I have my soup concentrate, I have my meat chunks, now all I need are noodles that can be quickly prepared so I can have my homemade microwave soup. I would rather not have soggy noodles, besides I wonder how well they would keep in the fridge once they are wet.
How about ramen noodles? They’re parboiled (partially cooked), then fried in oil to drive the moisture out, leaving a product that keeps well and cooks extremely quickly. I bet, if you were enterprising, you could even do a similar process on noodles of your choice.
How long do you need to keep them? I’ve kept cooked noodles in the fridge for several days, and they’re fine.
I would guess that they freeze well, too. I’d slightly undercook them if you were going to freeze them, though, to combat the mushy factor.
Prepare the noodles regularly, but slightly under-cook them. Cool them in ice water and drain well. Toss with a light drizzle of olive or vegetable oil. Seperate the noodles into individual serving sizes, you can keep them in the fridge for 2-3 days before they need to be eaten or trashed. When you heat up your homemade soup the noodles will finish cooking and it should be like fresh homemade soup.
From my past experiences working in small italian restaurants:
- get yourself a pack of pasta, i.e. Barilla
- boil water, put pasta in and cook it to just right before “al dente” (Barilla lists the number of minutes for “al dente”, cook it until, like, 1min before that)
- drain pasta and place it immediately into ice (very important, to stop the cooking process at that moment)
- After pasta is cold, you can store it in Tupperware/plastic containers in the fridge
- To use it simply add it to whatever hot liquid you want, be it soup or whatever, and cook it for the additional minute or so to get to “Al dente”
-Be sure to use to pre-precooked pasta within a few short days after you make it.
I buy Udon noodles at the grocery store that are shrink-wrapped and ready to go. You can nuke them, but I usually boil them in broth for ~2 min. I don’t know how long they last because I go through them pretty fast. I suspect a couple weeks at least. Look for them near the tofu.