Sesame Noodles for Chinese New Year

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

It’s Chinese New Year! The year of the Dragon!

We started our Chinese New Year festivities with a potluck play date at the park with our friends. Everyone brought a Chinese entrée to share and everything so delicious. We had dumplings, doughnuts, a variety of noodles, fried rice, orange chicken and of course fortune cookies.

Emmalynn insisted on wearing her Mulan costume for the occasion.

The kids decorated dragon masks and made lanterns, which Allana loved almost as much as the dumplings.

For the potluck portion of the program, I brought Sesame Noodles to share. This dish is so simple and tasty served either warm or cold as a side dish or a main entrée.

The Rachel Ray recipe I use calls for angel hair pasta but I prefer spaghetti for this dish, so I sent hubby to the store to buy the ingredients for me. He returned with spaghetti rigata. Um…ok! At least it wasn’t linguini! Actually, hubby’s mistake worked perfectly because spaghetti rigata noodles are square and resemble lo mein noodles. (This is where Iron Chef Allan would chime in to tell me that was his intention all along.)

Sesame Noodles

(Adapted from Classic Rachel Ray 30-Minute Meals)

Ingredients

1 pound capellini (angle hair) or spaghetti rigatta

¼ cup low-sodium soy sauce

2 Tbsp tahini

2 Tbsp toasted sesame seed oil

¼ tsp cayenne pepper

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 inch gingerroot, peeled and grated or ½ tsp ground ginger

3 scallions, chopped

1 large carrot, grated

Toasted sesame seeds for garnish (optional)

Crushed red pepper flakes for garnish (optional)

Directions

Bring a large stock pot of salted water to a rolling boil and then add pasta. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl combine soy sauce, tahini, sesame oil, cayenne, garlic and ginger. Whisk until smooth.

Drain pasta and immediately chill in a large bowl of ice water to blanch pasta and prevent further cooking.

Drain and dump chilled pasta into bowl with sauce and combine until noodles are evenly coated. Add veggies and toss to combine.

Serve in soup bowls garnished with some extra sliced greens of scallions, sesame seeds and a little crushed red pepper.

Thanks for joining our weekly Friday Food Fight. Link up and see what everyone else is flinging this week.

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About the author

Denise

From start to finish, Denise is Run DMT, a Tampa Bay homeschooling mom on the run trying to maintain an easy pace through it all between races and raising three beautiful, brilliant adultish kids (ages 23, 19, 14). In 2007, I discovered a passion for running and in February 2015, I completed my tenth marathon. I continue to train for a variety of races and even host annual 5K. In 2023, I became a certified group fitness instructor and teach P.E. in my homeschool co-op.

24 comments

Betty Manousos says: 27 January, 2012 at 10:38 am

mmmm…that looks delicious and tempting!
i love chinese cuisine, i’m definitely doing this!

thanks so much for sharing and have a great weekend!

p.s. happy 2012!

Run DMT says: 27 January, 2012 at 11:10 am

Chinese cuisine is a big hit in our house too Thanks for stopping by!

kat says: 27 January, 2012 at 11:35 am

This sounds delish! I’ll have to try this!

Run DMT says: 28 January, 2012 at 9:22 am

It really is such a yummy dish. If you don’t have tahini on hand, you can use peanut butter as a substitute.

BloggyLesa says: 27 January, 2012 at 2:09 pm

What a fun way to celebrate Chinese New Year. Noodles are an easy tasty dish– I’ll be trying this version for sure. Happy FTF!

nicole feliciano (@momtrends) says: 27 January, 2012 at 3:20 pm

Love the way you celebrate the new year. Great photos. Thanks so much for sharing on Momtrends!

mominhighheels says: 27 January, 2012 at 3:44 pm

What a fun thing to do. And YUM on the noodles! Looks delicious! I love Chinese. Interestingly, the best Chinese food we’ve ever had has been here in Germany. There is a large Chinese population here (I wonder why?) and their restaurants are amazing. The food is apparently more “authentic” (?) compared to the Americanized version at restaurants in the States. I wasn’t aware you could Americanize Chinese, but whatever. No one over here has the awesome little fried donuts covered in sugar. I don’t care if that’s Americanized Chinese or not. They’re delicious and I want some.
Thanks for stopping by my blog! Come on over any time. I’m hilarious (I keep telling my readers this anyway), but I’ve especially got my groove on on Tuesdays. Have a great day!

Lisa~~ says: 27 January, 2012 at 5:44 pm

Happy Year of the Dragon!!! 新年快樂 Thanks for visiting Cook Lisa Cook and for the invite to link up. We adore sesame noodles yet haven’t made them in ages…need to remedy that and have them soon. Love seeing the other recipes in the hop.

Michelle says: 27 January, 2012 at 6:29 pm

This entire post is so colorful with the mask, costume, and sesame noodle dish. Very fun.
Thanks for inviting me to the fight!
I host a potluck link up called See Ya In the Gumbo. It starts on Sunday nights and runs through Friday nights. Would love for you to join in.

Run DMT says: 28 January, 2012 at 9:21 am

I’ll be there! Thanks for the invite and thanks for stopping by and playing along for Friday Food Fight!

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Cheerful says: 28 January, 2012 at 12:45 pm

great way to welcome the year of the water dragon and having noodles is nice to have on the table! that looks really delicious and thanks for sharing your recipe. visiting from FTF, see you around. 🙂

Bibi says: 28 January, 2012 at 1:40 pm

What a pretty little geisha…..we usually ski on Fridays, but we did celebrate Chinese New Year with a take-out from our favorite Chinese restaurant….I used to love to partake in Chinese New Year celebration when we lived in Vancouver. I do miss it.

unknownmami says: 28 January, 2012 at 5:47 pm

“Pinned” this because I know I will love that recipe. Can’t wait to try it. Thanks and Happy Chinese New Year!

deb duty says: 28 January, 2012 at 9:08 pm

Your noodle dish looks delicious! Looks like you guys had lots of fun celebrating the new year!

Jessica Cassidy says: 28 January, 2012 at 10:09 pm

the noodles looks very delish 🙂 I love anything that has noodles. Your little girl is so adorable. Looks cute in her costume too. Thank you for sharing. Visiting from FTF, hope that you can return the visit too.