This easy garlic noodles recipe is super rich and buttery, and is a punch in the mouth of garlic and onion. We use wonton noodles here so it’s got an asian garlic noodle vibe, but it’s great with just about any kind of noodle or pasta.
Each year my family and some friends gets together for an event called ‘crab massacre’. At one of these gatherings, a friend prepped an amazing mound of garlic noodles which we weren’t expecting at all. We were hooked and now can’t do any seafood boil without whipping up garlic noodles to go with it.
Our boils are typically Dungeness crab, crawfish or shrimp, but when we run out of seafood, these garlic noodles are so flavorful that I love em with sides of boiled veggies or whatever leftovers are in the fridge.
Here’s a tray of garlic noodles I made using homemade pasta dough cut into taglioni for our backyard crawfish boil. Yeah that’s a lot of food :), we actually gave half of that boil to our cousins who stopped by shortly after.
Types of noodles to use
This recipe works well with any kind of pasta or egg noodles (similar to yakisoba), like fettuccine, angel hair, or spaghetti. This would be excellent with homemade pasta too. I love this with wonton noodles for its softer, silkier texture–the same silky texture of the dumplings in my wonton soup recipe! The noodles you pick heavily affect the outcome of this dish, but on the other hand so many will work well so it’s really up to you.
I’ve been making a lot of fresh pasta with the gf for other recipes (surprisingly simple), which would work perfectly here too. Recipe coming up soon, but yeah no problem at all with store bought dried pasta or wonton noodles.
Other brands of noodles I’ve tried and like for these garlic noodles:
- Fungs Village Inc – pancit noodles (found this at Seafood City)
Garlic noodle sauce
My favorite kinda sauce recipe: throw it into a bowl and mix. Super simple to prepare ahead of time, and easy to store until you’re ready to use. For our recent seafood boil hosted at a friend’s place, this is exactly what we did to avoid transporting any tools, bottles, or cutting boards.
Don’t do what I did: you absolutely should not bust out four mini prep bowls for the sauce. Dump into one big bowl and give it a mix.
Aromatics: scallions & garlic
This bowl of scallions has quite a bit more than you need for the 8 oz of noodles, but I wanted to just have more on hand to make these as we eat it. Lately, I’ve been keeping a container of sliced scallions and pressed garlic in the fridge, ready to go. Also a jar of pressed garlic in some neutral cooking oil like canola or grapeseed–this is great to prep ahead of time and you can also use it for recipes like sinangag (Filipino garlic rice) or smashed potatoes.
These are great to have on the ready-to-add aromatics to a quick saute of veggies, browning up a little with butter before cracking some eggs into the pan, adding to meat, rice, etc. If you want MORE garlic (um yess please), you can also top it with fried garlic.
And yesss your kitchen is going to smell amazing as these cook down and release their aroma. If you want more of that pungent raw garlic and onion flavor you can saute it less here. To learn what else to serve with these tasty garlic noodles, use any of these easy Asian recipes.
For more pasta recipes, you can also make uni pasta, spinach pasta dough, easy garlic basil pesto, and TikTok’s viral baked feta pasta.
Asian Garlic Noodles (Quick & Easy)
Ingredients
One Noodle Selection
- 16 oz (453.6 g) fresh wonton noodles or
- 16 oz (453.6 g) homemade pasta my recipe! or
- 8 oz (226.8 g) dried fettuccine / spaghetti / angel hair
Sauce
- 3 1/3 tbsp (40 g) light brown sugar
- 3 1/3 tbsp (63.3 g) oyster sauce
- 3 1/3 tsp (20 g) light soy sauce
- 1 1/4 tsp (6.7 g) sesame oil
- 1 2/3 tsp salt to taste
Aromatics
- 5 1/3 tbsp salted butter
- 1 bunch green onions / scallions (up to 50% more is ok) thinly sliced
- 21 cloves (53.75 g) garlic pressed or minced
Instructions
- Boil noodles according to package instructions, until desired doneness is reached (we will not cook it more later), drain, then set aside. Prepare the below steps while the water boils though!
- Add all sauce ingredients into a medium prep bowl and mix to combine
- Slice scallions thinly and mince garlic or use a garlic press.
- Melt butter in a large pan (brown it a little if desired) over medium-high heat, then add 75% of your green onions, and all of the garlic. Saute until fragrant and garlic is slightly browned.
- Lower heat to medium, add sauce ingredients and stir to combine. Add noodles, mix to coat and warm up slightly. Taste, and add a few extra pinches of salt to taste if needed.
- Garnish served plates with the remaining raw, sliced green onion and eat!
Wow, its a great help for me. I will definitely try to make it this weekend.
This is definitely my go-to recipe for a quick dish!
Simple, easy, and delicious. Thanks for the recipe!
Thanks for the kind words Annie!
This recipe seems to be similar to the famous garlic noodles from the An family who owns ‘Crustacean’ restaurant in L A.
This is the best—just the same as the same noodles as an expensive Vietnamese fusion restaurant.
Yeah! I’d guess most places follow a similar recipe for these noodles, they are fairly simple. Glad you like it Christie!
This has become my go-to garlic noodle recipe for an easy crowd pleaser or quick meal at home. Using fresh, homemade egg pasta here makes a world of difference. Thanks Huy!
Wow so cool to hear KN–yeah changing the noodles in this recipe really changes its vibe, great for adapting to the type of food you’re serving with!
Is that supposed to say 21 cloves of garlic?
Yep thats what I see on my end, do you see something else?
Wowwww! Originally thought while cooking that the sauce might be too much, but when I was done mixing the noodles in, the noodles turned out so flavorful! Great thing I always trust your recipes. Thank you!
I often make this thinking the same thing, and cut part of the sauce. To be honest it is good with it cut a bit too 🙂
Wow! This was easy and delicious!
These noodles are on our regular rotation at our house. This is THE BEST recipe! We usually add shrimp and broccoli to make it a meal. Our two boys devour it! Thanks for breaking this recipe down for us home cooks so we don’t have to spend a small fortune eating out!
made it and am eating it right now, very good thank you