This is the ninth recipe in a series dedicated to elevating instant noodles. Trader Joe’s squiggly knife cut style noodles, in particular. I’ve made everything from honey garlic chicken and spicy ginger beef to meatless kimchi noodles. I’m not sue why it’s taken me ten years of food blogging to start making high protein meals with instant noodles!
The Noodles and Replacements
These noodles are incredible, and I encourage you to try them out and make lots of high protein meals with them! But if you don’t have a Trader Joe’s near you or just prefer other stores, you can still make these sesame noodles. Any instant noodles work, especially if they come with sauce packets.
The sauce packets in the TJ’s noodles is a soy and sesame sauce, and the closest replacement I’ve found is a package of sesame miso Momofuku noodles.
What about noodles without a sauce packet?
You can add some soy sauce and toasted sesame oil for a DIY sauce packet replacement. I’ve included specific amounts in the recipe card’s note section.
This recipe also includes tahini for the creamy noodles, packing an even bigger sesame punch. So you have some wiggle room on the sesame front.
The Ground Beef
I went with a Korean-inspired sauce for the beef. While this is nearly a 100% Trader Joe’s recipe, I did include a tablespoon of gochugaru (Korean chili flakes). They add so much flavor without adding much spice, especially compared to most other chili flakes. I wouldn’t replace them 1:1 for other chili flakes unless you want a very spicy dish!
You could substitute with more gochujang instead, or use a combination of other chili flakes and gochujang.
Other than that, maple syrup, rice vinegar, and salt round out the sauce. Nice and simple. I have other 100% TJ’s sauce options for noodle dishes like this. Check out my hoisin beef or teriyaki turkey (using Trader Joe’s Soyaki) for more ideas.
Cucumber Herb Salad
I used a simple combination of seedless cukes, cilantro, green onion, rice vinegar, and salt. Trader Joe’s crunchy chili onion or chili oil is a great addition if you have some extra calories to spare.
As for preparing the cucumbers, you have a choice to make between matchsticks or half moons. I like mixing the sesame noodles, beef, and cucumbers together. And I think the matchsticks, well, match the vibe of noodles better than classic half moons or round slices. As they soften in the noodles they almost become extra noodles.
Important Note: These noodles need the cucumber salad. The intense sesame flavors benefit from some bright and refreshing herbs and cooling cucumber. If you’re cucumber-averse, I would add something like carrots or a pickled veggie of some kind.
Open Sesame
I hope you find these sesame noodles to have an overwhelming surplus of diggity. Recipe reviews are always great to read, whether you love them or not. Hope to see you back around these parts soon. Don’t forget to try some other noodle recipes before you go. – Mason
Creamy Sesame Noodles
Ingredients
For the Cucumber Salad
- 2 Mini Persian Cucumbers or 1 large seedless cucumber
- 2 Green Onions thinly sliced, green and white separated
- 1-2 handfuls Cilantro chopped
- 1 Tablespoon Rice Vinegar
- ½ teaspoon Kosher Salt
For the Noodles
- 3 packs (95g each) Trader Joe's Squiggly Knife Cut Style Noodles see notes for substitutes*
- 3 Tablespoons Tahini
- ½ cup Reserved Cooking Water
For the Beef
- 1 pound Extra Lean Ground Beef
- 2 Tablespoons Rice Vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons Maple Syrup
- 1 Tablespoon Gochujang
- 1 Tablespoon Korean Chili Flakes see notes for substitutes**
- ½ teaspoon Kosher Salt
- White Parts of the Green Onions
Instructions
- Slice the cucumber into matchsticks or half moons and toss together with the rice vinegar, salt, chopped cilantro, and green parts of the sliced green onion. Cover and set aside.
- Bring a pot of water to a boil for the noodles.
- Heat a pan over medium-high heat with cooking spray. Once hot, add the ground beef and cook for 2-3 minutes until a crust forms on one side. Then break the beef apart with a spatula and fully cook.
- While the beef cooks, mix together the beef sauce ingredients. Add the sauce to the fully cooked beef and cook until the sauce thickens, about 2-3 minutes.
- Cook the noodles once you add the sauce to the beef. Cook for 4 minutes, reserve about 1 cup of water, and drain the rest.
- Add the cooked noodles back to the pot with the sauce packets from the noodles, tahini, and ¼ to ½ cup of the reserved cooking water as needed. Stir until smooth and creamy.
- Plate the noodles and top with the ground beef and cucumber salad. Garnish with toasted sesame seeds and crunchy chili onion or chili oil, if desired.
