Asian noodle salad with prawns, sugar snaps recipe

This Asian-inspired noodle salad with prawns and sugar snaps is so crunchy and delicious. The noodles soak up this soy, ginger and chilli dressing to make a delicious salad base for the crunchy sugar snaps peas and flavour-packed prawns.

I had these giant prawns that I think were actually small langoustines lurking in my freezer for a while and I really needed to make space. I adore Asian-flavoured noodle salads with fresh crunchy bits and loads of salty-sweet soy sauce. It always reminds me of London somehow. You can add mange tout if you prefer or a mix of both.

A few other recipes you might like:

Vietnamese rice noodle salad with grilled chicken

Thai green papaya salad

Crispy noodle slaw with soy, onion and ginger dressing

This dressing is packed with so much flavour and with anything Asian cooking related, you need to balance sweet and salty with acid and heat. So just taste and see how you go adjusting the profiles as you go.

Recipe – serves 2 -3

Prep Time:20

Cook Time:10

Ingredients

300 gms prawns with head & skin - about 170gms head and skin removed
Sesame oil for frying
Salt and pepper to season
Toasted sesame seeds to garnish - optional

Marinade:

Ginger – about 5 cm long – finely grated
1 – 2 garlic cloves crushed
1 small red or green chilly finely minced or chopped (depending on how hot you like it)
Grated zest of half a lemon
2 Tbsp lemon juice
3 Tbsp soy

Salad

100 gms vermicelli noodles
125 gms sugar snap peas
6 – 8 spring onions finely sliced

Dressing

1 Tbsp soy
1 Tbsp lemon juice freshly squeezed
1 Tbsp sesame oil
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tsp runny honey
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
pinch or 2 of dried chilli flakes if you like the heat

Instructions

Make the marinade by combining all the ingredients in a bowl with the cleaned and peeled prawns. Toss to coat well and set aside.
Soak the noodles in boiling water for 3 minutes – loosening the strands with a fork to ensure they don’t clump together. Then drain, refresh under cold water and set aside *I drizzle a few drops of sesame oil and toss the noodles in this to prevent them from sticking together.
Bring a small pot of water to a boil and blanch the sugar snap peas for 3 minutes and then drain and refresh in cold water. Set aside.
Mix the dressing ingredients together and toss the noodles, sugar snaps and half the spring onions through that.
Heat about 2 Tbsp of sesame oil in a large frying pan or wok. Shake most of the marinade off and stir-fry for a few minutes until they turn pink and are cooked through. Just before they are cooked, add the marinade to the pan and heat.
Arrange the prawns on the noodle salad (with all the pan juices) and serve warm or cold.

Servings: 2

Author: Sam Linsell