Garlic Sesame Noodles
Easy peasy take-out style sesame noodles for those busy weeknights! It’s a simple, quick 30-min meal the whole family will LOVE!
Remember when I went to Brooklyn a few weeks back?
I had that epic pizza slice. With actual pizza toppings.
I know. It was kind of insane.
But.
I didn’t just go for the pizza.
I mean. I did.
But I also went to attend an exclusive LEAN CUISINE tasting experience hosted at the Museum of Food and Drink.
Aka. MOFAD.
I know.
There’s a legit museum of food and drink.
And I was fortunate enough to explore their popular exhibit, Chow: Making the Chinese American Restaurant.
The takeout boxes were hanging so beautifully from floor to ceiling, yet my eyes were glued to the fortune cookie dispensary.
Except.
Well, it didn’t quite fit in my travel bag to bring back to Los Angeles.
I did, however, fit 27 fortune cookies into my purse…
That I inhaled on the flight back home.
No, but really, it was such a treat to meet the LEAN CUISINE team of highly trained chefs.
I listened and watched in awe as they prepared a recipe inspired by their newest dish, learning about the nutrition and care that goes into each of their recipes.
And the highlight of the night was clearly this.
Their newest flavor of all: Garlic Sesame Noodles with Beef, made completely from scratch using fresh, quality ingredients – and something I really needed to faceplant myself into.
I got so excited, I immediately hopped on a flight back to LA with all those “stolen” fortune cookies.
But really, I needed to make this noodle dish for myself.
I tried to stick to the original recipe as much as possible, with garlic noodles, flank steak (LEAN CUISINE chefs used prime rib beef), carrots, bell peppers, and garlic with a soy garlic sauce.
So I’ll be here, skipping date night and eating up all these garlic noodles, and all of my fortune cookies for dessert.
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Garlic Sesame Noodles
Ingredients
- 2 5.6-ounce packages refrigerated Yaki-Soba, seasoning sauce packets discarded
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 pound flank steak, thinly sliced across the grain
- 1 red bell pepper, sliced
- 1 carrot, thinly sliced
- 1 head broccoli, cut into florets
- 1 green onion, thinly sliced
- ½ teaspoon sesame seeds
For the sauce
- ¼ cup reduced sodium soy sauce
- 4 cloves, garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoon browns sugar, packed
- 1 tablespoons sambal oelek, ground fresh chile paste, or more, to taste
- 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
- 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
Instructions
- In a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, garlic, brown sugar, sambal oelek, oyster sauce, ginger and sesame oil; set aside.
- In a large pot of boiling water, add Yaki-Soba until loosened, about 1-2 minutes; drain well.
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add steak and cook, flipping once, until browned, about 3-4 minutes; set aside.
- Stir in bell pepper and carrot to the skillet. Cook, stirring frequently, until tender, about 3-4 minutes.
- Stir in Yaki-Soba, broccoli and soy sauce mixture until broccoli is tender and the sauce is slightly thickened, about 3-4 minutes. Stir in steak until heated through and evenly coated in sauce, about 1 minute.
- Serve immediately, garnished with green onion and sesame seeds, if desired.
Notes
Did you make this recipe?
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Disclosure: This post is sponsored by LEAN CUISINE. As always, I only partner with brands that I love and truly believe in, allowing me to create more quick and easy recipes to get us through the week without breaking the bank. All opinions expressed are my own.
This recipe looks wonderful, as do other Asian recipes, but I am not a fan of fish or seafood so I am hesitant when I see oyster sauce in a recipe. What does oyster sauce taste like? Can I leave it out and still have a tasty dish?
Thank you
I’m not an expert, but to me it doesn’t really taste like fish at all, to me it just adds umami flavour. I can’t really tell it apart from other sauce ingredients once mixed
Made this tonight for dinner and it was a hit! Everyone devoured it. Sooo tasty
10/10 so simple and delicious. The recipe had ingredients I love and mostly staple in our house. And I wanted to use leftover grilled ribeye. I used two packs of dried ramen noodles (don’t use the flavor packs, cook per package instructions, mostly drain, add when ready). Skipped the brown sugar as the oyster sauce added enough sweetness, plus added some fish sauce and extra sambal oelek. Taste as you go, will seem strong but muted perfectly with the noodles. Also added thinly sliced Japanese eggplant to the oil first with the carrots so they get a little charred. Thinly sliced the leftover steak (or any other protein), and add very last. You don’t want to cook it, you just want to get it hot. Recipes like this is why we don’t eat out!
Yum! Substituted brown rice noodles for the yaki soba noodles and cauliflower for the broccoli.
Might add mushrooms next time.
Great way to use up leftover steak!
My grocery store doesn’t carry Yaki-Soba. Can I substitute regular ramen noodles? Thank you.
My husband and I absolutely loved this recipe. I was concerned about the amount of fresh ginger, so I cut it back a smidge. But I think the next time I make this, I will use the full amount. I was so excited to find this recipe because it is a great recipe to use up any left over steak.
One of our family favorites make it every couple weeks. Damn delicious for sure. Kids like it too so super plus !! I double up on the sauce cause there doesn’t seem to be enough.
Can I leave out the chili paste?
I tried lean cuisine. The one that inspired me to look up this Recipe up. Frozen it was so delish. I couldn’t imagine making it fresh and tasting so much better. So I decide three days later that I was gonna go over my budget to make this meal. I decide to cook this dish at 11 pm… so I started making the sauce and I was like damn! This is strong!! And as I got to the end and mixed everything together..I gotta tell ya I was drooling. It took me some time because I cooked it in low heat because I didn’t want to mess up my expensive , umm..lunch!! lol My boys were up and I told them to come to the table and try it. My you heat loves Chinese food. And he told me “ how did u get Panda Express this late “ I said “I made it silly “.. and he loved it. My middle child did too and my oldest said it needed salt! Lol
such a great recipe i made this as a surprise for my boyfriend aaron for our date night and he loved it so much he asks me to make it all the time now
your sincerely
lucy and aaron (we got engaged that night too)
I have made this, or a slightly modified version more times than I can count. Awesome dish. I have to dial my wife back a little or she wants me to make it every night!
I made the Garlic Sesame Noodles w/ flank steak tonight for my family and they LOVED it!! I will definitely be making this dish again! Thank you for a wonderful recipe. (It took me nearly an hour start to table, but now that I’ve tried the recipe I hope to do better next time ).
This recipe is now in my rotation of recipes to make! I add salmon instead of beef and it is delicious! I also add mushrooms instead of bell pepper (just my preference). I quadruple the recipe, except for the sauce and it is perfect.
I made this with tofu instead of steak and really enjoyed it! I love the simplicity of the sauce and used a Chinese brand chili garlic paste in place of sambal oelek (I’m not sure if it’s the same thing!). It came out great! I’m going to save this sauce so I can use it with other stir fries.
Yummy. It doesn’t say in the instructions, but always season your meat with salt & pepper before cooking. This could be why some said the steak was bland. The salt also helps to tenderize it. Then, leave it out for at least 30min. The last thing you want is cold meat hitting a hot pan. And always brown the steak in small batches! I had 1 1/2lbs of flank and did 2 batches, but I should have done 3, as the first batch came out perfectly brown but the 2nd was too crowded and steamed a little too much. My supermarket did not carry fresh noodles, so I just picked up an 8oz package of dried Chinese noodles in the Asian section. Overall, delicious!!!
Looks better than it tastes but I did enjoy it. I added a marinade to soak the steak in, as someone had commented that the steak was a bit bland. I deleted the thinly sliced carrot; replaced oyster sauce with fish sauce since there’s shell fish allergies in the family; and instead of flank steak, I used top sirloin, which is considered the best cut of beef to use for stir fry, along with tri-tip, rib-eye, top loin strip, tenderloin, shoulder center (Ranch Steak), shoulder top blade (Flat Iron) and shoulder petite tender.
One of the main things I would change next time would be to cut the steak not too thin as instructed, a little thick is better. If they’re too thin, they cook too quick and lose their tenderness. The strips that were medium rare where much more tender than the thin ones, which will make for a much better culinary experience.
The author said Yaki-Soba can be found in the refrigerated aisle of your local grocery store. This is not true. I found it nowhere – ONLY in a Japanese market, with no English writing on it to determine cooking instructions or nutritional ingredients. And I live in southern California in the San Gabriel Valley where there’s a huge Asian population and I was unable to find Maruchan yaki-soba noodles anywhere, even when stores said they had them, they didn’t. So I used linguine instead.
Made this for dinner this evening and it was delicious! My husband and I LOVED this dish!
Hi. I have a question. I am confused about your cooking directions. In step 3 you say cook the steak and then “set aside”, which to me means to take it off the heat or to turn off the heat and leave it for the time being. But I’m not sure if that’s what you meant because in step 4, you say to stir in the vegetables and “cook” for 3 to 4 minutes. You can’t cook it if it’s been set aside. Sorry if this sounds like a dumb question but what to you exactly mean by setting aside?
Not a dumb question at all, Kazy! So the steak is returned to the skillet in step 5:
5. Stir in Yaki-Soba, broccoli and soy sauce mixture until broccoli is tender and the sauce is slightly thickened, about 3-4 minutes. Stir in steak until heated through and evenly coated in sauce, about 1 minute.
Hope that helps!
Ohhhhh, I didn’t see that. Yeah, that helped a lot. Thanks
Hi there – may be a silly question but when do you return the beef to the dish?
Thanks
Not silly at all! You can add it back in towards the end of step 5. 🙂
Delicious! I do have a couple of suggestions that might make this recipe even better: if you’re sensitive to spice like I am, reduce the chili paste to half a tablespoon. When you cut the steak, cut it into bite sized pieces so it’s easier when you eat – I made the mistake of keeping it in long strips and it was hard to eat lol. For the noodles, you don’t need to use refrigerated noodles! I just got a dry pack of “stir fry noodles” in the international aisle at Kroger. And lastly, just a little tip: freeze your ginger and then use a microplane zester! Makes it 1000x easier to grate if it is frozen. Thanks for the recipe based upon one of my favorite Lean Cuisines! 🙂
wow! i have made lo mein style noodles many times and they have been good, but never this good. husband (of 33 yrs) tasted it and said he’ll keep me! i made a few changes based on what i had on hand- used 10 oz of thin spaghetti noodles i had left and boiled them. made the sauce with a few changes- 2 tbsp regular soy sauce since i did not have light soy. my sambal did not look good so i used 1/2- 1 tsp red pepper flakes. also added a tiny squeeze of ketchup (1-2 tsp) and left the ginger out of the sauce. while the noodles were cooking, i stir fried half a sliced onion and then added the carrot and broccoli, some cajun salt, then removed from wok and set it aside. when the noodles were done, i put them in the hot wok with some oil then added the sauce and some julienned ginger (1″ piece), then added back in the vegetable stir fry. also, i had cut half of a leftover zucchini in julienne, but forgot to stir fry it, so in the hot pasta water for a minute to soften, then added to the noodles. topped with some left over grilled chicken strips. it was delicious even with all my changes, so people should feel confident in adapting recipe per their preferences and available ingredients. i am happy to be able to cook a restaurant quality version of lo mein at home where you can control the amount of oil. thanks for the recipe.