Meal Prep: Peanut Noodle Salad

Directions

1. Preheat your grill to 450°F, set up for indirect grilling with a frogmat in place.

2. Marinate shrimp with the Tres Chiles Fajita Bath and allow to soak for about 5 minutes.

3. While the shrimp marinate, scrub, rinse and shred carrots. Also, begin to boil a large pot of water to cook noodles.

4. Season edamame beans with olive oil. Remove shrimp from marinade and place on the grill with edamame. Close the cover and allow to cook for about 8-10 minutes, turning both halfway through their cook.

5. Cook noodles according to manufacture’s specifications.

6. In a large pot, make peanut gravy by heating coconut milk with 1 tablespoon of Dizzy Pig Tsunami Spin seasoning. Add one bottle of Kim’s Spicy Peanut Sauce and heat to a simmer.

7. Add noodles, vegetables, and grilled shrimp.
8. Garnish with green onion, cilantro, and crushed peanuts.

9. To get started, you’ll set up your grill. Cooking on the Yoder Smoker YS640s is simple, and great for baking, searing, roasting, and smoking. In this case, I’ve opted to fill this pellet smoker with BBQr’s Delight Pecan Pellet Grill Fuel. It’s an oak-based pellet blended with pecan wood for getting flavor and consistency with any pellet grill or smoker.

   

10. I’ll preheat my grill to 450°F, with a diffuser plate in place for indirect grilling. I also opted to use a Frogmat, a silicone-lined mat perfect for grilling smaller items that may tend to fall through the grates. It’s important that you set up your grill so that direct flames do not hit the Frogmat, which can cause the silicone to melt or burn.

    

11. I’ll start the cooking process by marinating peeled, deveined shrimp in Tres Chiles Fajita Bath, about one cup’s worth. The bottle instructs you to dilute it with water since the acidity level is so high. However, if you don’t dilute it, you’ll get a bigger flavor impact. The problem is you’ll run a risk of chemically cooking with such high acidity in a marinade. For a protein that only needs to marinate for five minutes, such as shrimp, it is fine as long as you don’t forget to take it out of the marinade after a brief amount of time. Any more time and you run the risk of making ceviche! If you were to substitute a different protein that takes longer to marinate, such as chicken, I would dilute according to the manufacturer’s instruction and marinate for the suggested length of time before grilling.

    

12. While the shrimp marinates, prep the carrots. I prefer to scrub my carrots, rinse them, and then shred them with the large side of a grater.

    

13. While the shrimp marinates, prep the carrots. I prefer to scrub my carrots, rinse them, and then shred them with the large side of a grater.

14. Place the shrimp and edamame beans on the Frogmat. Remember: this shrimp has only been marinating for about 5 minutes before hitting the grill.

15. In this instance, I’ve put the beans closer to the firebox, or heat source, because they will need more time to cook than the shrimp. I also seasoned the beans with a little olive oil in a spray bottle. From here, I will close the lid of the grill and allow the beans and shrimp to cook for about 4 or 5 minutes.

    

16. Make sure to give everything a turn, and close the lid for another 4 or 5 minutes, adjusting the cooking time if necessary.

    

17. When the shrimp are done, they will be opaque in color through the center. You can check this by looking at the spine of the shrimp to ensure there is no more translucent blue-gray color left. Also, you can feel a slight resistance if you squished them with your fingers. They should be firm, but not bouncy or rubbery.

    

18. I like to check the doneness of the edamame beans by tasting them. You can eat these without cooking them, but they will become more tender when heat is applied. So just cook them to your desired texture. Once your edamame and shrimp are off the grill, allow them to rest at room temp while you tend to your noodles and sauce.

    

19. To build the sauce, I gravitated towards Tsunami Spin from Dizzy Pig. It’s a great BBQ rub seasoning that has Asian spices, paprika, onion, garlic, and sesame seeds. If you’re not a fan of the Tres Chiles Fajita Bath as a seasoning for your shrimp, you can easily replace it with this.

    

20. I take one can of unsweetened coconut milk and “bloom” the spice blend in the milk. “Blooming” is a technique where you activate spices with heat, often in a fat. In this case, the fat is coconut milk.

    

21. Once heated through, it’s time to add Kim’s Gourmet Spicy Peanut Sauce. This sauce brings a wonderful sweetness, nuttiness, alongside some decent heat from some cayenne.

    

22. Once the peanut sauce is added, you’ll once again just cook until simmering. As for the noodles, follow the manufacture’s instructions for cooking, and allow them to completely drain excess water before adding them to the sauce.

    

23. Here I’ve cooked four portions of ramen noodles ready to add to my creamy peanut sauce.

    

24. Just coat the cooked noodles in your sauce. You may notice a little extra sauce lingering in the bottom of the pan. Don’t worry: it will eventually thicken up and cling to those noodles.

    

25. From here, you can add all of your remaining ingredients if you were to serve it family style. But at this moment I was prepping for future lunches during the week, so I divided my noodles evenly into four portions, ready for all my nutritious protein and vegetables.

    

26. I add about a half cup of each of these components to my bed of noodles. To keep it easy, I garnished with green onions, but you could also add chopped peanuts or cilantro if you prefer.