Pasta with Sesame Peanut Sauce

aainmexico on 10.20.2010

This is a very good recipe – 4.5 mitts would have been a better rating. The sauce has a nice balance of flavors – the lemon juice in particular gives it a nice freshness that I appreciated.

We don’t like sprouts and I didn’t have cilantro (which I think would have added to the flavor, so that was too bad), so I julienned some red bell pepper and that was a nice addition. I added 2 Tbsp of brown sugar to the sauce which helped bring out the flavor. When I do it again, I think I will reduce the amount of soy sauce slightly (I used low sodium, but found it a bit heavy) and possibly increase the amount of lemon, although my lemons were not very juicy so perhaps that was the problem there. Or I might try lime instead, which would be interesting. The addition of peanuts as a garnish in my mind would be mandatory, the dish needed some texture contrast. I couldn’t find any chili oil for the adults but that might have been nice.

All in all, though, this is a great recipe for a good, healthy and easy weekday dish. The sauce can really be made with what you have on hand all the time, anyway, and you could add any veges that need to be used. Plus my 2 year old ate it up, which guarantees that it goes into the regular rotation!