Cellophane Noodles

Cellophane noodles; I am sure you must have had them a couple or more times but wouldn't be acquainted with their name as such. True, coz we never really bother about the type of noodles we consume, if you are a hardcore Chinese food lover like me! So, cellophane noodles are a type of noodles rather healthy noodles, not made of rice and wheat, but starch and water. They have been popularly known by various names like Chinese vermicelli, bean threads, bean thread noodles, crystal noodles, and glass noodles and are characterized by thin and translucent texture. Opaque and white, these come to be transparent and crystal-like after cooking. As I mentioned, these are made of starch, essentially mung bean starch and thus healthy.

Nutritional Facts

The details of the nutritional facts would help you understand how healthy these noodles are. So go through the table given below followed by a brief description on each.

serving size = 140 grams (1 cup)

Nutritional Content	Nutritional Values
Total Carbohydrate	121 grams
Dietary Fiber	1 gram
Sodium	14 milligrams
Calcium	3%
Iron	17%
Total Calories	491

• First of all, as I mentioned, these are starch-made and hence have high carbohydrate content naturally. You can see that from the table itself. In fact, there are no fats and proteins in these noodles. Having said this, let me tell you that these are absolutely gluten-free and hence can be included in the diets of people suffering from wheat intolerance and allergies. Gluten is many times difficult to digest and thus cellophane noodles is certainly a gluten-free diet food.
• As far as the minerals are concerned, you can see that cellophane noodles have specified amounts of sodium and calcium. Their use? Well, sodium helps keep ionic balance in the body and calcium, as we all know, helps strengthening the bones and teeth.
• Next comes iron. Cellophane noodles are high on iron content and thus a good choice to increase the hemoglobin content as well as keep it to optimum levels.
• Last, the calories come from the carbohydrates itself. The bottom line is, these are healthy for consumption and a good replacement for the conventional noodles.

Now that you know the nutritional value of cellophane noodles, let us see how to make them. You get these in the supermarket very easily. What you need to do is cook them properly and later use them. How? Let us see.

How to Cook Cellophane Noodles?

Ingredients

• 1 packet of cellophane noodles
• 4 cups hot water
• 4 cups cold water

Procedure
Well, the procedure is extremely simple. What you need to do is buy the noodles and soak them in hot water for around 20 minutes. Make sure you don't boil the water. Soaking them in water allows them to loosen as well as become soft. Now, boil them for about 1 or 2 minutes. Meanwhile, have cold water ready with you. Drain the noodles with cold water and there you are; ready with the noodles! You can use them in the recipe of your choice, however, these are commonly used in chicken noodle soup.

This was all about the cellophane noodles and their nutritional info. These noodles are extremely easy to cook so do try them out. If you want, you can deep-fry them as well for making other Chinese noodle recipes however, the calorie intake would increase drastically, here.