Tasty Tuesday: Peanutty Jap Chae Recipe with Soba Noodles

Welcome to any new readers! Check out my links in the sidebar to the right (must reads), or my tabs above (the salad story, yoga + fitness, recipes, and my recommendations).

***

I updated my recipes page. All recipes are waist-friendly, most are vegetarian or vegan, many are raw or macrobiotic – there are tons of options. I will be updating the layout of the page soon (I hope) to make it more navigable and sortable, but for now I am so happy that ALL my recipes are actually listed. Go look! There are 214 recipes on there as of today. I am really happy that I have that as a history of my cooking for the last 3 years. Here is #214.

Korean Recipe Rehab: Healthy Jap Chae Recipe

Last night we ate in, and I cooked. I cooked! I have not truly cooked in ages and I have missed it so. I read Women’s Health this weekend and they had a recipe for Jap Chae (a traditional Korean recipe – it’s a noodle dish) and I wanted to make my own version of it. I used to make Jap Chae all the time, but that recipe is different from this one. It’s lower calorie, but not as filling.

Since I’m not trying to lose weight I’m going to stick with this soba noodle jap chae recipe (which has a peanutty Pad Thai twist). Here is my Very Low calorie Jap Chae recipe. The one I’m about to post is still not that hefty either! It is certainly a waist-friendly recipe. (Note the options in parentheses after ingredients that can make it a lower calorie recipe – the mods are simple and shouldn’t change the taste.)

I opted to do this in typical Maggie fashion: a fusion Asian dish – soba noodles (Japanese), jap chae sauce (Korean recipe), and the addition of peanut butter (Thai) – it was awesome. Bobby agreed. This dish is even kind of macrobiotic; I approve of eggs on a macrobiotic diet.

Peanutty Jap Chae Soba Noodles (AKA Spunky Soba with a Twist)

Ingredients (serves 3-4, depending on appetites)

• 8 ounces soba noodles
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon (organic turbinado) sugar
• 1 teaspoon chili flakes (could do less)
• 3 tablespoons PB2 or 2 tablespoons peanut butter (could do less but this makes it tasty)
• 1-2 tablespoons peanut oil (could do less; could use sesame oil if you don’t have peanut)
• 1/2 large onion, chopped
• 5 cloves of garlic, crushed and roughly minced (could do less)
• 2 medium carrots, sliced
• 2 (non-recalled) eggs
• 3-4 celery stalks, sliced
• 1 medium zucchini, julienned

Method

1. Prepare the veggies. You will add them in the order listed above.
2. Prepare the noodles according to the package. (Usually boil for 4 minutes then drain.)
3. Mix the sauce while the noodles are cooking: soy sauce, sugar, chili flakes, PB2/peanut butter. (Do not need to dissolve the sugar yet.)
4. Heat the peanut oil on high heat in a wok or large pan. Add the onion, garlic, and carrots. Saute for 3 minutes.
5. Beat the eggs with a fork. Push the veggies to one side of the pan; add the eggs and scramble them there. It is ok if everything mixes together.
6. Add the other veggies: celery and zucchini. Saute for 3-4 more minutes.
7. Add the noodles (drained) and the sauce; stir a few times then turn off the heat. You can continue to mix to make sure everything is distributed evenly.
8. Serve! This jap chae recipe is perfect alone: protein, carbs, and fat. Yum yum yum.

For dessert I had grapes; Bobby had a nectarine. I haven’t been into sweets lately. So strange.

What’s your favorite noodle dish?

Here are some of my other noodly recipes:

• Macrobiotic Soba with Onions and Umeboshi (low calorie options – use shirataki noodles)
• Simple soba noodle soup
• Pasta salad with veggies
• Tomato and Parmesan Pasta
• Zaru Soba (one of my first recipes!)

Enjoy, bookmark, share 🙂 Let me know if you make any of them!

P.S. Did anyone notice that Chrome had an update? I like it.