Singapore rice noodles are curry-seasoned rice noodles stir-fried with shrimp, char siu, and egg, and the dish is one of our standing orders at our favorite Chinese restaurant. We love the combination of curry, char siu, and shrimp, and it’s easy enough to put together at home, which helps us save on takeout.
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This version uses enough curry powder to season every strand of noodle without burying the flavors of the shrimp and char siu. It comes together in one skillet in about twenty minutes.
Ingredient Notes
Curry powder. Use a basic yellow curry powder, the kind sold as “Madras” at most grocery stores. Madras isn’t a strict standard, though, so what one brand sells as Madras can run noticeably hotter or milder than another. Start with a tablespoon, taste your sauce before you add it to the pan, and adjust from there.
Rice noodles. You want the thin dried rice noodles, sold as rice vermicelli, rice stick noodles, or mei fun depending on the brand, and they’re not always labeled consistently even from the same manufacturer. Look for a package of thin, brittle white noodles near the other Asian noodles at any grocery store or Asian market. See below for how to prep them, since that’s where this dish most often goes wrong.
Shaoxing wine. This is the traditional cooking wine here, and it adds a little sweetness and depth you won’t get from the sauce alone. Dry sherry is the closest substitute if you can’t find it, with sake or dry white wine as a further-off backup.
Fish sauce. A small amount rounds out the soy sauce with the savory depth curry powder alone can’t provide. It reads as sharp on its own but disappears into the finished dish, so don’t skip it because it smells strong in the bottle.
Char siu. Traditional char siu, Chinese barbecued pork, is what you’ll find in the dish at most restaurants, and you can buy it pre-made at Chinese markets or make your own with this Instant Pot char siu recipe. Diced ham works in a pinch. For a faster homemade version, marinate thick-cut pork chops in store-bought char siu sauce and grill them, then slice.
Cooking oil. I use avocado oil, but any neutral-flavored, high-smoke-point oil, such as vegetable, canola, or peanut oil, will do. This is high-heat stir-frying, and a lower-smoke-point oil like olive oil will scorch before your noodles brown.
Make It Gluten Free or Vegetarian
Rice noodles are naturally gluten free, so this dish is one of the easier Chinese takeout orders to convert. Swap in gluten-free tamari or coconut aminos for the soy sauce, and double check that your char siu (or its sauce) doesn’t contain wheat, since some versions do.
For a vegetarian version, swap the shrimp for edamame and the char siu for extra tofu or vegetables, and leave out the fish sauce in favor of a little more soy sauce. Skip the egg too if you want it vegan.
How to Prep the Rice Noodles
The number one way to ruin this dish is mushy noodles, and it almost always comes down to timing. Pour boiling water over the dried noodles, set a timer for five minutes, and stop there. Ten minutes is too long, and “soak until they look done” is the wrong instinct entirely. You want them to still have a little resistance when you drain them, not to have gone fully soft in the bowl.
Drain them right away and rinse under cold water to stop the cooking. Then take a pair of kitchen shears to the bundle and cut through it a few times. Shorter strands are much easier to toss in the pan without the whole tangle fighting you, and easier to eat once they’re on the plate. The noodles finish cooking once they hit the hot pan and pick up the sauce, so going in slightly underdone is exactly where you want to be.
How To Make Singapore Rice Noodles
With your noodles soaked, drained, and cut, whisk your sauce together in a small bowl so it’s ready to go, then scramble your eggs in the skillet and set them aside. From there it’s a fast sequence: vegetables first, until they start to soften and brown at the edges, then shrimp until just pink, then your char siu, just long enough to heat through.
Push everything to one side, add the noodles to the empty side of the pan, and let them sit for a minute before tossing so they actually pick up some browning instead of steaming. Pour the sauce over everything, add your eggs back in, and toss until every strand is coated and everything’s heated through. Don’t walk away here. Once the noodles are in the pan, this dish moves fast, and overcooked rice noodles turn gluey in about the time it takes to answer a text.
What To Serve With It
I like starting the meal with a bowl of chicken hot and sour soup or pork and shrimp wonton soup, the way a lot of Chinese restaurants bring soup out before the rest of the order. A cold, crunchy spicy cucumber salad is a good contrast to the warm curry noodles, and it takes about five minutes to throw together while the noodles cook. If you want something a little more substantial on the side without turning on another burner, Vietnamese salad rolls are fresh, don’t compete with the curry, and don’t add any real cook time to the meal.
Singapore Noodles
Robin Donovan
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce see note for gluten-free options
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine see note for substitution options
- 1 tablespoon curry powder
- 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
- 1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 1 10- ounce package dried rice stick noodles
- 3 to 4 tablespoons cooking oil divided
- 2 eggs beaten with 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ cup sliced onion
- ½ cup julienned carrot
- 1 head bok choy quartered lengthwise and sliced
- ½ pound peeled and deveined shrimp
- ½ pound Char Siu or Chinese roast pork sliced (see note for substitution options)
- Kosher salt
- 2 scallions thinly sliced
- 1 cup mung bean sprouts
Instructions
- In a small bowl, stir together the soy sauce, fish sauce, Shaoxing wine, curry powder, sesame oil, white pepper, sugar, and garlic.
- Put the noodles in a large, heat-safe bowl and pour boiling water over the top to cover the noodles. Let stand for 5 minutes, until the noodles are tender. Drain the noodles in a colander and rinse thoroughly with cold water to stop the cooking.
- Heat 1 tablespoon of the cooking oil in a large nonstick skillet or wok set over high heat. Add the eggs and cook, stirring with a spatula, until set, about 2 minutes. Transfer the eggs to a large bowl and chop
into small pieces using the spatula. - Add an additional tablespoon of cooking oil to the skillet. Add the bok choy, carrots, and onion to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender and beginning to brown, about 5 minutes.
- Add another tablespoon of oil if needed and then add the shrimp. Cook, turning the shrimp occasionally, for about 2 minutes, until the shrimp are pink on the outside. Add the pork and cook until heated through,
about 2 minutes more. Season with a pinch of salt and then transfer the meat and veggies to the bowl with the eggs. - Add another tablespoon of cooking oil to the skillet and then add the noodles. Cook, tossing with tongs and breaking up any noodle clumps, until the noodles are heated and begin to brown in parts, about 3
minutes. Add the sauce mixture and cook, tossing, until everything is well mixed. Return the meat and veggies to the skillet and toss to combine well. - Serve hot.
Notes
peppers or pass chile paste or sriracha at the table.
Nutrition
Tasty!!! I am watching my calories so I made a cheat-chicken-char-sui used kelp noodles and only egg whites. Despite all of these reductions it was lovely!
this sauce is soo good! I used mushrooms, peppers, green beans and tofu instead of your meats & veggies and it was amazing!! very easy and so tasty.
This came out delicious and my hubby said it was a keeper. I used sake and rotisserie chicken breast instead of pork. I didn’t have the hot green pepper but my curry was more than hot enough. My only issue was it seemed a little dry? I’ll try making more sauce next time!
The best recipes available online, my favourite!
Do you really expect people to chase down these special ingredients. Also, Air Friers and Instant pots are fads that are dying out as they really don’t do that great replacing all tried and true cooking implements.
Which “special ingredients” are you referring to? All of these ingredients are available in most supermarkets. I do have some dishes with harder to find ingredients on my site, but that is because many of my readers enjoy learning about foods from different parts of the world, discovering new flavors, and trying new cooking techniques. This dish might be new to many, but the ingredients, for the most part, are easy to find in any American supermarket. And I’m not sure what you are saying about instant pots and air fryers (which are still very popular, even if you don’t use them yourself), but this recipe does not use either.