Are you one of those people who doesn’t turn on the oven when it’s 95 degrees outside? This is for you. The extent of the cooking involved in this dish is pan-frying the tofu (trust me, it’s worth it). Other than that, it’s just soaking, whisking, marinating, chopping, and mixing. Oh, and eating.

See? Perfect for summer.

I’ve seen (and bookmarked) tons of recipes for sesame noodles, and probably an equal amount for pad thai. But somehow, none of those were quite what I wanted. So I invented this instead. Kind of like sesame noodles, kind of like pad thai, and a whole lot of yum.

Here’s how I did it:

Start by cooking the rice noodles according to package directions. Unlike regular pasta, rice noodles are soaked in warm or very hot water.

See how stiff they were at the beginning? When they’re done, they’ll look like this…

Drain those babies and set them aside so you can get to work on the tofu, which by the way, should also be drained. Then you whip up some yummy marinade and let them hang out in it.

Once they’ve soaked up all that deliciousness, transfer them to the skillet for a nice pan-fry that locks in the flavor. And then, of course, we drain again.

At this point, we’re going to use the remaining marinade to make the mushrooms really pop. You know the drill: Marinate and drain.

While those are hanging out, go ahead and prepare the rest of the mix-ins. Don’t you love how they fill out the measuring cup set perfectly?

Now we’re ready for assembly. There’s more (brief) soaking and draining, because it’s just that much fun. But really! Don’t get intimidated! None of this is hard, and you can multi-task between steps.

And then you’ll have this beautiful dish to bring to the table. So worth it.

Dig in.

Check out the recipe in my guest post on Cook Kosher!

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