These garlic noodles are shockingly excellent despite their seeming simplicity. The first garlic noodles appeared in the 1970s in a Thanh Long restaurant in San Francisco. The recipe is a family secret that is often served with roasted Dungeness crab, but after extensive research and more experimenting, I believe this comes pretty close.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 20 mins |
| Total Time: | 35 mins |
| Servings: | 2 |
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
- 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
- 2 teaspoons fish sauce
- ¼ teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 pinch cayenne pepper
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 8 cloves garlic, minced
- 6 ounces spaghetti
- ¼ cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
- 1 tablespoon chopped green onion, or to taste
- 1 pinch red pepper flakes
Instructions
- Gather all ingredients. Stir soy sauce, oyster sauce, Worcestershire sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil, and cayenne pepper together in a small bowl for the secret sauce.
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- Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add garlic; cook and stir just until fragrant, about 1 minute. Quickly stir in the secret sauce and turn off the heat.
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- Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Cook spaghetti in boiling water, stirring occasionally, until tender yet slightly firm to the bite, about 12 minutes.
- Transfer spaghetti into the sauce using tongs, bringing some of the cooking water with it. Toss until well coated; stir in Parmesan cheese. Splash in more pasta water if noodles are too dry.
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- Plate noodles; garnish with green onions and red pepper flakes.
- Virtually any noodle will shine in this, but I quite like good old spaghetti. Good options include Chinese egg noodles and ramen.
- Apparently, one of the secret ingredients is Maggi Seasoning Sauce, which I decided not to use since I’m not sure how easy it is for the average person to find. Besides, I think my assortment of savory, umami-rich substitutes did the job quite nicely, and everything in the ingredient list can be found at any large grocery store.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 600 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 70 g |
| Cholesterol | 70 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Protein | 17 g |
| Saturated Fat | 17 g |
| Sodium | 1541 mg |
| Sugars | 4 g |
| Fat | 28 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Wonder as is! So good!!!!
It is good, I made note of the comments that mentioned too salty and did not salt the pasta water and used half the soy sauce. I had some grilled chicken breast that I sliced and added and I used spaghetti but will try with Chinese noodles the next time. I think adding seafood will work well.
This is a very yummy plate of noodles. I made as written and was happy with the end result. I will adjust a few things next time and try with the maggi seasoning and maybe chinese egg noodles. I also think the addition of crab would be great. Thanks, Chef John!
Delicious and easy to make. I used a whole grain linguine and substituted half of the butter with olive oil to make it a little more healthy. Add chicken or shrimp for a complete meal.
Yummy, but next time will use less garlic and soy sauce, more melted butter Thanks to A. Lowery for the suggestion to add cilantro at the end. I also added a handful of leftover steak strips for protein.
SO SO SO good. Definitely some of the best I’ve had including in many restaurants. I used linguini noodles and think they worked well. YUM.
These were SO fire! I couldn’t find fish sauce but found online that you can substitute it with 1:1 soy sauce:rice vinegar, and it came out great. I would highly recommend using low sodium soy sauce and unsalted butter for this, since all of the ingredients are already quite salty
Great dish, but salty as written! Given that every ingredient in the secret sauce is salty, I wouldn’t salt the pasta water. We used knife-cut noodles, but anything is truly fine. If you *don’t* salt the pasta water, add a little in at the end to thin out the saltiness. You could also stir fry some greens in here to cut the saltiness. That aside, it’s great flavor! Get ready to need mouthwash 🙂
An upgrade from my favorite pasta dish (pasta e olio) and probably one of Chef John’s greatest recipes period.
Recently cut way back on my red meat consumption to one day a week So I’ve been making these garlic noodles with broccoli, spinach, Mushrooms, Bok choy , and cabbage. Man absolutely delicious
This recipe is absolutely the bomb! I love the depth of flavor fish sauce adds but hate how it stinks up my kitchen! Dirty sock smell! But!! This recipe is so worth it!!! The ONLY thing I changed (because I forgot!!??) was adding the Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese!? I have it too! Just forgot in my haste to try! Will totally make again and am rearranging my menu planning to accommodate! This time, WITH the Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese! Thank you Chef John. For bringing “out to eat” into the everyday kitchen!
I enjoyed this dish. Very tasty. Had it as the main meal.
Parmesan cheese with Asian sauces was all wrong to me. Husband didn’t care for this recipe.
Great result! I omitted fish sauce (personal taste) and after reading reviews used only 1 tablespoon of low sodium dark soy sauce.
It didn’t quite have the addictive qualities I was expecting based on some of the reviews. It was fine, but I’ve had another asian-inspired noodle dishes I liked better.
This dish earned an enthusiastic thumbs up from the family (which is the highest standard)! Held back on the cayenne pepper and eased on the red pepper flakes, only because the sesame oil I used was chili-infused. Otherwise followed the recipe closely. Thanks for sharing!
Chef John has been my culinary guru for so long, & over the years I’ve developed a great fondness for him…Not only for his stellar recipes & humbleness, but his sense of humor ALWAYS adds another layer of deliciousness to his videos… : )
I didn’t have oyster sauce so substituted half Miami half dark molasses. I also added mushrooms. Amazing.
What a fantastic dish. I stayed true to spices and used angel hair pasta (may experiment w vermicelli). I made it as a meal by adding boneless garlic chicken thighs- air fryer. I would suggest at least five, my three were overwhelmed. I had a head of garlic on hand and added one more from the store. It is amazing how much juicier the fresh was. I put it between Saran Wrap pounded with my meat mallet. I thought it was too wet and I thought about draining pasta – but didn’t. Glad I didn’t because the dish came out fine. I smelled the fish sauce so after adding the thighs (before noodles) I cooked it some more. I don’t know if I cooked the fish smell out of it or what, because it didn’t taste fishy. This truly a fantastic dish and I can see how a restaurant could make its name by perfecting this dish.
Considering the ingredients I really thought this was going to be super salty. It was not! It was delicious! I made mine with shrimp and otherwise followed the recipe. Make sure to use unsalted butter and don’t salt the pasta water.
This was SOOOO good. Probably the best new thing I have made in awhile and definitely will get added to the regular rotation. It was easier to make than some other asian noodle receipes that I have tried..so extra bonus points for that! I paired it with some asian marinaded chicken and was a great meal.