How to cook rice noodles without making them soggy, clumpy, or broken.
Rice noodles are not difficult to cook, but most people don’t know how to handle them. The #1 reason why your rice noodle stir fries are a soggy mess is that you’re cooking them before cooking them.
In other words, after boiling the noodles until they are perfectly cooked, people frequently put them in a pan. However, there is a lot of liquid produced during stir-frying because of the sauce, the meat, and the vegetables. Rice noodles can easily overcook, so if they are already cooked when they are put in the pan, they will almost certainly do so in the end.
It should be noted that egg noodles don’t overcook nearly as quickly as other foods; in fact, you want the egg noodles to be thoroughly cooked before you stir-fry them.
6. Don’t crowd the pan
Although packing the pan full of food is never a good idea, when it comes to noodles, this is probably the most frequent cause of soggy, mushy noodles. The noodles get overcooked because of the moisture that is trapped by crowding, which steams and boils the noodles. Overcooked noodles are too soft. too soft noodles break into bits.
This is the reason I emphasize so much that the freshest noodles should be cooked one portion at a time and that you should only make pad thai in batches of two servings. Street vendors cook them one order at a time for a reason!
Speaking of which, when stir-frying noodles, you should always use high heat to maximize liquid evaporation and avoid having too much moisture in the pan.
#1: Emergency Noodle Soak
I don’t even need to set a timer because it takes so long for them to over soak in room temperature water. However, if you’re pressed for time, soaking in warm water will speed up the process. However, they over-soak more quickly in warmer water, making the noodles too soft, so be sure to check them frequently.
There is an urgent fix if you completely forgot to soak but you really need the noodles right away. To stop the cooking process, use hot water—I mean, off-the-boil—to soak the large, medium, and small sizes for four, three, and two minutes, respectively. Then, immediately drain and rinse them in cold water. With the vermicelli, I wouldn’t take a chance, but they don’t take long either.
