Rice Noodle Salad Bowl w/ Honey Vinegar Dressing

Hi frieeeeends!!! Happy Tuesday 🙂

I scheduled all of last week’s posts before I left for my continuing education class, so it feels like FOREVER since I’ve actually written a blog post! I’m really stinking happy I did that because my class was way more draining and took way more time than I had expected. Blarrgghhhh.

I’m super happy to be back home and get back in my normal routine and all that good stuff. Plus it was INSANELY hot and humid and gross in San Diego while I was there (lamesauce, San Diego. you’re usually so lovely!) And it feels like I came home to a real start of fall here! The temperatures have dropped, the days are noticeably shorter, and I spent the weekend doing some very quintessentially fall things. Hooraaahhhhh.

What’s it like right now where you live? Where are you? Is it fall yet??

Alright, let’s talk about some food. This little rice noodle salad bowl is soooo simple and loaded with clean easy goodies. My kind of food. Plus it’s another one of those meals that’s really easy to adjust for people with different diets – Preston cooked up some TJ’s Korean ribs to throw on top of his bowl instead of my baked tofu (perfect.)

By the time I put almost all of this in my bowl, it was all incredibly plain and very unseasoned. And then I just drizzled the whole thing with an amazing simple concoction of honey and seasoned rice vinegar (plus then I wound up adding some ponzu, my new obsession, and a touch of sesame oil.)

This recipe is really loosely inspired by something that I still totally intend to make, but it’s going to be a much more time-intensive and specific recipe. Right now I’m beyond loving recipes where you can easily swap entire components, make a two ingredient sauce, use up whatever you have in your fridge. BUT the inspiration: there’s this little Vietnamese restaurant I’ve been going to for like abouuuuut 22ish years? (how OLD does that make me sound?!?!?!?!?!?!) It’s called Rice Noodles, and they have a bunch of bowls that are enormous bowls with veggies on the bottom, a big pile of rice noodles, and topped with some kind of meat, an egg roll, some peanuts, and served with this little adorable mini pitcher with some vinegary delightfulness. It’s spectacular. I’ll be recreating a tofu (or fish?!?!) recipe for the fantastic lemongrass marinated meat they use on top. But the basic concept? So easy and so genius. That’s what this rice noodle salad bowl is all about.

Sub whatever veggies you like best, meat you like best, maybe use a pre-marinated tofu or tempeh for a fantastic shortcut, drizzle the whole bowl with your favorite sauce. It’s yours to play with.

Here’s the “recipe” for what you’re looking at in these pics:

rice noodle salad bowl

2015-10-19 15:43:29

Serves 2

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for the bowl

1. 3 C cooked rice noodles (I love the skinniest ones you can find for this as a throwback to the restaurant inspiration)
2. 3 carrots, shredded
3. 1 large cucumber (or 2-3 small Persian ones), thinly sliced
4. 1/2 tofu block (4 skinny slices of the whole block)
5. 1/2 C honey roasted peanuts, crushed
6. scallions for garnish

for the vinaigrette

1. 2 T honey
2. 2 T seasoned rice vinegar
3. optional: splash of toasted sesame oil (a last minute addition that I LOVED)

Instructions

1. Lightly coat the tofu slices in toasted sesame oil and bake at 425 degrees for about 15-20 minutes, until golden brown.
2. Pile your noodles and veggies high, add the tofu when it’s done cooking, and drizzle the vinaigrette on top. Add crushed peanuts and scallions. I also added a dollop of spicy peanut sauce (which goes really well with this)

Flora Foodie https://florafoodie.com/