Trader Joe’s “Thai WHEAT NOODLES”

NEW PRODUCT

I was glad to see these pantry ready packs of (vacuum packed) fresh (cooked, ready to use) noodles in Trader Joe’s NEW ITEMS area recently. I think sometime in the past Trader Joe’s sold some kind of fresh Asian noodle but none I can recall for a few years. Trader Joe’s “Thai Wheat Noodles” are a pretty typical Asian style noodle. Think maybe “Udon”? These can be used for any kind of Asian noodle dish. These noodles are as much Chinese or Japanese as they are Thai, they’re just a typical Asian wheat noodle though the box does say Product of Thailand hence the name I guess. They’re $2.99 a pack (21 oz). They come in 3 individual bags of about 1 portion each, ready to use in a recipe. Each bag has about 7 ounces of noodles. To me that seems a little bit of a skimpy portion, and I wish these had just a bit more, even one more ounce to make 8 ounces which would be a more decent portion. I found one bag will make a portion for one for a finished noodle dish factoring in other added stuff. So I definitely suggest you “beef it up” and add stuff: veggies, proteins, etc. For one dish I made with these (see pic I had a few pieces of cooked chicken tenderloins in my fridge so I topped it with the chicken plus a lot of scallions and slivered cucumbers. I basically used the recipe they have on the box for “Sesame Scallion Noodles”and added to it. TIP: Right out of the package you will find the noodles are really stuck together into an almost impenetrable brick. To get them unstuck and loose I really had to work at them using chopsticks and tongs when I added the liquid sauce ingredients; it was not easy to get them loosened up. So I experimented the next time I made them with pouring on hot/boiling water first. Use very hot or just boiled water, rinsing them in a bowl or a colander. I used my fingers/chopsticks/tongs to get them as unstuck as possible, bit by bit. Then rinsed them in cold water and drained them. That worked better to prep them before adding them to the dish so suggest this for your prep. Place drained noodles a bowl and give them just a drizzle of oil over them and mix while you get your other ingredients ready to stir fry. Note that these are already cooked so don’t cook too much or they might get mushy.

You can of course also use these noodles in any stir fried dish of your own choosing. Some other ideas for toppings would be some grilled pork (Cha Siu?), grilled shrimp, or go simple with just a fried egg on top with some Gojujang or other sauce. I would say these wheat noodles are basically the same as a Japanese “Udon” noodle – so you could use them in Japanese cooking, say to make a “YAKIUDON“. I did a kind of YAKI UDON with these and it worked fine. The box’s recipe for “SESAME SCALLION NOODLES” worked fairly well too when I made it. TIP: The recipe on the box is for just one package so double or triple the recipe if you are making more than one or you will not have enough sauce. The recipe on the box is a good basic recipe that you can modify. I added a heaping tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter to it, to make it “Thai”. I also used a little Bomba to spice it up. These noodles are handy and not bad at about a buck a portion, even if they don’t match up to the fresh noodles (not vacumn packed) you can find at any Asian grocery. One more thing I just thought of, you could say add these to Trader Joe’s GINGER MISO soup and come up with a noodle version of that! I hope TJ’s keeps these around so check them out so they see they are selling! I would buy these again.

VEGAN

Here’s TJ’s info on them.

https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/thai-wheat-noodles-062742