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Learn how to make THE BEST quick garlic noodles. Loaded with tons of green onions, finely minced garlic, and sauteed in a knob of butter. There are a few unusual ingredients here, but trust me, these are the best garlic noodles you’ll ever have! Ready in around 15 minutes!
Here it is! Here it is!
The recipe that I’ve had on my mind for as long as I’ve been breathing — quick garlic noodles!
A noodle dish with chewy noodles sauteed in a knob of butter with fresh minced garlic, and tons of fresh green onions. We’ve got oyster sauce and a generous splash of fish sauce too.
Okay, I know; the internet is full of garlic noodles. But believe me, this one is different. It has a couple of unusual ingredients. Not usual like I’m sending you on a wild goose chase for a hard-to-find ingredient you’ve never heard of. Unusual in the sense that you don’t typically see it paired often with oyster sauce and fish sauce. But you know what; I’ll never make garlic noodles without them now. Not that I needed any more reassurances, but when I walk into the kitchen to find hubby licking the tongs clean as he goes slightly wide-eyed from being caught in the act, I’m pretty sure I’ve made the garlickiest garlic noodles around town.
And after having some of the best garlic noodles on Maui, in San Francisco, and pretty much anywhere else I can find them on the menu, I’m proud to say this is one crazy good batch of garlic noodles. And what makes these even better? They take in the ballpark of 15 minutes to make and use mostly pantry and refrigerator staple ingredients. So it’s great as a side dish and even better as a main course. You can use ramen noodles, spaghetti, or chuka soba noodles like I’m using. Top with sauteed shrimp, crab, lobster, and crispy tofu with a squeeze of sriracha if you please.
Quick Garlic Noodles Video
Ingredients for homemade garlic noodles recipe
The ingredient list on my quick garlic noodles is short. Ten simple ingredients.
- Butter and Oil: You’ll want a combination of the two. The oil helps raise the temperature of the butter so that it doesn’t burn.
- Fresh Garlic: we’ll saute the garlic in the butter so that the flavor infuses throughout this noodle recipe.
- Scallions: We’ll saute these with the garlic to infuse the butter and you can certainly add more on top as a garnish if you’d like.
- Fish Sauce: adds a ton of umami flavor to the noodles as well as salt. If you follow a vegan diet, I suggest making vegan fish sauce using the various recipes on the internet. If all else fails, you can add a splash of soy sauce instead.
- Oyster sauce: adds a salty element to the noodles. For my vegan friends, you can use oyster mushroom sauce instead.
- Granulated sugar: adds sweetness and helps balances the salty elements of the dish. Feel free to use brown sugar if you’d like.
- Parmesan Cheese: Your eyes don’t deceive you! I did indeed right parmesan! So this ingredient works beautifully with the oyster sauce and the fish sauce to give this dish an umami flavor bomb! If you’re vegan you can use a vegan parm alternative, although I do expect that the flavor will be somewhat different.
- Prepared noodles: You’ll want to use 8 ounces of dried noodles for this recipe and prepare them according to package instructions in a saucepan. For the noodles, I used Chuka soba noodles that my local grocery store carries. You can use just about any kind you like! Egg noodles, Hong Kong-style noodles, or even spaghetti or angel hair pasta will do. This is a fusion recipe; there’s no wrong answer here!
- Fried Garlic: It can be a tricky ingredient to find in a regular grocery store, so you can certainly omit it from the recipe or make your own! But know that the fried garlic bits on top are what truly make this recipe irresistible. If you’ve got easy access to an Asian supermarket, you can find this easily! Just know that a lot of the brands fry their garlic in palm oil. If you also feel strongly about avoiding palm oil, I suggest checking the ingredient list before you buy. I was lucky enough to find a brand that didn’t, locally. But here’s a brand that fries them in soybean oil in case you’re interested.
How to make the best garlic noodles on the planet
- Boil the noodles: Set a large pot of water to boil. When the pasta water reaches a boil, cook them according to the package directions. As the pasta cooks, you can start the infusion of the butter. Drain the pasta and set it aside until you’re ready to toss it.
- Infuse the butter. The key to making good garlic noodles is to make sure you do this step right. Which is allowing the minced garlic and scallions to really infuse all of their flavors into the oil and butter. Start with a cold large skillet, add the butter, oil, garlic, and scallions and slowly let the pan heat up. This will take you about 5-7 minutes, but trust me, this is the part you don’t want to rush. The total time is still in the ballpark of under 30 minutes, and I promise it’s worth the wait!
- Make garlic noodles. While the garlic is simmering, combine the fish sauce, oyster sauce, and sugar in a small bowl. Once the garlic is done, you’ll want to kick it up to medium-high heat and add the sauces. Give it 30 seconds to simmer and then add the cooked noodles and toss it all in the sauce. Taste and adjust with more fish sauce as you’d like. If you’re just starting off, I suggest doing a tablespoon of each of the fish sauce and the oyster sauce. You can always add more but you can’t take it away! Top with fried garlic right before serving. And don’t anticipate any leftovers!
What’s to love about this recipe
- They take about 15 minutes, give or take.
- You’ve probably got almost all the ingredients in your pantry or refrigerator.
- You can serve this with just any kind of protein! Hubby made a spicy Thai Chicken last week, and we swapped the quinoa for garlic noodles. But really, we’ve had this with Miso Ginger Salmon too, and you just can’t go wrong here. I love Hawaiian Shrimp Scampi with this too!
- You can skip the protein and go the vegetable route. Sauteed broccolini or seared bok choy in sesame oil *chefs kiss*
- Perfect for when you’re a single lady (or dude) like I am on some weeknights, and all you want is a bowl of comfort food and you want it FAST.
Quick garlic noodles serve four but if you ask my husband, he’ll tell you there’s just enough for one. Honestly, plan on making more than you think you’ll need.
It’s so dang hard to stop yourself from eating the whole pan!
If you like this recipe, you might also like
- Cantonese-Style Pan-Fried Noodles
- Sesame Ginger Tofu and Veggie Stir Fry
- Gochujang Noodles
- Sesame Peanut Noodles with Chicken
- Hibachi Fried Rice
Crazy Good Quick Garlic Noodles
Equipment
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 6-8 garlic cloves minced (we always use 8)
- 2 scallions greens only (thinly sliced)
- 1-2 tablespoons fish sauce
- 1-2 tablespoons oyster sauce
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese
- 8 ounces noodles see notes
- fried garlic for topping
Instructions
- Infuse the Butter: Heat a large pot with water and allow it to come to boil, cook the noodles according to package directions, drain and set aside. While the water is boiling, grab a large, non-stick skillet and place it on medium-low heat. Add the butter, oil olive, garlic, and scallions. Let the butter infuse with the garlic for 5-7 minutes, stirring often. The garlic should barely sizzle here, you don’t want it to brown.
- Garlic Noodles: While the garlic is going, grab a small bowl and mix together the fish sauce, oyster sauce, and the sugar. When the garlic is cooked, kick the heat up to medium-high, stir in the prepared sauce; let cook for 30 seconds. Add the prepared noodles and toss with parmesan cheese (yes, parm!) Let the noodles cook for a minute so they soak up all that flavor. Top with fried garlic and serve immediately! That flavor is like NOTHING you’ll ever have.
Notes
- Please note: after a few responses from readers, I’ve adjusted the amount of fish sauce + oyster sauce to read ‘1-2 tablespoons.’ I use 2 of each and didn’t find it had a fishy flavor but a few people mentioned that it was a bit pungent for their taste. I suggest starting with 1 tablespoon of each and adjusting as desired!
- You can use a lot of different kinds of noodles here. I used Chuka soba noodles, but egg noodles, Hong Kong noodles, spaghetti, or even angel hair pasta will work here.
- You can serve this with just about anything you like!
- This recipe can easily be doubled if you want leftovers, and really with all that garlic, who wouldn’t?
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like This? Leave a comment & rating below!
If you’re not a fish person (for example, you cannot tolerate sushi because of the seaweed wrap) then I suggest cutting the fish sauce and oyster sauce in half, and replacing with something else. Soy sauce maybe? The fishiness was way too pungent for me but my husband LOVED this dish. I really want to try it again with a milder tweak.
The dish is awesome…..love it … this is the restaurant rated dish… highly recommended….
This is now our family’s favorite recipe!!! I’ve tried so many versions of garlic noodles, and this is the only one I’ve found that’s really hit the spot. The only modification I’ve made is always doubling the recipe, because we were always finding ourselves bummed out that we didn’t have any leftovers!
I have tried so many of Little Spice Jar recipes and so far have loved them all. However, I tried these garlic noodles and doubled the recipe (all ingredients) using 16 cloves of garlic (UK size so small bulb). No one could eat the noodles. The garlic was so overpowering to the point it was inedible (and I like garlic!!)…. had to throw them away…..What a waste 🙁
Made spaghetti squash with this recipe and its so delicious! Added some spinach as well.
These noodles were sent straight from heaven!!! Thank you so much for introducing these into our lives!!!
Haha I love it! So happy you feel that way ❤️
First, I have never posted a comment to a blog ever. I am compelled to do so tonight. This is an amazing recipe. It is hard to describe the umami flavour with this dish. It is the perfect balance of sweet and sour and that garlic! I made a batch at lunch and then it was so good I made it again for dinner on the same day. It is fall now and I had loads of peppers and greens so I chucked them in the pan. I had some fresh sockey salmon and voila! I could cry…it was that good.
Well i didn’t really look at how many noodles i was working with, but when i finished boiling my noodles to prep for cooking, it looked like enough to feed two whole families… so i doubled your recipe and used 16 cloves of garlic haha! It turned out very delicious and not a disaster at all! Thank you so much!
These noodles are to die for! I made them recently and there were no leftovers. Quick and easy to make! I served them with marinated tofu. Soooooo goooood!
Made these tonight and they were soooooo good. I was skeptical for sure, but I’m so glad I tried it. Amazing garlic flavor. Big fan!
I am late to the party but everyone should know this is a hella great dish! going in my weekly rotation for sure.
Oh my. These were so much better than I hoped. I would cut sugar to 1/2 tablespoon next time. I don’t like fish and didn’t find the sauce fishy at all! I came back and finished the pan, even though I wasn’t hungry. Served with pot stickers for a delish, filling meal.
This was soooo good! Just made it tonight to go with some lobster tail. I put parmesan in it, because i happened to have some, but I think it would taste just as good without it. We went to a Vietnamese/crab place a week ago and had garlic noodles. These were just as good. And the best part is that this recipe does not have msg (which the restaurant’s probably did). So, i would encourage you to try it! Thank you Marzia for putting this recipe together and making it available for people to enjoy!!!
I loved this recipe! I’m a Mediterranean girl so I adore garlic. These noodles have great flavour. I used soy sauce instead of oyster sauce simply because that was what I had in the kitchen and it worked well. And you were right – egg noodles are fantastic for this recipe. I think next time I’ll add some red peppers or chilli sauce for a bit of spicy kick.
This is a go-to, much-requested comfort food recipe for our family for years ever since we saw a slightly different version in an Asian cookbook. A few differences:
– we use a lot more scallions — say 4-6 scallions for 8 ounces of pasta — and we use everything, both the white and the green parts. I actually usually double the recipe anyway and use a full pound of pasta and even more scallions! With this recipe you probably can’t use too much garlic or scallions
– we don’t use fish sauce and don’t miss it. We’re not vegetarians, but noticed people asked about it.
– we also never add parmesan cheese — so if there are recipe purists (or vegetarians) who are hesitating, cheese is definitely not necessary for this recipe. Maybe a Maui thing?
– for a little more depth substitute brown sugar for white
– works with many different types of noodles but I think the long noodles are best. We usually use angel hair.
The oyster and fish sauce were too pungent for flavor. I love garlic and was excited to try this recipe. But, I was severely disappointed because the fish flavor was too overpowering.
This was sooo’ good. I love garlic and to have a dish so easy and flavorful it’s just awesome! The fried garlic is a new favorite too! I was eating it out of the bottle! Thank you for this recipe, I will be be making it for Life!
Isn’t that fried garlic just the best? We pretty much use it every chance we get now. Happy to hear you loved the noodles! 🙂
Instead of the oyster or fish sauce, do you think this would work well with the flavors of soy sauce and/or sesame oil?
Not allowed to use these sauces die to dietary restrictions. Can I sub something else? Sodium issues ughh
I just want to make sure I have it right. These sound amazing and I can’t wait to try them. This is shredded Parma not the o powdery kind you shake on spaghetti or pizza? Thank you so much.
Shredded or grated (pizza style) either would work here, really! I just suggest using something that’s good quality (anything from the deli dept. rather than shelf stable stuff!)
This is a fantastic recipe. I give it a try with a little twist. A little veggie & shrimp. Delicious ??????
Holy cow! Do not hesitate, make these noodles NOW! My picky, picky, picky nine-year-old daughter said this is her new favourite dish.