Since I don’t have A/C at my home, using the oven really makes things hot. So in the summer, I try to eat a lot of refreshing and cool foods, that don’t require a lot of cooking. I made these noodle bowls the other day and they were delicious. I had a picnic with a friend (we celebrated our birthdays together) and this was the perfect food to eat.

The noodle recipe is from Gimme Some Oven (link here). It was a really easy recipe that just requires you to cook the noodles (I used rice noodles) then toss them with the dressing. I decided to add the veggies to turn it into a healthy meal, and they added lots of colour too.

The dressing has a soy sauce base with rice vinegar, sesame oil and some spices. I also added a little bit of maple syrup just to balance out some of the acidity. It was so simple and coated the noodles nicely.

As for the vegetables, I added 1 bell pepper (~1 cup), 1 carrot (~1/2 cup), 1/4 cucumber (~1/3 cup), and 1/2 cup shelled edamame. You could add any vegetables you want. I also kept mine raw (aside from edamame), but you could cook them if you prefer less crunch.

These noodles were so good, they are a great change from classic picnic foods (ie. sandwiches).