Vegan Chinese Noodles Dou Ban Jiang

Hey friends,

Today I’m sharing a Chinese noodle recipe. It’s been far too long since I posted an Asian recipe! So Today I’m making up for it my sharing one of my best so far Chinese recipes!

This noodle recipe features a delicious sauce called dou ban jiang (豆瓣醬). It is pretty much fermented soy beans. That means it’s got that delicious umami taste to it that makes it so amazing! The other sauce we will be using is called tian mian sauce(甜面醬) which is a sweet sauce. Now if you’re thinking, wait but I don’t have or cant get any of those sauces, don’t worry! I have substitution option if you can’t get your hands on these sauces.

If you don’t have dou ban jiang (豆瓣醬) then you can use soy sauce instead. It is different in the sense that it doesn’t have that distinct umami taste to it, but it is similar enough to substitute. And if you don’t have the tian mian sauce(甜面醬) you can substitute it with some sugar. And even with these substitutions the dish will taste amazing!

Also for this dish we will be using a seaweed called hijiki seaweed. It is common to the Japanese cuisine and very healthy. However, if you can’t get your hands on this then you can just omit it. It doesn’t necessarily add too much to the flavor.

serves 1-2

Ingredients

2 cloves of garlic
4 spring onion stalks
4 mushroom buttons
1/2 medium cucumber
1 tbsp dried hijiki seaweed
1 tomato
1 tbsp dou ban jiang (substitute with 1 to 2 tbsp soy sauce)
1 tbsp tian mian sauce (substitute with 0,75 tbsp sugar)
300g chinese wheat noodles (with no egg)

Instructions

Prepare the ingredients: mince the garlic, slice the spring onion, cut the mushrooms and the tomato into little cubes, cut the cucumber into thin matchsticks and wash, soak and boil the seaweed for 1-3min in water. Set all the prepared ingredients aside and move on to the stove top.
Heat some oil in a large pot on medium heat. Add the garlic and half of the green onions. Fry for a few minutes before adding the mushrooms. Again fry the mushrooms for a few minutes and then add the two sauces (or the replacement) and the tomato and bring to a simmer. Feel free to add a splash of water to the pot to loosen things up. Add half of the cooked seaweed and let it simmer on low heat for 5-10min. If you feel like the sauce is too thick, add a splash of water.
In separate pot cook the noodles according to package instructions.
Once all is done, assemble the noodles in a bowl. Add the sauce on top and arange the sliced cucumber, remaining seaweed and spring onion on top.