Spicy Asian Noodle Salad

Mondays are the one day in my week I make an actual conscious decision to eat healthy. Usually it's because my weekend was an eating spree and we've just gotten groceries.  A fully stocked fridge with delicious goodies always makes my day and gets me motivated to make good home cooked meals!  This sometimes tapers off around fajita Wednesdays at Pappasitos...

Hubby and I both love our vegetables, so we end up buying quite a bit every time we hit up the grocery store. We aren't ones to normally eat a salad as our dinner, and I guess I'm only calling this a salad because it's a bunch of cold vegetables and noodles thrown together with a dressing. We both loved this salad so much.  I used a variety of veggies, coated wheat noodles with a spicy dressing, and then tossed everything together.  We topped it off with a bit of baked tilapia and roasted broccoli. Such a simple weeknight dinner you can feel good about.  I adapted this recipe from one of my favorite bloggers Budget Bytes.  She has some pretty awesome recipes, along with costs, so you can make great dinners on the cheap!

It's up to you what veggies you want to use and how little or a lot of them you want in your salad, so take away the method of this recipe and cater to your own likes and dislikes when it comes to the salad ingredients.

And yes, we eat with chopsticks.

Spicy Asian Noodle Salad

8 oz. thin wheat spaghetti
1/4 cup shelled edamame, cold
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
2 green onions, sliced thinly
1/2 cucumber, peeled, diced
3-4 large leaves napa cabbage, sliced thinly
2 carrots, shredded
handful cilantro, chopped roughly
pickled red onions (I already had these, optional)
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon Sriracha
1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
Sesame oil, drizzle

Boil noodles until al dente.  Drain and rinse with cold water.  The noodles must be completely dry in order for the sauce to stick, so give them a shake every so often as you get your vegetables ready.  I ended up sticking the noodles in the fridge to help along the process, and it worked very well.  You want the noodles to be a little sticky, not wet.

As the noodles are drying, chop, dice, karate chop your veggies and combine them in a bowl.  In a separate small bowl, combine hoisin sauce, Sriracha, and rice wine vinegar.

Once your noodles are ready, throw them in a large bowl, pour in dressing and keep tossing until all the noodles are coated.

Add your veggies and toss to combine. Drizzle with a tiny bit of sesame oil.  Eat with chopsticks for optimal experience.

Enjoy!