Chinese Dan Dan Noodles Recipe

My homage to Chinese Dan Dan Noodles is decidedly not authentic – no, it’s really not. But it’s very close to the real deal and it checks all of the boxes we’re looking for: Spicy, flavorful broth. Tangles of long Chinese-style egg noodles. Intensely flavorful, saucy caramelized ground pork. It’s a very love-at-first-slurp sort of situation.

Author: Lauren McDuffie
Yield: 4 servings 1x

Ingredients

Units Scale

1/4 cup soy sauce, plus more for serving
3 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons store-bought chili oil or chili crisp (or less, if you want it a bit milder)
2 teaspoons sugar
1 cup hoisin sauce (Chinese style barbecue sauce)
3 teaspoons rice wine vinegar
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
1/3 cup peanut butter or tahini (see note)
2 tablespoons canola, vegetable, coconut or other high-heat oil
1 pound ground pork
8 ounces sliced button mushrooms
1 small can water chestnuts, drained (about 1/3 cup)
1 shallot (or, 1/4 of a large sweet onion)
2 garlic cloves, minced
32–ounces chicken broth
1 pound Chinese-style egg noodles cooked according to package directions

Serving suggestions: sliced scallions, chopped cilantro, chopped peanuts, toasted sesame seeds

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Instructions

First, make the sauce: In a medium bowl, combine the soy sauce, water, chili oil, sugar, hoisin, vinegar, sesame oil, and peanut butter or tahini. Whisk or stir the sauce until everything is smooth and well combined. If it’s too spicy for your taste, just add more of the soy, water, hoisin, and vinegar.
Add the chicken stock to a medium saucepan set over medium heat. Add ¼ cup of the sauce to the broth and stir to combine.
In a large skillet or wok set over high heat, add the 2 tablespoons of oil and the pork. Allow the pork to caramelize and crisp up, undisturbed, until very brown before you turn it. Flip the pork and break it up with your spoon/spatula; cook until browned and no longer raw; about 5 to 6 minutes. Transfer to a plate/tray.
Place the mushrooms, water chestnuts and shallot (not the garlic right now) into a food processor and pulse until the bits are all relatively finely ground and somewhat uniform in size; about 25 to 30 pulses. Transfer this mixture to the pan in which you cooked the pork and cook, stirring constantly, for 10 minutes. If you need to, go ahead and add a little more cooking oil. Add the garlic in during the last minute of cook time, and stir to mix.
Once the veggie mixture has cooked down, add the pork back into the pan along with the sauce. Toss to combine.
To serve, place some noodles in a large bowl and ladle some of the hot broth over top. Top with some of the caramelized pork and veggie mixture and sprinkle with chopped cilantro/scallions, sesame seeds or peanuts, if desired. Enjoy right away, with extra soy sauce and chili oil on the side.

Notes

1. Chili crisp and chili oil are very spicy products, so if you’re intimidated by heat – I’d suggest starting with half the recommended amount, tasting, and then adding to suit your heat level preferences.

2. If you opt to use tahini, you should also add a small drizzle of toasted sesame oil to the sauce as well, as Sichuan sesame pastes are made from toasted sesame seeds, whereas tahini is made from raw sesame seeds. So, to make up for that lacking flavor, a little bit of toasted sesame oil is really nice.

Find it online: https://mykitchenlittle.com/2019/12/23/dan-dan-noodles/