Sick of Instant Ramen? You’re Going to Want to Try This Healthy, Delicious Noodle Dish Instead

Trade your takeout order for this healthy noodle recipe. Watch the full video here. 

There are many times and places for takeout ramen. Cold, winter evenings you don’t feel like cooking? Lazy Sundays you’re craving comfort food? Late at night, over Netflix and a cheap white wine? Yes, yes, and yes. But what happens when you and your wallet are *gasp* tired of ordering those delectable noodles—without resorting to sad, instant ramen?

That's where our latest episode of Cook With Us comes in. This week, Emily Yuen, the executive chef at Bessou, shows us how to make a scrumptious homemade noodle dish that takes comfort food to a whole new level. Her pickled chickpea tsukemen (a Japanese dish that pairs noodles with a dipping sauce) is packed with delicious, creative flavors that put your lukewarm Seamless ramen to shame.

Yuen starts by pickling canned chickpeas (hooray, protein!) in a flavorful blend of kombu, rice vinegar, soy sauce, agave nectar, and sake, which you can sub-out for white wine. All of this should stew together over medium heat to give the chickpeas that ‘oomph.

But the green tea soba noodles are the real scene-stealers of this dish. “It’s a little bit bright, whereas your traditional buckwheat [soba] is a little more earthy,” says Yuen. “You can actually taste a little of the green tea.” If you need your noodles to be GF, she suggests trying rice or shirataki noodles.

Yuen plates the noodles with a bright array of tasty veggies, including roasted beets, pickled daikon, and roasted cauliflower, before adding the pickled chickpeas and serving with a savory dipping sauce. The result is a delectable meal packed with different flavors and nutrients that you'll swear came from a Michelin-star restaurant.

Ready to skip the Seamless? Watch the full episode to get Yuen's pickled chickpea tsukemen soba noodle recipe for yourself.

Looking for oodles of noodle recipes? This simple pasta salad will hold you over all week long. Or, try one of these 10 vegetarian noodle dishes that are secretly healthy for your gut.