My childhood best friend just came back from Asia. She keeps talking about how beautiful her trip was and especially about the delicious meals she ate there. She’ll be visiting us in a couple of days and I want to surprise her with some Asian inspired food.

I tried this quick recipe; so easy to put together and so good.  I already had green tea noodles at home.  I always keep garlic, ginger and tamari sauce as well. And  I happened to have green onions; so all I really had to buy were mushrooms.

Quick and Easy Japanese Green Tea Noodles

Ingredients:

• 3 bundles pack of Japanese green tea noodles
• 4 oz. mushrooms, sliced (I used a Gourmet Blend- Crimini, shitake and oyster)
• ½ cup of green onions, chopped¨
• ¼ cup fresh lemon juice
• 1/3 cup  tamari sauce
• 1 tbsp. garlic, chopped
• 1 tbsp. ginger, chopped
• 2 tbsp. Sesame oil
• Sea salt (for water)

Directions:

1. Cook the noodles in boiling salted water for 5 minutes, drain and rinse.

2. While noodles are cooking, heat a large pan to medium heat, add toasted sesame oil, garlic and mushrooms and cook for 2 minutes.

3. Turn the heat off and add the ginger, chives, lemon juice and soy sauce.

4. As soon as the noodles are ready, drain and toss with the sauce.

Serve warm (or cold). Enjoy!

*This recipe is pretty flexible; you can add all sorts of things like veggies: edamame, shredded carrots or shredded cabbage, sesame seeds, nori seaweed, cubed tofu, cashews, almonds, wasabi paste or even sliced jalapeños for a spicy kick. If you make them as is, you can serve them with miso soup, grilled tofu or vegetable tempura.

This is probably not be the way she had green tea noodles in Tokyo, but they are pretty good.

*Japanese green tea noodles are found in the Asian foods section of most supermarkets

*Photo: Flickr's Creative Commons