These bold, savory Kimchi Noodles are quick, spicy, and packed with umami-an easy weeknight dinner ready in under 30 minutes with simple, flavorful ingredients. Vegan and GF adaptable.
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We have an amazing kimchi recipe on the blog, and I always keep it in the fridge. Here is an easy way I’ve been serving it up for dinner- I love making kimchi noodles.
Kimchi noodles are a Korean-inspired stir-fry noodle dish packed with veggies (a great way to use up stray veggies in the fridge), tossed with a simple stir-fry sauce, and, of course, chopped-up kimchi. Garnish with green onions, optional peanuts, and viola; dinner is ready in under 30 minutes.
I love this recipe because it is so adaptable- use whatever noodles you have on hand, whatever veggies, and top it (or not) with a protein if you like. Easy peasy.
This is our end-of-the-week "clean out the fridge" recipe. We throw whatever veggies we have around, and it's always soooo tasty and delicious. We like to add some scrambled eggs to the mix. I love it.
This is not a traditional recipe by any means, just one out of my head, that I think you can take and run with.
Kimchi Recipe
Kimchi is a Korean fermented cabbage dish-traditionally made with napa cabbage, garlic, ginger, and Korean chili flakes- that brings a bold mix of tangy, spicy, and savory flavors to any meal. Its natural fermentation not only creates that signature punchy taste but also adds depth and umami that pair beautifully with noodles. If you're curious about making it from scratch, I've shared my step-by-step homemade kimchi recipe on the blog, taught to me by a Korean mother of the bride at a wedding I catered.
Why you’ll love these Kimchi Noodles!
The flavor! The sauce is quick to whip up, and it has subtle heat and sweetness, rich umami, tanginess, and depth of flavor.
Adaptable. Use whatever veggies you have on hand and add a protein if you want, like tofu, chicken, shrimp, or eggs. Keep it vegan or gluten-free with rice noodles. Plus, it’s an easy clean-out-your-fridge meal!
Gut-friendly! Kimchi is so good for your gut thanks to its live probiotic cultures. Learn more about its health benefits and how to make homemade kimchi!
Kimchi Noodles Recipe Ingredients
- Kimchi: Make our homemade kimchi or use store-bought kimchi.
- Noodles: Rice noodles, udon noodles, egg noodles, soba noodles, ramen noodles, or linguini.
- Shallots, garlic, and ginger: You can substitute half an onion for the shallots if desired. Fresh shallots, garlic cloves, and ginger add a fragrant, aromatic flavor.
- Vegetables: Your choice here! Mushrooms, red bell pepper, matchstick carrots, cabbage, bok choy, green beans, snow peas, green beans, or asparagus. Mix and match, using what you have. You’ll need 4-5 cups of veggies in total. I highly recommend mushrooms, especially if going the vegan route, for umami flavor.
- Sauce: Soy sauce (or gluten-free liquid aminos), toasted sesame oil, maple syrup (or honey, agave, coconut sugar, brown sugar, or cane sugar), rice wine vinegar, gochujang (or sambal olek), and fish sauce (or miso paste for vegetarians and vegans).
- For garnish: Scallions, toasted sesame seeds, gochugaru, roasted peanuts or cashews, crispy shallots, or peanut chili crunch.
Protein Additions
- Crispy tofu, baked tofu, or Korean tofu
- Chicken- use leftover rotisserie chicken, ground chicken (or ground turkey), or thinly sliced and cooked chicken that has been browned.
- Shrimp
- Ground beef, lamb, turkey, or pork, seasoned and browned.
- Soft-boiled egg, sunny-side up, or fried egg
How to Make It
1. Cook the noodles. Prepare noodles according to package instructions. If using rice noodles, I like to place them in a glass dish and pour boiling water over top of the noodles. Once tender, drain in a colander and set aside. Coat the cooked noodles with a little oil to prevent sticking.
2. Pan-sear the protein. If adding protein, go ahead and pan-sear the tofu, chicken, or shrimp in a wok or large skillet with salt and black pepper. Set aside.
3. Stir-fry aromatics and veggies. Add a high-heat oil to the wok or skillet and warm over medium-low heat. Stir-fry shallots, garlic, and ginger, and sauté 1-2 minutes. Add your veggies, starting with the longer cooking ones first, and stir-fry until tender-crisp.
While the veggies cook, whisk together the noodle sauce ingredients in a small bowl.
4. Add noodles, sauce, kimchi, and protein. Scoot everything to the sides of the wok and add another teaspoon of oil. Add the noodles and stir-fry for 1 minute, then add the kimchi sauce, kimchi, and cooked protein to combine.
5. Taste and adjust. Taste the noodles and adjust the heat by adding more Korean pepper paste as desired. Add a little fish sauce or soy sauce for more salt, umami, or depth.
6. Serve. Divide the noodles among bowls with chopsticks and garnish with green onions, a sprinkling of sesame seeds, gochugaru (Korean chili flakes), roasted peanuts or cashews, crispy shallots, or peanut chili crunch.
Chef’s Tips
- Don’t overheat the kimchi– just warm it up a bit, to preserve those healthy probiotics.
- Use any quick-cooking veggies! Other quick-cooking veggies work great here: bell pepper, snow peas, spring peas, asparagus, green beans, shredded cabbage, bok choy - anything that can be quickly stir-fried. If using carrots as I did, cut them into matchsticks.
- Cook tougher veggies first. Stir-fry the longer-cooking vegetables first, letting them get tender before adding the quick-cooking veggies.
- Drain the kimchi and chop it. Before adding it to the wok, drain the kimchi juice and chop it into a small dice so it distributes evenly through the noodles.
- Adjust the kimchi to your preference. I used 1 cup of kimchi, but if you’re sensitive to spice or fermented things, feel free to use less. I just really wanted to taste the kimchi, so I amped it up. As written, the recipe is “medium” spicy.
- Taste and adjust. Test the noodles for heat and umami, adding more gochujang or sriracha, fish sauce, or soy sauce as desired.
Serving Suggestions
Serve Kimchi Noodles as a main dish with scallions, toasted sesame seeds, roasted peanuts or cashews, crispy shallots, or peanut chili crunch.
This is a simple 30-minute meal perfect for busy weeknights, especially when you need to accommodate multiple diets. But if you’re meal-prepping or hosting friends, here are some of our favorite recipe pairings!
- Korean Cucumber Salad
- Crunchy Bok Choy Salad
- Scallion Pancakes
- Korean BBQ Chicken
- Korean Bulgogi Beef
- Korean Chicken Wings
- Vegan Bulgogi
Storage
Store leftover kimchi noodles in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Reheat on the stovetop until warmed through.
If you enjoyed these noodles, make sure to try our Singapore Noodles or our Szechuan Tofu!
More Kimchi Recipes you may like
After you try this Kimchi Noodles recipe, let us know how it turns out in the comments below. Your review will help other readers, too! Sign up here to join our community and receive our latest recipes and weekly newsletter! xoxo Sylvia
Kimchi Noodles Recipe
- Prep Time: 15
- Cook Time: 15
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 2-3 1x
- Category: 30 minute Dinner, Asian, dinner ideas, easy dinner, stir fry, vegan dinner
- Method: Stir-Fry
- Cuisine: Korean
- Diet: Dairy-Free, Gluten-Free, Vegetarian
Description
Here’s a super tasty recipe for Kimchi Noodles, stir-fried with lots of healthy veggies you probably have on hand. Keep it vegan or add an egg, tofu, chicken or shrimp! Crispy tofu is also a delicious option here!
Ingredients
- 4 ounces dry noodles (rice noodles, udon noodles, egg noodles, soba noodles, ramen noodles, linguini, etc) cooked according to directions
- 8 ounces protein of choice (tofu, chicken, shrimp), or leave it out.
Kimchi Noodle Sauce:
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce (or GF liquid aminos)
- 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup (or honey, agave or sugar)
- 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon gochujang, or red chili paste (sambal olek)
- 1 teaspoon fish sauce (VEGANS: sub 1 teaspoon miso paste)
Stir-Fry: (if you want to add meat, shrimp or tofu- see notes first)
- 2 shallots, diced (or half an onion)
- 4 garlic cloves, rough chopped
- 1 teaspoon ginger, minced
- 2 tablespoons high heat oil (peanut oil , avocado oil, wok oil)
- 4–5 cups diced or sliced veggies: 1 cup mushrooms, 1 red bell pepper, a mix of: matchstick carrots, cabbage, bok choy, green beans, snow peas, green beans, asparagus, etc.
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 cup kimchi, chopped
Garnish Options: Scallions, Toasted Sesame Seeds, roasted peanuts or cashews, crispy shallots, peanut chili crunch, optional soft boiled (or fried) egg.
Instructions
- Cook the noodles. If using rice noodles, cover with boiling water; when tender, drain and set aside (coat with a alittle oil ot prevent sticking)
- Cook the protein. If you’d like to add crispy tofu, pan-seared chicken or shrimp, pan-sear first in the wok, with salt and pepper- and set these aside.
- Stir-fry. Heat oil over medium-low heat in a large wok or skillet. Add shallots, garlic, and ginger, and saute 1-2 minutes. Add the veggies (adding longer cooking ones first) stir fry until tender-crisp.
- Combine. Make a well in the center, add another teaspoon of oil, and stir-fry the noodles for 1 minute. Add the sauce and cooked protein, tossing everything together. Lastly, add the kimchi, just warming it up a bit- don’t overheat it.
- Taste. Adjust the heat by adding more chili paste if you like, and add fish sauce or soy sauce. (I usually add 1 more tablespoon of Chili paste and a dash of fish sauce.)
- Serve immediately, dividing among 2-3 bowls, sprinkling with scallions and sesame seeds. Feel free to top with any additional toppings.
Notes
Protein options: 8-10 ounces tofu, chicken or shrimp, ground pork, turkey or ground beef, pan-seared with salt and pepper. Or use this recipe for Crispy Tofu, with just salt and pepper. Or top with a sunny-side-up, fried egg, or soft-boiled egg.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 ½ cups
- Calories: 373
- Sugar: 15.5 g
- Sodium: 659.3 mg
- Fat: 14.6 g
- Saturated Fat: 2.3 g
- Carbohydrates: 55.1 g
- Fiber: 6.4 g
- Protein: 7.8 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
I made this with shrimp and linguini last night and I have to give the recipe a “wow”. I did cut down the sweetener to one tbsp of brown sugar to save some calories and that worked fine. For the heat, I used Sriracha. Great, intense flavors, with a nice hot glow afterwards. Thanks for the recipe!
Hi! I’d love to try this out, it looks delicious! I was just wondering, when cooking the noodles (I’m using ramen), should I add the flavor packet that comes with the noodles or will that mess with the flavors from the dish? So excited to make this!
Perhaps start without? You can always mix it in after for more flavor.
👍🏻
Fantastic, this was a great clean out the fridge recipe!
You’re amazing. In my free time I just love reading all your recipes. This is so good!!! You’re brilliant. Happy Holidays, thank you!
Thanks Lindsay!
This was the first recipe of yours that we tried that sent us down the rabbit hole 🙂
We easily adapt to whatever veggies we have on hand and it’s wonderful to have an easy and superb recipe to get your veggies in. We’ve even used frozen veggies if we don’t have enough fresh and it works perfectly. We don’t eat this – we inHALE it! Thank you 😁
Yay!!! Great to hear!
Love this – does it freeze and if so will theTofu freeze or not?
Hi Karen- great question and I’m so sorry, I haven’t tried freezing this yet!
Very nice. You’ve provided many options in case one does not have the ingredients. Came out great!
I’ve been making this weekly, such a great recipe. Thanks!
I love this recipe. I put a little too much kimchi the first time (still delicious, but almost overwhelming kimchi flavor and the spice made it so filling I couldn’t eat much at once) and too little the second time (it tasted a little plain lo mein) so I’m excited for my third try with my remaining vegetables. I personally loaded it up like crazy with broccoli, cabbage, mushrooms, red onions, green onions, spinach, and shirataki noodles, and added a little more fish sauce for a kind of pad-thai-reminiscent flavor (which makes me REALLY want to try this with chopped peanuts for garnish).
The only thing I haven’t figured out yet it how to not have it be so wet at the end — at a certain point I’m forced to turn up the heat because the hardier vegetables won’t cook, and all of the vegetables immediately drop all of their moisture and the stir fry gets a little soupy (especially with the wet kimchi and sauce.) I’m a pretty amateur cook so I’m not sure if most people would just pour out the excess, or if there’s a hidden secret to avoid it. Regardless, I’ve bookmarked this recipe so I know I’ll be back here many more times to make it. Thank you !!
Haha, 3rd time is a charm. 😉 Drain the kimchi before adding, and try getting the veggies nice and dry before pouring in the sauce. You can cook off the sauce a little too if you like.
Delicious but way too spicy for me! Next time I’ll use less sambal olek
Uh oh! Sorry!
This is a great recipe! A few items I would adjust would be to keep some of the cabbage to place on top after everything is taken off the stove. It really needs some more crunch. And definitely use more vegetables than naught. It was really good though!
Thanks for your imput!
We absolutely loved this! What a great idea to substitute miso for fish sauce.
Thanks so much Susanna!
Loved this recipe! I recently had to transition to a vegan diet due to some health concerns and I was a bit nervous. But if this is what going vegan tastes like, I’m all in!
Haha! Love it. Yes, it really can be flavorful!
The instructions say to cook on medium low. Is that correct?
Yes, because of the shallot. It likes to burn quickly. 🙂
No words to describe how delicious this recipe is! You are amazing and your recipes have been an inspiration for healthy cooking every day during this pandemic. Every recipe is just delicious 😋 Thanks 🙏
You are so sweet, thanks Ivette!
Super yummy. I’ve been making Chinese veggie Noodle using your recipe. I really like the kimchi twist. It’s super flavorful, and a great way to add veggies into my meal. I topped the veggie over steamed rice. So thankful for your recipes. I’ve been using Th em weekly for my family meals.
Thanks Bay!
Hi Sylvia
I’ve been a subscriber for a while and your recipes are ‘go tos’ for me.
I love that your ingredients are easy for vegans.
I’ve tried many of your recipes and they always turn out, taste great and become staples. Thank you.
I finally remembered to take some photos of what I made. I will send you pics of my Kimchi Noodles and Banana Bread via email reply.
Thanks so much Jennifer! Appreciate this! xo
So good! Definitely putting this in our meal rotation.
Absolutely delicious! My partner made a serving size of 4 so we’d have some leftover for today… it was so tasty that we demolished the leftovers immediately!
This was a bomb dinner! If you have all the staples on hand, it’s also enjoyable to make and a good way to use leftovers; mine being chicken. Many thanks Sylvia xo
This was a great new twist in the typical stir-fry that I do, and that I’m totally bored with. The sauce in this recipe is really what makes it, the way the gochujang paste thickens it up and the slight tang from the fish sauce. Really delicious, and I’ll use that sauce on rice stir-fries as well. I added some thai basil and black sesame seeds. Thanks for the inspiration!
THanks Whitney!
Agreed, this is fun to make and has unique, hot-sweet flavor. First time I’ve ever used kimchi – it really adds a tangy, delicious element. Love how this can be modified in a million ways. Thanks for another terrific recipe.
Fabulous.. I’ll be making this again and again and again!
Yay Stephanie! Glad you liked it!
Can never ever thank you enough!!! This was fun to make and awesome to taste. I kept the recipe with vegetables and loved the rice noodles. This is on my list for meatless Monday dinners.
Yay Victor! So happy you liked it!