San Francisco-Style Vietnamese American Garlic Noodles
Updated Feb. 18, 2025
- Total Time
- 15 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 4tablespoons unsalted butter
- 20medium garlic cloves, minced or smashed in a mortar and pestle
- 4teaspoons oyster sauce
- 2teaspoons light soy sauce or shoyu
- 2teaspoons fish sauce
- 1pound dry spaghetti
- 1ounce grated Parmesan or Pecorino Romano (heaping ¼ cup)
- A small handful of thinly sliced scallions (optional)
Nutritional analysis per serving (4 servings)
578 calories; 15 grams fat; 9 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 4 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 91 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 3 grams sugars; 19 grams protein; 593 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
- Step 1
Melt the butter in a wok or saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant but not browned, about 2 minutes. Add the oyster sauce, soy sauce and fish sauce, and stir to combine. Remove from the heat.
- Step 2
Meanwhile, bring 1½ inches of water to a boil in a 12-inch skillet or sauté pan over high heat. (Alternatively, heat up just enough water to cover the spaghetti in a large Dutch oven or saucepan.) Add the pasta, stir a few times to make sure it’s not clumping, and cook, stirring occasionally, until just shy of al dente (about 2 minutes short of the recommended cook time on the package).
- Step 3
Using tongs, transfer the cooked pasta to the garlic sauce, along with whatever water clings to it. (Reserve the pasta water in the skillet.) Increase the heat to high, add the cheese to the wok, and stir with a wooden spatula or spoon and toss vigorously until the sauce is creamy and emulsified, about 30 seconds. If the sauce looks too watery, let it keep reducing. If it looks greasy, splash some more cooking water into it and let it re-emulsify. Stir in the scallions (if using), and serve immediately.
Private Notes
Comments
I’ve been using my meat tenderizing mallet for smashing garlic lately. Turns it into a creamy paste. Does a great job and I’ll use it with this recipe.
As a Vietnamese immigrant whose parents owned a restaurant for decades in Denver, I would like to add another essential condiment/sauce in the canon of Vietnamese cooking called Maggi. My family makes this dish using Maggi and not fish sauce. Just thought I'd offer this up as another way to make these yummy noodles. Maggi, in its iconic curvaceous dark brown bottle, is not made of soy but wheat protein. You will often that tangy saltiness in Vietnamese sandwiches.
I keep a large bulb of garlic, roots intact, in a small vase (one that held a hyacinth bulb purchased at Aldi works well). Use the tall green shoots from the garlic instead of scallions to add flavor and greenery to any number of dishes. The roots that grow swirl in a lovely pattern in the bottom of the vase, and the bulb will continue to produce shoots for weeks.
Made this multiple times. Sometimes parmesan sometimes romano, great either way. I feel it needs more sauce so I double the amount of sauce/butter and double the cheese. Grate the cheese with fine setting & add after taking off the heat to avoid clumping. Sauteing shelled shrimp in the butter then adding the garlic is a nice addition. Have used prepared garlic, not as good , less flavorful, garlic press almost as easy.
so gas! Paired it with miso butter brocoli recepe (also a cheeky 20 min baddie) and two oceans chandonarry where the indian ocean meets the pacific and the grape growing season is delayed! big up- leo ♡(ﾐ ᵕ̣̣̣̣̣̣ ﻌ ᵕ̣̣̣̣̣̣ ﾐ)ﾉ
I make this often for the kids - I use tablespoons instead of teaspoons for sauce and bucatini for pasta and it’s perfect