Vegan Rice Noodle Bowl

This cool and refreshing Vegan Rice Noodle Bowl is packed with Asian flavours. It's totally gluten-free, and has a zippy peanut sauce to complement. You can mix and match the vegetables as you see fit, to make your noodle bowl your way, which makes this healthy recipe family-friendly and versatile as well! 

Anyone else in a dinner rut?

I don't know if it's the weather, being in that last push before summer vacation, or what, but I am so not into cooking these days. We've been ordering takeout a lot, which is fun at first, but our options are kinda limited, it's expensive, and I don't think most of what we get is all that healthy, try as we might.

The best of both worlds solution is to whip up a dinner that's practically as easy as takeout (they exist, I promise!) easy to prep mostly in advance, and satisfies the cravings of everyone around.

Friends, meet my favourite Vegan Rice Noodle Bowl!

What's in this Vegan Noodle Bowl?

Alrighty then, let's gather up our noodle bowl ingredients and get going! You're going to need some:

• Rice noodles --> I like the wider rice noodles for this noodle bowl recipe
• Vegetables --> It's a choose your own adventure situation, so grab your favourites.
• Mango --> Something about that salty and sweet combination going down here.
• Tofu! --> We're crisping the tofu up nice and good.
• Spicy peanut sauce --> Don't mind if I do!
• Cashews --> Brings the whole thing home.
• Herbs --> For that fresh punch in the mouth.

Want to know the secret for a killer noodle bowl?

For the longest time I would get annoyed every time my husband requested an Asian noodle salad for dinner. Not that I didn't like the flavours, but I found the salads messy to make and found that I never got a good ratio of noodles to vegetables in my dish.

Finally I stumbled upon a ground-breaking solution to the whole thing: don't toss the salad!

Guys this is revolutionary. I prepare all of the components in advance, lay them out buffet style, and everyone tops their own noodle bowl with whatever vegetables / sauce / protein they want. Then all the vegetables and sauce and good stuff end up on top of each bowl, rather than buried at the bottom of the big serving bowl.

It's also a good solution in households like mine where some of us are vegetarians (me) and some of us are not (my boys).

I like serving noodle bowls like this because I find it empowers my three-year-old, since he can build his own plate and is more likely to actually eat what he puts on it (hint: all of the baby corn). It does not, however, reduce the amount of rice noodles I end up picking up from the floor afterwards.

How do you make the tofu?

Folks, I've included an extra step here and pan-fry the tofu before marinating it in the sauce. I do this not to be annoying, but because I find that not only does it improve the texture of the tofu (chewy! not slimy!) but it also allows the sauce to cling to the crisped edges of the tofu and soak up the flavour much better than without. It's totally negotiable, though. Feel free to skip this step at your discretion. 

What about the sauce?

And what would a noodle bowl be without a killer sauce, I ask you? Just boring noodles, I think. We're making a zippy peanut sauce that's just the right amount of spicy to take the whole thing home. Then we're going to top it with roasted cashews and lots of cilantro, and boom, dinner is done.

Tips for making an amazing vegan noodle bowl:

• Each and every part of this noodle bowl can and should be prepared in advance. Make a Cold Rice Noodle Salad Bar in your fridge, I tell ya!
• You're going to want to rinse the rice noodles under cold water and then toss them with a bit of sesame oil to loosen them up. This step is particularly important if you're making the noodles in advance, which do I encourage.
• Allergic to peanuts? Don't sweat it. You can easily replace the peanut butter with almond butter or sesame paste.
• Don't like tofu? No worries you can replace it with another protein (plant-based or otherwise) of your choice. My husband likes to top this with shrimp, chicken, or even thinly sliced steak. I like to switch it up with edamame or tempeh from time to time.
• Want even more protein? You might want to try this dish with bean noodles instead of rice noodles. They're super good in asian noodle bowl style dishes like this one
• Want to make this for packed lunches or meal-prep bowls? Great idea! Pack everything in layers and leave the sauce off until you're ready to serve. Add the cashews at the last minute, too, otherwise they'll get soggy.

Hey Nutrition Lady, what's the deal with tofu?

Tofu is a protein-packed plant-based food made by fermenting or coagulating soy milk into a cake. Although tofu is made from soybeans --> soy milk --> tofu, it's made with significantly less processing than soy protein isolates or other commercially prepared soy foods (like TVP and fake meat products) and can be more or less considered a whole food.

Tofu is an excellent source of calcium, manganese, selenium, phosphorus, and omega-3 fatty acids. It's also a good source of iron, magnesium, zinc and vitamin B1. Tofu also provides a range of phytonutrients including flavonoids, isoflavonoids, and phenolic acids.

If you want to take a deeper dive into the health benefits (or drawbacks) of soy, you can check that out here.

Other tasty bowls you might enjoy:

Black Bean Noodle Bowls with Spicy Sesame Sauce
Barbecue Tofu Bowls
Wild Rice Bowls with Sweet Potatoes and Spicy Tofu
Vegan Poke Bowls

This recipe was originally published July 2010. It was last updated May 17, 2019.