With this recipe, you can make your own tasty (almost) instant noodle soup with very little effort. You can prepare this recipe the previous day, and you have the perfect, quick office lunch – just add boiling water! And you can customize and make this recipe your own by adding different vegetables. See my suggestions below.
I first came up with this recipe on my vegetarian cross country road trip. When I was on the road and stopped at places where I couldn’t get a proper vegetarian meal, I used to make my own ‘instant’ noodles by soaking dried mushrooms, fresh greens and rice noodles in boiling water. I posted the recipe on the blog, and to my surprise many of you were making it at home! To me, it was an improvised recipe for the road trip, but when I saw how many of you were actually making it, I decided to come up with this version.
Assemble the seasonings, vegetables and rice noodles in a jar the previous night and keep it in the fridge. Take it to work the next morning, and just add boiling water to the jar – you have lunch in minutes! Mason jars or empty pasta sauce jars work well. And if you use a wide mouth jar, you can eat directly from the jar. And change up the vegetables however you like; just remember that the vegetables should be the easily wilting kind, so they can “cook” on the boiling water soak.
Other ingredients you can use in your almost instant noodle soup
Sweet corn
Baby corn, chopped
Shredded kale
Dried shitake mushrooms, reconstituted
White button mushrooms, sliced
Tofu cubes
Paneer cubes
Seaweed
Bean sprouts
Watercress
Sliced jalapeños
Kimchi
Chopped scallions
Chopped cilantro
Crushed red pepper
Powdered lemongrass
Almost Instant Noodle Soup in a Jar Recipe
serves 1
Ingredients
an approximately 16 oz glass jar, preferably a wide mouth one, with lid
1.5 oz rice noodle sticks
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon lime juice
1/4th of a stock cube
1/8th teaspoon garlic powder, optional
1/4th teaspoon grated ginger, optional
½ cup shredded carrot
½ cup shredded napa cabbage
12 leaves of baby spinach
Method
1. Remove the rice noodles from packaging, and measure out 1.5 oz. Place it in a zip lock bag. Grab the ziplock bag with your hands and carefully break up the noodles into smaller pieces. Set aside.
2. Wipe the jar clean, and add in all ingredients from soy sauce through to baby spinach, in that order.
3. Then pack the broken up noodles into the jar. Screw on the lid and store in the refrigerator for upto a day.
4. When you are ready to eat, pour boiling water into the jar. Pour in enough water to cover the noodles, about 1 1/2 cups. Replace the lid and let the noodles soak for about 12 minutes or till they have softened. Mix the soup gently so that the stock cube dissolves evenly. Be careful, the jar will be very hot, use a towel or oven mitts to handle the jar.
Note: Adding hot water to a very cold glass jar can cause the glass to crack! If your jar is very cold (or if your fridge is set to very cold), leave the jar out at room temparature for about 15 minutes before adding hot water.
5. Tip your almost instant noodle soup into a bowl and serve. Or eat it directly from the jar!
this is a great idea. I am always looking for new ideas for lunch and this will be perfect.
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Holy Molly! Sounds delish! Especially during the road trip that im planning where in i can hopefully meet you up!
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This is such an interesting lunch idea! I can’t wait to try it! And the veggies can be swapped out so easily to create new flavor profiles. Love, love, love!
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This is brilliant – thanks for sharing. Easy to customize and so much fresher than the packaged versions.
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This is thrilling, thank you for sharing!
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This is brilliant idea! So simple and you can have your favorite flavors anywhere you go:)
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wow…this soup looks so good…loved the jar version for soups too…delicious
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What a genius idea!! I used to eat the unhealthy instant soups all the time when I was younger, so it’s nice to have a healthy version!! And I love quick lunch break meals that are hassle/messy-free!!
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I am a single women and work in highly demanding job.This recipe is like a boon to me as i have problems in digesting hotel food and dont have time for cooking.
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WOW! Now THAT’S an idea!
Terrific!
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This is such a genius idea, plus it looks so pretty!
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This is a terrific idea. I like noodle soup and it is always hard to find. This can be done instantly. Thanks for the recipe. I think I might find a way to put tomatoes in this recipe.
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perfect when travelling
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I always make salad in a jar for a couple days ahead when I am hard pressed for time. Noodle soup in a jar is a great idea!! Lovely clicks. Specially of the one where you pour hot water in to the jar…
Shobha
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Not a vegetarian but love this idea. The soup looks so good & has to be 100x better for you than any of the just add water soups/meals in the grocery store. Just one dumb question – what are Paneer cubes? Thanks for this idea!
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Sala @ Veggie Belly Reply:
January 29th, 2014 at 9:04 am
Paneer is an Indian cheese, very much like farmer’s cheese, only firmer and won’t break down while cooking. Easily available at Indian stores.
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The recipe looks really delicious. I just want to try it once.
The only doubt I have is, will this be too watery even after it is prepared??
I have already bought all the ingredients and will be trying it soon.
Thanks for the recipe.
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The recipe looks really delicious. I just want to try it once.
The only doubt I have is, will this be too watery even after it is prepared??
I have already bought all the ingredients
and will be trying it soon.
Thanks for the recipe.
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Sala @ Veggie Belly Reply:
February 7th, 2014 at 11:45 am
Yes, this is not a thick soup.
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Hi Sala, great recipe. Did you come on Rick Stein’s program? I’m from Madurai as well and loved your presentation. Thanks, Preethi.
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Sala @ Veggie Belly Reply:
February 11th, 2014 at 10:10 pm
Yes, I did
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Thinking of making a bunch of these as gifts. Can I have some feedback from people? What veggies did you add? Does it need salt? Very excited to try it!
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Sala @ Veggie Belly Reply:
March 3rd, 2014 at 7:36 pm
It doesn’t need salt, because there is soy sauce. You could do one jar of this recipe as a test, see how you like it and then adjust the soy sauce for the gifts you are making. Let me know how it turned out!
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This looks so good! For work, I normally boil some soba noodles at home and put them into a ceramic to-go mug add boiled water and 2 packages of instant miso soup. This is so much better than processed miso soup with MSG, high sodium, and possibly GMO soy for the miso. Thanks.
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