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Spicy Noodle Soup With Mushrooms and Herbs
![Spicy Noodle Soup With Mushrooms and Herbs](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/04/03/dining/29romanrex/merlin_147497208_84b04ae4-b838-44be-97fb-3e51909c5713-articleLarge.jpg?width=1280&quality=75&auto=webp)
- Total Time
- 45 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- 3tablespoons canola or olive oil
- 4garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 2large shallots, thinly sliced
- Kosher salt and ground black pepper
- 1½pounds mixed mushrooms, such as maitake, oyster, cremini or shiitake, torn into bite-size pieces
- 1 to 2fresh red or green chiles, such as Fresno, thinly sliced (or ¾ teaspoon red-pepper flakes)
- ½cup low-sodium soy sauce, plus more to taste
- ¼cup unseasoned rice wine vinegar, plus more to taste
- 8 to 10ounces noodles, such as udon, soba, rice or spaghetti
- 2cups herbs (tender leaves and stems), such as cilantro, mint, chives, parsley or a mix, for serving
- Sesame seeds, sesame oil or both, for serving (optional)
Preparation
- Step 1
Heat oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add garlic and shallots, and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until shallots start to turn a nice golden brown, 3 to 4 minutes. Add mushrooms and half the chile, and season with salt and pepper.
- Step 2
Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms have softened, released much of their water and turned a deep golden brown, 10 to 15 minutes. (A browned mushroom will have infinitely more flavor than an unbrowned mushroom, because the water inside it evaporates and the flavor concentrates. So do not skip this step.)
- Step 3
Add ½ cup soy sauce, ¼ cup vinegar and 8 cups of water. Bring to a gentle simmer and season with salt and pepper. Continue to simmer until the flavors have melded and the broth tastes good enough to drink (you will be drinking it), 15 to 20 minutes. Season with more soy sauce and vinegar as you like.
- Step 4
Meanwhile, cook the noodles in a large pot of salted boiling water until just al dente. (The timing will depend on the type and brand of noodles, so consult the package.) Add the noodles to the pot with the broth, and let them hang out in there for a minute or two to finish cooking and soak up all that flavor.
- Step 5
To serve, use tongs to divide the noodles and mushrooms among bowls, then ladle the hot broth over the top. Serve with the remaining chile, the herbs and the sesame seeds and oil (if using) for people to dress their own bowls to their liking.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
Cooks Illustrated had a great method for more efficiently reducing the moisture and concentrating flavor in large batches of mushrooms (>1 lb): Put mushrooms in large glass bowl, cover and microwave for around 12 minutes -- stopping and stirring every 3-4 minutes. Strain and reserve liquid. Saute' strained mushrooms -- they will cook much faster now that you have removed most of the water. Return reserved liquid to dish, or reduce and return, because a lot of flavor is in the liquid.
All rice vinegar is made by fermenting the sugars from rice into an alcohol such as wine, then further fermenting the wine into acetic acid. So if a recipe calls for rice wine vinegar and you've purchased rice vinegar (or vice versa), rest assured that the only difference is the wording on the label
pro tip y’all — Trader Joe’s has these frozen wild mushrooms that make an excellent base for this soup. i prepped the herbs and shallots at the beginning of my week and was able to turn this out in no time. rich and easy weekday dinner :)
Every time someone mentions stone soup I think of a book report my son wrote about the story when he was in elementary school, maybe at age 8 or so. The report consisted of answering questions given to the class by the teacher, the last of which was "Would you recommend this story to your friends?" His answer was Yes, because "Most of my friends like soup." I know this has nothing to do with cooking, but I love the story.
The water you get after boiling Japanese noodles(soba, udon, somen) tends to be starchy and usually salty. So it's better to cook separately if you want clear soup (and you don't need to add salt in the boiling water). Traditional method to prepare Japanese noodles needs a lot of water, actually. You boil them in a large pot, rinse them in cold water to get rid of excess starch, soak them again in hot water when serving them in hot dishes. Well, not everyone follows it of course.
In other words, you didn't make this recipe.
Made this with udon and cubes of soft tofu. A delicious, complex soup! Next time I would add spinach or bok choy for some added greens.
pro tip y’all — Trader Joe’s has these frozen wild mushrooms that make an excellent base for this soup. i prepped the herbs and shallots at the beginning of my week and was able to turn this out in no time. rich and easy weekday dinner
You won’t be disappointed - this is a flavor bomb. I couldn’t get the fancy mushrooms - just some shiitake, button, and small portobellos - and it still delivered. Used one red chili and one small jalapeño, which was just the right amount of mild kick. And as mentioned prior, add the soy sauce and vinegar to taste as you progress. And I recommend a few drops of the optional sesame oil when serving, as it provides a nice rounding to the dish. Thin wheat soba noodles were a great complement.
I used this recipe as a base. I used 6 cups homemade chicken/turkey bone broth and two cups water, shiitake, oyster, cremini mushrooms, rice noodles, and remaining ingredients. Serrano pepper, sesame oil, cilantro, basil and mint. Also added some spinach. After placing really hot broth into bowls, added a raw egg and let sit until the egg was cooked. Really delicious.
I have to say, I love this recipe. We did add a couple of spoonfuls of chili-garlic sauce for an extra kick. And we replaced 3 cups of the water with vegetable stock. Highly recommended!
Loved the recipe. For the mushrooms, I used 1/2 fresh and 1/2 re-hydrated mix of mushrooms. Used the broth from the re-hydration as part of the 8 cups of water. Will definitely make again.
Rice vinegar and rice wine vinegar are the same thing. It's only wording that changes on the brands. The vinegar is made by fermenting rice. Rest assured you are using the right ingredient with rice vinegar. Hope that helps!
Really delicious. I used leftover brown rice instead of noodles, added spinach and tofu, and added a little ginger to sauté along with the shallots. Will make again
We thought this was great! Used half TJ's ginger miso broth, half water, less soy sauce, 1/2 C mix of mint/cilantro/parsley, udon noodles and 1 6 oz bag of baby spinach. Added 1/2 pkg of tofu per other comments. Delicious and easy.
This was a good recipe! I used mushrooms I had foraged, and added carrots, kale, and used vegi stock instead of water. I felt it needed more seasoning, so added some ginger, about 1/4 tsp chinese five spice white pepper, and some sesame oil. Overall, very tasty!
My new favorite soup - easy enough for even me and awesome! Used extra garlic & miso, thank you!
Delicious, weeknight, winter warmer
Could this soup be frozen?
Made exactly as directed and was delicious! Our noodles took rather a long time to get cooked enough so would recommend putting on the water a bit sooner. Delicious but goes best with a bit of bread!
So so good! Followed it to a tee and just shroomy goodness. Will ad tofu next time for a bit more protein.
Love Alison Roman recipes. So flavorful and happens to be vegan. Made with mushroom medley from TJ, soba. Added kale plus tofu to bump the protein. Keeper for weeknights.
Recipe was easily halved. Used mixed wild mushrooms from local market. Didn't have enough soy sauce, so added what I had and a heaped teaspoon of vegetable stock powder. Mixed coriander and mint, with sriracha and sesame oil to garnish. Worked out beautifully, the soup was simple and refreshing, definitely will make this as an easy weeknight meal. Noodle amount could be adjusted up or down depending on how hungry you are to no deficit to the soup.
Very, very good. Used 5 cups of mushroom broth I had in the freezer in place of the 8 cups of water. All other quantities were as given, not too salty, even with regular, not low sodium, soy sauce. Used Serrano chile, will use more next time. Udon noodles simmered for 90 seconds in the broth. Shredded rotisserie chicken for additional protein. The tofu suggestions from other readers sounds good, but SO not a fan.
Very good. Added quite a bit more soy sauce and rice vinegar in the final step. In the future would probably use ginger-miso broth for half the water, as it was very good but a tiny bit bland.
Delicious! Used two Serrano peppers. Nice heat. Flavors are even better the next day.
I followed this recipe, but instead of doing 8 cups water I added dried porcinis soaked in water (8 cups of the mushroom water total) and the resulting broth was rich and deep. Word to the wise: watch how much hot pepper you add! I added a lot and was coughing up a storm while I cooked.
I used low sodium chicken stock instead of water. Towards the end of the simmer I added baby bok choy. For the noodles I used brown rice udon to make GF. I added Trader Joe's crunchy chili onion, scallions & roasted sesame seeds as toppings. Deliciously rich, lovely broth...so satisfying.
Does not freeze well.
Two notes: 1) do the tip of microwaving the mushrooms covered and then drain to add the mushroom water back to the broth later. This tip was offered in the comments and despite my skepticism worked beautifully; and 2) cook the noodles separately but don’t add them back into the pot with the broth; that is the surest route to soggy noods. Put them directly into bowls and ladle the broth over top when you serve. This was very very good.
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