes from right around the world – for easy midweek dinner ideas for you.
For What to Cook this Week I share meal suggestions for those nights when you’re feeling like you don’t want to spend a whole of time in the kitchen, as well as ideas for meals requiring a bit more effort for Friday night, when you’re happy to while away the evening in the kitchen with loved-ones, a bottle of wine, and good music in the background.
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What to Cook This Week – Fast and Frugal Noodle Recipes for Easy Weeknight Meals
Five fast and frugal noodle recipes for quick and easy weeknight meals.
Instant Ramen Noodles + Secrets to Upgrading Instant Noodles
My best instant ramen noodles recipe for a quick, easy, satisfying meal begins with discarding those tiny packets of seasoning and spice paste and making your own sauce, a popular Southeast Asian dipping sauce.
Add crunch with a sprinkle of fried shallots or fried garlic and fragrance from fresh herbs and you’ve got delicious instant noodles.
It is so easy to make that it really doesn’t need a recipe and like all good instant ramen recipes, it’s versatile. If you follow my now-not-so-secret formula to upgrading instant ramen, you’ll always make satisfying instant noodles. Use your favourite noodles.
I like MAMA instant noodles, a Thai brand that Thai friends got me onto, or Nongshim Shin Ramyun Noodles. For fish sauce, we like Megachef, one of the most consistent fish sauces available internationally.
Best Instant Ramen Noodles Recipe PLUS Secret Formula to Upgrading Instant Noodles
Korean Instant Ramen Noodles Recipe for Jazzing Up Nongshim Shin Ramyun
Terence’s Korean instant ramen noodles recipe jazzes up Nongshim Shin Ramyun, which are apparently South Korean’s most popular Korean instant ramen noodles, with melt-in-your-mouth slices of char siu pork, crisp Chinese greens, blanched bean sprouts, a boiled egg, deep-fried shallots, and our heady homemade chilli oil.
Terence uses Nongshim’s Shin Black Noodle Soup, which he cooks for four minutes, having added about half the soup powder first, and blanched any extras that need cooking before that, such as the Asian leafy green vegetables and bean sprouts. He doesn’t use the vegetable flakes packet at all, as he doesn’t like the texture.
Terence likes to add a squirt of one of the original Thai Sriracha sauces but you could always add a squeeze of the American-Vietnamese Rooster Sriracha brand.
Best Korean Instant Ramen Noodles Recipe – How to Jazz Up Nongshim Shin Ramyun
Spicy Peanut Butter Noodles Recipe for a Quick, Easy Bowl of Noodles
Our second what to cook this week recipe is this spicy peanut butter noodles recipe makes an easy bowl of noodles that’s perfect for a fast lunch or quick mid-week dinner and it’s another of my top noodle recipes made in 30 minutes or less as it’s just too easy.
If you’re in the mood for satay but don’t have time to pound pastes and grind peanuts, this spicy peanut butter sauce should satisfy your cravings and it’s a cinch to make. It’s also versatile – use whatever noodles and toppings you have at hand – and fast. They’re made in 15 minutes.
If you’re a lover of noodle dishes – and dry noodles doused in sauces, in contrast to wet noodles, which are essentially noodle soups and curried noodles – then you should enjoy tucking into a bowl of these spicy peanut butter noodles, garnished with crunchy pan-roasted peanuts, crispy fried garlic, sliced red chillies, and fragrant coriander or cilantro.
Spicy Peanut Butter Noodles Recipe for a Quick, Easy and Tasty Bowl of Noodles
Classic Yaki Udon Noodles Recipe for Japanese Stir Fried Udon Noodles with Vegetables
Our easy yaki udon noodles recipe makes the classic Japanese stir fried noodles dish that is perfect for a casual one-bowl dinner. ‘Yaki’ means ‘fried’ in Japanese and ‘udon’ are delightfully chewy, thick, white, wheat noodles.
A classic yaki udon consists of udon noodles stir-fried with vegetables in a soy-based sauce. We sprinkle on some bonito flakes, roasted seaweed and sliced spring onions.
If you’re a noodle-lover and you love Japanese udon noodles as much as I do, and you made and enjoyed my breakfast yaki udon with bacon and eggs, then you’re going to adore this easy yaki udon noodles recipe.
Classic Yaki Udon Noodles Recipe for Japanese Stir Fried Udon Noodles with Vegetables
Korean Spicy Noodles Recipe for Stir-Fried Udon with Kimchi
If you’re a lover of Japanese udon noodles but prefer the spice of Korean food, you’re going to love this Korean spicy noodles recipe, although it’s a dish for pork lovers as much as lovers of noodles and spice.
Our Korean spicy noodles recipe makes stir-fried udon noodles with kimchi, bacon and fried eggs. While the Japanese fried udon noodle dish, yaki udon, has a soy based sauce, this Korean-style yaki udon heats things up with kimchi, the spicy Korean chilli paste called gochujang and Korean chilli flakes gochugaru. We pop fried eggs on top.
If bacon and ground pork is too much pork, omit one. This versatile noodle dish also works with seafood, chicken, pork, or vegetables.
Korean Spicy Noodles Recipe for Stir-Fried Udon with Kimchi, Bacon and Fried Eggs
Please do let us know if you’ve make any of these What to Cook this Week recipe ideas for fast and frugal noodles as we love to hear how our recipes turn out for you.
