Here are what I love about this scallion noodles:
One, it is an easy sauce to make. Only 4 ingredients required to make the sauce: cooking oil, scallions, soy sauce and sugar. Yes, these are all you need. Almost too easy.
Two, I have finally found a way to use up all my scallions. I can’t seem to able to use up scallions whenever I buy them from the supermarket. They make nice garnish and taste great as the base flavour of stir fry, coupled with sliced ginger, but I only use a small quantity at a time. After a couple of dishes or two, they seem to always be pushed to the bottom of my crisper and eventually withered. Does this sound familiar?
Three, if you are a noodles lover like me, it makes a perfect standby meal if you are too busy to think about making lunch or dinner. If you think you will be having a busy week ahead, make the sauce over the weekend and store it in the fridge. All you have to do is to heat up the quantity you need in the microwave for a second of two, cook the noodles of your choice, toss it with the sauce and topped with fried egg, sauteed mushrooms, vegetables or grilled chicken.
In addition, there are not many popular Shanghai street foods that can be replicated easily at home with accessible ingredients. I’m delighted that this scallion noodles is one of them. 🙂
Caramelised Scallion (Spring Onions) Noodles
For the sauce:-
- 2 tbsp cooking oil (I used canola oil)
- 7 x scallions (spring onion), sliced into 2 inches in length
- 3/4 cup soy sauce (use low sodium if possible)
- 3 tbsps raw sugar
Noodles of your choice: udon, soba, egg noodles, hokkien noodles, instant ramen noodles (minus the flavour sachet), fresh egg noodles etc.
Method:-
For the sauce: In a non-stick pan, heat cooking oil over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add scallions and saute until softened and caramelised at the edge. Add soy sauce and sugar and cook until the mixture thickens resembling syrup over high heat.
Cook the noodles as per packet instruction. Drain the noodles and add the sauce to taste. Toss to mix everything together and serve immediately.
Note: Check the noodles ingredients for salt content. For example, the dried udon noodles I bought already contained some salt, so I was light handed with the sauce. On the contrary, fresh egg noodles are quite bland, hence the sauce I added will be more.
Ha I agree it always seems to take forever to use up a bunch of scallions. I find that if you wrap it lightly in newspaper before placing it in a plastic bag, it does last longer!
Good tip Helen! I will try this next time xx Emily
If you chop them up and put them in an airtight container, scallions freeze very well.
Hi Emily. Would love to try this. However you didn’t give the quantity for the noodles. You did for the cooking oil, scallions, soy sauce and sugar, but no portion for noodles. Don’t want to make too little noodles for the amount of sauce in the recipe and don’t want to make too many noodles for the sauce. Please advise. Thanks