Here’s a super easy and tasty take on spicy peanut noodles. Use bottled peanut satay sauce or make your own. Though it’s a perfect summer dish, you can enjoy it year round.
The basic components of this dish — ordinary pasta combined with tomatoes and zucchini, get their yum factor (along with an Asian spin) from a luscious peanut sauce.
Truth be told, Thai peanut sauce (sometimes labeled peanut satay) can be more economical to buy (especially store brands) than to make from scratch. But I like to give options, so feel free to choose. Here’s the easy Coconut-Peanut Sauce or Dressing on this site.
Use your noodles: Though this calls for long noodles, feel free to substitute your favorite pasta shape or whatever you’ve got on hand.
Complete the meal: This goes well with a simple tofu or tempeh preparation (Lemon-Pepper Tofu Steaks; Sweet & Savory Tempeh Strips) and a platter of raw vegetables. Or, you can go with a higher protein salad that includes tofu like Cool Cucumber & Kale Salad with Hot & Spicy Tofu.
Recipe adapted from Vegan on a Budget by Nava Atlas. Photos by Hannah Kaminsky, BittersweetBlog.com.
Spicy Peanut Noodles with Zucchini and Tomatoes

Here’s a super easy and tasty take on spicy peanut noodles — bottled peanut satay sauce or make your own.
Ingredients
- 10 to 12 ounces linguine or spaghetti
- 1 medium or 2 small zucchini, sliced
- 2 medium tomatoes, diced
- 2 to 3 scallions, thinly sliced
- 1 cup bottled Thai peanut sauce or Coconut Peanut Sauce (see link in Notes), or more, to taste
- 1 teaspoon hot sauce such as Sriracha, more or less to taste
- Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
- Fresh cilantro leaves for garnish, optional
- Peanut halves or chopped peanuts for garnish, optional
Instructions
- Cook the pasta according to package directions until al dente, then drain.
- In the meantime, combine the zucchini, tomatoes, and scallions with a small amount of water in a medium skillet. Cover and steam until the zucchini is just tender-crisp and the tomato has softened, about 3 to 4 minutes.
- Combine the cooked noodles with the peanut sauce in a large serving bowl and stir until evenly coated.
- Add enough hot sauce to please your palate, but don’t go overboard — you can always pass it around to let everyone to add more to their own taste. Season with salt and pepper.
- Top each serving with some of the zucchini-tomato mixture. Garnish each serving with cilantro and/or peanuts, if using; pass around any extra peanut sauce that remains, as well.
Notes
Here's our recipe for Coconut-Peanut Sauce.
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