Korean Vegetable Noodle Bowls
Korean Vegetable Noodle Bowls
Say hello to one of my favorite lunches and dinners. These Korean vegetable noodle bowls are so good. Disclaimer: they are definitely not authentically Korean, but inspired by Korean crispy beef bowls and bibimbap from our local Korean restaurant.
I am so super late on finding out how good Korean food is it’s embarassing. I just tried it for the first time last fall. And let me tell you. It was love at first bite.
I’m not particularly surprised by how much I love it. It’s full of flavor and spice and just so good. I am surprised though that I hadn’t tried Korean food until just recently. Life changing. We started to experiment with different Korean recipes for dinner because I wanted to eat takeout all the time.
We researched. We tried things. We failed a few times but we succeeded big time with these Korean vegetarian noodle bowls. In fact these bowls came as a result of a failure one night making Korean beef bowls. Cooking crispy Korean style beef required a little bit of trial and error. You have to cook the beef over high heat to get the crispy texture. However, you have to buy the exact right kind of ground beef or you get some serious splatter issues happening. We definitely didn’t buy the right beef that night and let me just tell you hot splatter is not fun.
So the night the hot splatter happened, I was over trying to do the beef. Like really #overit. So I raided my veggie drawer because veggies never do me wrong. Plus, I figured if I stumbled onto a winner with no beef required, I’d have a good lunch recipe since I eat primarily vegetarian during the day and only do meat at dinner.
Bingo in the veg drawer. We had mushrooms, carrots, cabbage, and zucchini. All of these sounded like they would taste fab with the briney, sweet and spicy sauce.
Yes, briny. The combo of acidic rice wine vinegar and lime with a healthy dose of soy sauce give the sauce that goes down over these veggie noodle bowls a salty, vinegary deliciousness. It still hits the sweet heat note with a blend of chili paste and honey. But these flavors are more of a background taste that hangs out behind the salty, gingery brine.
Seriously, bowls of vegetarian perfection.
Looking for other Asian inspired vegetarian recipes? Try these:
- Easy Thai Sweet Potato Soup
- Thai Pumpkin Curry with Butternut and Chickpeas
- Sweet Garlic Chili Chickpea Salad with Roasted Broccoli
- Easy Thai Chickpea Curry
Ingredients
For the veggies
- 1 zucchini sliced into thin wheels
- 1 8 ounce package of mushrooms sliced or quartered
- 3 carrots shredded or peeled into ribbons
- 1 cup cabbage shredded
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 tsp of fresh diced ginger
- 3 tbs soy sauce*
- 1 tbs siracha or chili paste
- 3 tbs sesame oil
For the dressing
- 3 tbs of rice wine or distilled white vinegar
- juice of half a lime
- 4 tbs soy sauce
- 3 tbs sesame oil
- 2 tbs honey
- 2 tbs chili paste or siracha
- 1/2 inch of fresh grated ginger
- 3 cloves of pressed garlic
- 1 scallion chopped
To assemble bowls
- Kale**
- 2 bundles of brown rice noodles
- cilantro to garnish
- scallions
- lime wedges
Instructions
- Cook rice noodles according to directions on package
- Slice veggies as specified.
- Whisk together all the ingredients for the dressing and set aside, keeping close to the stove.
- Heat a large pan over medium to medium high heat with 3 tbs oil. Add the veggies to the pan and saute with garlic and ginger for about 7 minutes or until veggies reach desired doneness. About two minutes before veggies are done, add soy sauce and chili paste.
- Assemble the bowls by putting some kale in the bottom of the bowl if desired. Top with noodles and veggies. Pour desired dressing over bowl. Garnish with extra scallions, cilantro, sesame seeds, and lime wedges if desired.
i am DROOLING–i love all the flavors you used and can’t wait to make it!
This looks so wonderful. I can totally get behind this dish.
What a beautiful, colorful dish, and it sounds amazing!
Seriously, that looks amazing! I need to try that!
Belle | http://www.OneAwesomeMomma.com
That is the prettiest meal EVER! I love all those colors!
Thank you!
Looks amazing, already bookmarked this for future reference
Nicole Parise – NicoleParise.com
Oooh this looks incredible! I studied Korean at Uni for three years and loved it. The culture, language and food is so great!
xx, Theresa
OMG what an incredible experience!