Rice Noodles

Food · Grain · Food, Typed Supps

Almost nothing but starch — and almost nothing else either, which is the point.

Stage by stage

No gluten (The noodle): Structure comes from starch alone, which is why the cooking window is so narrow.
Light (Stomach): 119 calories per 100 g boiled, with no fat at all.
Low protein (Muscle): 2.5 g per 100 g — about a third of wheat noodles, so pair them deliberately.
Neutral (Circulation): Effectively no sodium, no fat, and little of anything else.

Timing

Nothing to time. Pair them with a protein deliberately, because at 2.5 g per 100 g they contribute almost none.

Time to effect

15–30 min: Glycaemic peak.
—: Nothing accumulates.

Allergens

None of the fourteen major allergens. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.

Eating patterns

Fits: Vegan, Vegetarian, Pescatarian, Halal, Kosher, Low-FODMAP, Gluten-free.

Satiety

134 on the satiety index, where white bread is 100 — moderate. Modelled from the Holt et al. (1995) measurements.

Environmental footprint

4.5 kg CO2e and 2248 litres of freshwater per kg, matched to "Rice" in Poore & Nemecek (2018), Science 360.

Cost band

Cheap — roughly £2 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.

Key nutrients

Carbohydrate

Nutrition per 100g

Calories: 119
Protein: 2.5g
Carbohydrate: 26.1g
Fibre: 0.7g
Sodium: 3mg

Food vs. supplement

Rice noodles are one of the few staples with essentially no nutritional character at all. That makes them entirely dependent on what they are served with — which is exactly how the cuisines that use them treat them.

Kitchen tip

Soak them in hot water off the heat where you can. Boiling gives you seconds between right and ruined.

Common myth

“Rice noodles are the healthy noodle — they’re so low in calories.” In reality: They are low in calories and low in everything else: 2.5 g of protein per 100 g against wheat noodles’ three times that, 0.7 g of fibre, and almost no minerals. That is not a criticism — they are a neutral base, and the dish around them does the work. Their real advantage is being naturally gluten-free, which matters a great deal in coeliac disease.