Mom’s Chinese Spaghetti: Twirl Your Way to Long Life!

Mom’s Chinese Spaghetti recipe is a family and party FAVORITE especially with kids! A great way to “sneak in” veggies with pasta. Equally good mild or spicy. We cook up noodles for birthdays since long noodles represent longevity in Chinese culture so don’t cut your birthday noodles! Good with any kind of pasta. We made a Chili Spaghetti version of this (adding beans) and served it up at a town Cook-off. It was a hit with all ages!

This is a home chef adaptation of Shanghai Spicy Noodles. A vegetarian version is easy, simply omit the ground meat. It’s delicious with the chopped Vidalia Sweet Onion, cabbage, celery, zucchini simmered in sauce. The key is finely chopping the vegetables into bits (easiest in food processor) so it’s saucy and flavorful as part of the sauce rather than being a chunky stir fry.

You can use any noodles you have on hand– regular or whole wheat spaghetti, linguine–any shape, really. We like long, skinny noodles for long life slurping and twirling! For a special treat, enjoy with fresh Asian-style yellow lo mein noodles (sold in refrigerated or frozen section of Asian groceries and some large supermarkets. Boil as directed or like fresh pasta).

We hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do at home!

READ Natalie’s Noodle article (co-written with Shelley Skiles Sawyer) in Flavors Magazine

Use Your Noodle! History You Can Eat

Noodles have been a staple food in many parts of the world for at least 2,000 years. Did you know that a 4,000 year-old bowl of noodles was unearthed in northwestern China, made from two kinds of millet, cultivated 7,000 years ago! China claims the earliest historical account of noodles. Wheat flour and some noodle technology came from the Middle East, and Italy popularized pasta to the rest of the world.  

Noodles were first referred to as “soup cake” in Chinese culture. Different references in the language apply to wheat and dough, so the “cake” implies dough, like a dumpling. “It probably started as a dough ball or chunk that was steamed or boiled and eaten in soup or a broth. Then maybe they decided to roll, pull and cut it. The rest is history!”

Arab merchants first journeyed to the Guangzhou province in China in the fourth century and established trade routes between Asia, India, Africa and Europe. Experts widely agreed that is how the noodle made its way to Europe. Historians also peg the first production of dried noodles to fifth-century Arabs, who were looking for portable sustenance for long journeys along those busy routes. Wheat flour also originally came from the Middle East. It was the Italians, however, who popularized pasta for the rest of the world.

The main distinction between Asian noodles and European pasta is the source ingredient. With Asian noodles, there’s much more variety in what we make them with. The shape isn’t really the focus. Asian noodles may be made from wheat flour, rice flour, millet, mung bean, buckwheat, sweet potato flour or a combination of them. The majority of Asian noodles are fashioned into strands that can be long, short, thick, thin, straight, curly or wrinkly.