The secret to Cook Dried Rice Stick Noodles (Banh Pho) perfectly

Hi everyone,

In the last post, I already shared with you guys my recipe to make your own herb mixture to cook Pho, which I think it would be really useful if you don’t live in a place that have an Asian market or you might not be able to find a pre-mixed package. Today I would like to walk you further to perfect your own Pho by sharing my top secret to make your Pho noodles always taste best.

Pho noodles actually are flat noodles that are made mainly from rice flour or they usually call rice noodles or rice stick noodles. However, it is different from from Bun, which is also a type of rice noodles, yet, it is also made from rice, which is the main ingredients of most of our food. You can imagine rice flour in Vietnamese cuisine is so common as your wheat flour in Western cuisine. If you have ever been able to taste fresh Pho in Vietnam, you would notice the difference in the those called “rice noodles”. But here in the US, it’s not that easy to find fresh Pho noodles. If your Asian market has one call “Banh Pho Tuoi”, meaning “Fresh Pho Noodles”, congratulation! It would be easy for you to buy that and poach them in a hot water and there you have it, something is quite similar to “fresh Pho noodles”! However, I would say the fresh Pho Noodles that you can buy from the US is more like Pho from Thailand. I would really want to try to make fresh Pho noodles but I think it will more like a treat for me. Cooking Pho noodles from a dry package is the most convenient way for me right now.

This is “Bánh Phở Tươi” – Fresh Pho Noodles that you might find at your local asian market (Source: Google Image)

Today I would like to just focus on what I usually have, a package of dried rice noodles. To me it would be more convenient to have some packages of dried rice noodles on hand so I could pull those out and eat at anytime. But how to cook them perfectly was always my question long ago. After a hard work of making Pho broth, we would want to enjoy Pho but you might overcook or undercook the dried rice stick noodles, which could ruin your bowl of Pho.

There are a lot of brands that offer the dried rice stick noodles (Banh Pho) and most of them are from Thailand because I find that we share a lot of cooking ingredients with Thai people. These noodles could be used to cook Pad Thai or other kinds of Thai soup noodles. Therefore, I learn the secret from Thai people to soak the noodles in warm water before they stir-fry them so the noodles are still chewy, but not mushy. I tried to apply this method to cook the noodles for Pho and the result was amazing and I got the Pho noodles perfectly cooked all the time.

• This is the package of rice stick noodles that I usually have. They are size S and have net weight of 1 lb. I usually cook the whole bag for 4-6 bowls.
  

  1 package of Dried Rice Stick Noodles (Banh Pho – Pho Noodles)

• These are how the dried rice stick noodles look like when we first open the package. Instead of dump them in a hot boiling water pot to cook them immediately, soak them in warm water for 30-45 minutes or cold water for 1 – 1.5 hours.
  

  Soak the rice stick noodles in warm water for 30-45 mins or cold water in 1 – 1.5 hours

• This picture shows you the difference between the rice stick noodles before and after being soaked in water. The noodles start looking soft and white.
  

  The noodles look soft and white after being soaked in water

• Fill a big pot with water, bring it in to boil then add the soaked noodles into the pot. Stir and simmer for 1 minutes or until the noodles are soft, and chewy. This step is more like poaching the noodles so please don’t overcook the noodles.
  

  Poach the soaked noodles in the boiling water for 1 minute

• Pour all the noodles out into a colander and rinse the noodles in cold water to stop the cooking process. Let them sit there until dry a little bit.
  

  Rinse the noodles in cold water

• The Pho noodles should be heat up before serving. I usually put some in a bowl and put it in the microwave for 1 minute.
  

  The hot bowl of Pho would be perfect with the chewy and soft noodles :)

In Vietnam, we usually poach the noodles for each bowl before serving to make sure everything is really hot. You could do that too with the noodles that have been soaked in the water. However, I find that it might be more convenient to cook the whole patch of Pho noodles and use microwave to heat up again in each bowl before serving.

So there you have it, my secret to make a dried package of noodles become alive ;) I hope you could enjoy the noodles like the fresh one. Please give it a try to complete the art of cooking Pho.