It’s summer. It’s hot. No-one wants to slave over a hot stove minding a pot of hot noodles.
Well, you don’t have to using this simple tip.
Fill the pot with cold water just as you normally do. Then, before you put the pot on the burner dump your raw noodles in. Thats right, put them right in that cold water. Just trust me! Place pot on the burner and bring to a boil (stir occasionally to keep the noodles from sticking to each other). As soon as the pot reaches a boil, take it off the burner, cover, and let sit for 10 minutes. Go somewhere and do something else while you wait for the time to go off. At the end of 10 minutes drain and TA DA! Your noodles are done.
As an added bonus your noodles will never boil over using this method (believe me, this is an important consideration for me as my noodles ALWAYS seem to boil over, even when I’m sitting right there watching them.)
This is a triply frugal tip because #1 you are using a lot less energy to run your stove, #2 you aren’t adding as much extra heat to the house and causing your AC (if you have one) to work harder and #3 it takes much less time of actively watching the pot, so you are saving your TIME as well.
I just used this tip again this afternoon because I need to make something to take to a pot luck at church. I decided I wanted to do a cold asian style noodle salad. I went to Recipezaar.com, one of my favorite recipe sites and found this recipe for Sesame Noodle Salad. It is marinating in the fridge and seems like it is going to be very yummy. I added in a single cooked chicken breast (diced up) that I had marinated in teriaki sauce as well.
This Asian Noodle Salad also looked good, but I didn’t have any hosin or fish sauce (I usually do have a little bit on hand as I have a BBQ Asian Pork recipe that uses them and tastes pretty much like those boneless spare ribs. . . ummmm).
Crazy as it sounds in this heat, I’ve been thinking of homemade mac and cheese lately. I add a little Jarslberg to my cheese which makes it reeeeeal gooooood. (You only need about a 1/4 lb. so it doesn’t break the bank.) Now, I’d still have to put it in the oven. But I always think it’s the steam from the water pot that heats up your house more than anything else. I’m definitely going to try your idea. My son will be happy if I make his favorite mac and cheese this week. Or if I don’t make that, I’m also thinking of macaroni salad…
Great tip. I am going to try it.
Thanks for the tip. I also need to work to avoid boiling the noodles over. 🙂
GREAT tip!! I can’t wait to try it. We are noodle-a-holics. Thanks for sharing!
Catherine
The sesame noodles turned out pretty yummy! I think next time I’ll cut the oil in half though. They taste fine but I can see the shine of oil all over them and keep thinking about the calories. . . ..
Holy Cow, it really works!!!!! I tried it just a little while ago, just the way you said to do it. What fun! I love finding new ways to make things easier to cook. Now I’ve got elbow macaroni ready for that macaroni and cheese. I’m going to do it again and freeze the cooked stuff for future use in macaroni salad. Thanks, Jenn, for a great tip!
Jenn, I use this same technique for hard boiled eggs, only they need to sit for 15 minutes. Voila, perfect hard boiled eggs!
Do you know…it works for noodles, too!
Cool Mrs. Warren! I’ll have to try that too. DH likes pickled eggs, maybe I’ll have to make him some. . .
M2F, don’t you love it when you try something like this and it works!
This is similar to the perfect boiled egg. Completely submerge your eggs in pot of cold water, bring eggs to a boil and then immediately cover and remove from burner and allow them to sit undisturbed for fifteen minutes. After that, drain the water and add cold water and wait to cool. Voila! The perfect, never cracked shell, boiled egg (well, at least in the Mile High City).