There are few premade items in the grocery store that still tempt me. I’m pretty much turned off by the entire frozen section these days, and am getting increasingly less enthused about the baked goods. And ever since hearing horror stories about chickens injected with salt-water solution, marinaded meat seems suspect too. Indeed, these days, the mantra has been: buy the raw ingredients, assemble it yourself.

That said, there is one aisle that still tempts me: the salad bar. Not so much the make-your-own-green salad part, but the variety of pasta, rice, couscous, noodle, vegetable etc. salads that they offer. However, after falling prey to this trick a few times, I have come to 2 conclusions: 1. Pasta salads are not to be trusted (they always look and smell more interesting than they taste) and 2. Everything else, tasty as it may be, is a damned ripoff, and should only be purchased under duress (i.e. when your lunch options consist of this or Subway). You only realize the rip-off part when you go to buy quinoa, and realize that you could eat lunch for a week for the same price it costs you to buy one serving of quinoa salad.

Of all the salads the overpriced salad bar has to offer, I have become most addicted to the Asian noodle salad. And so, after studying the ingredient list which the folks at Ballard Town and Country market kindly display on their salad bar, I decided to try to reconstruct it. The bits and pieces seemed easy enough: noodles, carrots, cashews, garlic, scallions, and soy sauce and sesame oil for the dressing, the challenge would be assembling them. This is what I came up with:

Whole Foods Inspired Asian Noodle Salad

(Based loosely on this recipe.)
For the salad:
– 1.5 lb cooked noodles (I bought a 2lb package of precooked yakisoba noodles and used it all. 2lbs was a little much, and probably buying dried noodles and cooking them yourself is a wiser choice, as they don’t stick together quite so much)

– 3-4 carrots chopped into 1/4 inch pieces
– 2 cloves garlic finely minced
– 1/2 – 1c cashews (unsalted)
– 3 scallions, chopped
– 1 can chopped baby corn, drained (or other asian veggie of choice: bean sprouts, snow peas etc.)
– 2 tbsp vegetable oil

For the dressing:
I used about 1/4 c each of hoisin, soy sauce and sesame oil. But you can tweak the proportions as you see fit (and add more of anything after the fact, if it doesn’t taste quite right)

-Hoisin sauce
-Soy sauce
-Toasted Sesame seed Oil
-lime or lemon juice (about 1 lime/lemon’s worth)
-A little bit of siriachi sauce or crushed red pepper flakes
(rice vinegar would probably be a welcome addition, but I didn’t have any)

Assembly:

0. Cook noodles according to directions and drain.

1. In a large skillet, over med-high heat, heat vegetable oil. When oil is hot, add garlic and stir for about 1 min.

2. Add chopped carrots to skillet and saute until they start to soften, then add coarsely chopped cashews, and saute until golden, and slightly soft (Carrots should be completely soft by this time)

3. Add baby corn, sautee for 1 min.

4. Pour noodles into a large bowl, along with stir-fried veggies and scallions, and toss to combine

5. Assemble dressing ingredients in a small bowl, and pour over noodle mixture. Toss to combine.

6. Taste, and adjust the dressing as needed.

7. For best results, assemble the night before, and let salad sit in fridge (covered) overnight. Serve cold.

And just in case you’re the sort who believes that a salad does not a meal make, here’s something else you can do the night before, to make the meal a bit more substantial:

Asian-style Grilled Pork Tenderloin

Ingredients:

-2 small (about 2/3 lb each) pork tenderloins

Marinade:
-2 small or 1 large clove of garlic, finely chopped
-1″ ginger, peeled and grated (or minced)
-1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
-2 scallions, chopped
-2-3 tbsp hoisin sauce
-1 tbsp brown sugar
-2-3 tbsp chinese cooking wine (or some other suitable liquor–whiskey works)
-2-3 tbsp soy sauce

1. Assemble all marinade ingredients in a small bowl and stir to combine.

2. Rinse the tenderloins in cold water and pat dry

3. Place tenderloins in a large resealable ziplock bag, and pour marinade over top, turn to coat the tenderloins thoroughly. Seal the bag and let rest in fridge for a few hours (or ideally, overnight)

4. preheat a grill to medium high heat, and grill tenderloins, over indirect heat (so turn on one side of the grill and put the loins on the other) for 30 minutes, and direct heat for the last 10 -15 minutes until cooked through, to give the meat a nice outer crust, without burning it.

The great thing about this meal is that you can do almost all of it in advance. Just come home, chuck the meat on the grill, haul the salad out of the fridge, and dinner is served.