Spicy peanut butter maple noodles @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: When it comes to sesame and peanut butter-ish noodles, I admit I am an addict. One night recently I had a busy week finishing up Key West food critic #14, and I was planning to heat up a pair of frozen enchiladas from the freezer. (They were from the farmer's market, but still...) At some point across that day, a recipe for tahini noodles passed through my inbox. That didn’t particularly grab my attention, but the idea of peanut butter noodles with chili crisp and maple syrup, that was a yes! Here's what I came up with:

Ingredients for the sauce

1/3 to 1/2 cup peanut butter (I use natural)

1 to 3 teaspoons sesame oil.

Three or more teaspoons rice vinegar

1 tablespoon chili crisp, more or less, to taste

1 teaspoon low sodium soy sauce

Two or 3 teaspoons maple syrup.

Start with the peanut butter in the bottom of the bowl that you plan to serve the noodles in. Begin to mix in the other ingredients, tasting as you go. You may wish to increase the spiciness or the maple syrup. I added more sesame oil and rice vinegar so those flavors would pop. 

Stir everything together while you boil the water for the noodles. When the pasta is cooking, take 1/4 cup of hot pasta water and stir it into the peanut butter paste to thin it out. Add the noodles when al dente and stir to coat with the sauce.

Garnish with cucumber slices, basil, cilantro, sliced scallions, shredded carrots, peanuts, or sesame seeds. Anything that suits your fancy goes! I served ours with vegetables, but grilled chicken or shrimp would be nice too. 

Here are a few of my other favorite noodle recipes from past posts:

Margaret’s Sesame Noodles 

Shrimp and Broccoli with Peanut Noodles 

My Favorite Sesame Noodles 

 

Lucy Burdette writes the Key West food critic mystery series including USA Today bestselling A CLUE IN THE CRUMBS. You can order that wherever books are sold. If you’re all caught up, try Lucy’s first women’s fiction title, THE INGREDIENTS OF HAPPINESS.

Also follow Lucy on Facebook, and sign up for her mailing list right here.  

USA TODAY BESTSELLING A Clue in the Crumbs, #13 in the Key West food critic mystery series, in stores now!

Food critic Hayley Snow and her pal Miss Gloria are overjoyed to welcome Violet and Bettina Booth, aka the Scottish Scone Sisters, to Key West. The sisters will host The UK Bakes!—Key West Edition. But the same day they arrive, the bed-and-breakfast the sisters are staying in gets torched.

The contest begins the next morning featuring three local bakers. One is the inn owner’s wife, Rayna, who is not only the most talented chef of the group but now a person of interest in the fire. The next night, a dogwalker discovers a body near the bed-and-breakfast. The victim appears to be Rayna’s husband, and the murder weapon points directly to the Scottish Scone Sisters.

But the show must go on. In between filming sessions, the three elderly ladies and Hayley must search for clues to the brutal murder in order to find out who wants to force them out of the kitchen. But as they draw closer to the answer, the threats from a murderer grow closer too. Are they now in danger of getting baked off?

"Food lore, island delights, and mystery provide something for everyone."

—Kirkus Reviews

“But how many new ways can an author concoct for the protagonist to find a dead body? I needn’t have worried – and neither should fans. This Key West murder mystery has twists, turns – and cake.” –Cathy Salustri, The Gabber

Order the book wherever books are sold!