Peanut Butter Mole Ramen
Peanuts have been in Mexican mole since long before peanut butter existed as a product, which means this recipe is either a historical shortcut or a logical evolution depending on your perspective. Mole negro traditionally uses multiple dried chilies, chocolate, nuts, and spices in a preparation that takes most of a day. This version uses peanut butter as the fat-and-nut base and ancho chili as the dried chili, and it takes twenty-five minutes and tastes like a mole that has been simplified by someone who understood what they were giving up and decided the trade was worth it. Served cold over ramen, it occupies the same space as the Chocolate Chili Ramen bowl from earlier in this collection, but nuttier and savory rather than sweet.
Peanut and ancho—mole doesn't argue much—cold pulls them together
Let Me Tell You...
The case for peanut butter in a mole sauce is essentially this: traditional mole negro uses peanuts, sesame seeds, and other nuts to build body and fat into the sauce, and peanut butter is all of those things already ground together.
It's not a substitution so much as a compression.
You lose some of the roasted complexity that comes from toasting raw peanuts yourself, but you gain twenty minutes and a sauce that's smooth from the first minute rather than after fifteen minutes of blending.
Whether that trade is worth making is between you and whatever day of the week it is.
Conventional peanut butter is sweeter and the mole will taste like a dessert sauce rather than a savory one.
The ancho chili does the work that a full mole's battery of dried chilies would do in a condensed form.
Rehydrate it, blend it smooth, strain it, and add it to the peanut butter base in the right ratio and the result has the specific dried-fruit-and-chocolate undertone that identifies something as mole rather than just peanut sauce with chili in it.
The distinction matters.
The cinnamon confirms it.
Mexican cinnamon, Ceylon cinnamon, is sweeter and less pungent than the cassia variety sold in most North American grocery stores.
If you can find it, use it.
A little goes a long way but it's the spice that most clearly signals "Mexican chocolate sauce" to the palate.
Served cold over ramen noodles, this sauce works like a cold peanut noodle dish in the Chinese tradition, except with a Mexican flavor profile, which is the kind of confluence that food makes possible when it's not asked to explain itself.
The bowl is vegan, requires no cooking beyond boiling noodles and rehydrating chilies, and is the fastest complex-flavored bowl in this collection.
Thin it with a tablespoon of warm water at a time until it pours smoothly.
Don't over-thin or it won't coat the noodles.
Someone will ask what this is and you'll say mole ramen and that will be both accurate and insufficient.
Ingredients
- 8 ounces dried ramen noodles (2 bricks, seasoning packets discarded)
- 1/2 cup natural creamy peanut butter (no added sugar)
- 2 dried ancho chilies, stems and seeds removed
- 3/4 cup hot water (for rehydrating chilies)
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
- 1 tablespoon neutral oil
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon honey or agave
- 1 small clove garlic, grated
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (preferably Mexican canela)
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
- Pinch of cayenne pepper
- 1/4 cup warm water (to thin sauce)
- 1 teaspoon neutral oil (for noodles)
- 2 tablespoons toasted peanuts, roughly chopped (for serving)
Preparation
- Toast dried ancho chilies in a dry skillet over medium heat for 30 seconds per side. Transfer to a bowl and cover with 3/4 cup hot water. Soak 15 minutes until softened. Reserve 1/4 cup soaking liquid.
- Blend rehydrated chilies with reserved soaking liquid until completely smooth. Strain through a fine mesh sieve. Set aside.
- Whisk together peanut butter, 3 tablespoons strained ancho puree, soy sauce, rice vinegar, neutral oil, sesame oil, honey, garlic, cinnamon, cumin, and cayenne in a bowl until smooth. Add warm water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the sauce pours easily. Taste and adjust salt and heat.
- Cook ramen noodles in boiling salted water for 2-3 minutes until just tender. Drain and rinse under cold water until completely cool. Toss with 1 teaspoon neutral oil.
- Divide cold noodles between serving bowls. Pour peanut butter mole sauce over the noodles and toss to coat. Top with chopped toasted peanuts and optional toppings. Serve immediately.