Cold Chicken Noodle Salad

Cold Chicken Noodle Salad

Serves 2-3, 15 mins prep, 5 mins cook time, 20 minutes total

Ingredients

2 bundles dried noodles*
1 tbsp Hoi Sin sauce
1 tbsp Chinkiang Chinese black vinegar**
1 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp sunflower oil
1 tbsp light soy sauce
Around 200g cooked chicken, cut into small pieces
1 tbsp sesame seeds
Small bunch fresh coriander leaves, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, finely chopped
5 spring onions, finely sliced
1 quarter cucumber, cut into small chunks
Bit of left over tomato, chopped into chunks (optional!)

*I used one bundle each of Waitrose own brand fine egg noodles and Blue Dragon wholewheat ones.

**You can buy this in Chinese food stores or substitute with rice vinegar or any good quality vinegar if neither available.

Method

1. Boil the dried noodles in a saucepan filled with water for several minutes until they go soft. Drain and refresh with cold water a couple of times until the noodles are nearly cold. Leave them sitting in the water whilst you do everything else (although if you’re not using them right away you need to drain them now and toss in the sesame and sunflower oils to help reduce strands sticking together).

2. In a medium sized bowl, stir together the dressing ingredients; hoi sin sauce, vinegar, mirin, oils, soy sauce.

3. Add the chopped ingredients and stir through; chicken, sesame seeds, coriander, carrot, spring onion, cucumber, tomato (if using, mine was just a half one left over in fridge – you might equally use remainders of radish, fennel, white or Chinese leaf cabbage or last bits of bagged spinach or lettuce).

4. Finally drain the cold water from the cooked noodles and toss them with the other ingredients until well coated and combined.

5. Serve immediately or you could equally box it up for a packed lunch!

 

We divided this amount into three as a light lunch or it would be enough for 2 larger portions.

This looks like a long ingredient list and a lot of chopping but you’re not making a massive amount and it’s the carrot that takes the longest. I had this served up in around twenty minutes plus time to boil the kettle for the noodles.

As a Saturday lunch, it’s that time of the week we usually have the last pieces of meat to pick at on the chicken. My husband is well trained to strip the carcass of the last offerings and probably tonight I’ll boil the bones for stock before buying a new bird at the butcher tomorrow (mine is open Sunday mornings!).

This was one of those days where we have avoided the supermarket for over a week and given the current lockdown situation, would sooner avoid an unnecessary trip to the convenience store. I normally do sandwiches in the week and toasties on Saturdays so this was both out of the ordinary and felt pretty virtuous too. Having gotten a bit lazy since Christmas it was satisfying to make a meal from sad looking fridge bits that was tasty, easy and healthy at the same time.

This crockery was from Waitrose a few years ago although Sainsbury’s TU range often stocks a similar style. I’ve always said I impulse buy crockery the way other women do shoes. I always enjoy using these cheerful for noodle-y things and also showed them here in my shiitake and quorn noodles. You’ve got to find variety where you can at the moment and not always using the same dishes is one way to mix things up. I avoid bothering with full sets of things but am a sucker for hoovering up sale crockery pieces in twos or threes where they match with other stuff we already have. Think of it like a wardrobe for your dinner!