This 4-Ingredient Retro Dessert Deserves a Big Comeback

If only noodles were dessert. That’s perhaps how some enterprising cook felt when they came up with Yankee Noodle Dandies, a classic no-bake cookie featuring—wait for it—fried chow mein noodles.

These clever and charming sweets are the only other way I know to use chow mein noodles besides chicken salad. Despite the possible implications of the name, Yankee Noodle Dandies aren’t a colonial-era pasta dish. All you do is melt chocolate and butterscotch chips together, mix in chow mein noodles and nuts, drop them on baking sheets, and chill them until set. Just four ingredients!

The Hazy Origins of Chow Mein Cookies

Spotting a retro-tastic recipe from an old La Choy chow mein noodle ad inspired me to make Yankee Noodle Dandies. Do you remember when magazines had ads with recipes? Heck, do you remember magazines?

I wouldn’t be surprised if the development kitchens of La Choy were the originators of the recipe, but I’ve seen it plenty of times over the years while browsing recipe cards, community cookbooks, and newspaper clippings. The cookies have many aliases: Yankee Doodle Noodles, Yankee Doodlers, Haystacks, and (my favorite) Brush Piles.

The recipe was also in the very first cookbook I owned, Kids Cook Microwave, as Chocolate-Peanut Haystacks, and of course that’s where I first discovered it. Little me yearned to make them, but I didn’t have the guts to ask my mom to buy the ingredients.

Maybe your family made these, or you still make them every year over the holidays. I figured it was about time for me to take the plunge, too.

How To Make Yankee Noodle Dandies

This recipe is so easy a kid could make it. If so, the hard part will be you cleaning up afterwards.

Line two sheet pans with parchment or waxed paper and set aside.

In a large heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, melt one cup each butterscotch and semi-sweet chocolate chips and stir until smooth. Stir in 1/2 cup chopped peanuts (I like salted), followed by one six-ounce bag or can of chow mein noodles.

Once the chow mein noodles are in, it takes a lot of stirring to get them evenly coated. Use your biggest spatula!

Next, use two spoons to drop the mixture on the lined baking sheets. The recipe says to drop “by teaspoonfuls,” but that was impossible. I just had to go with random blobs—their chaotic shape is part of their charm. The original recipe says it makes 36, but I only got 21.

Refrigerate the baking sheets until the “cookies” are firm. Keep them in the refrigerator, tightly covered, for up to one week.

These Treats Are Absolutely Worth the Wait

Verdict: It’s no wonder that families have made these for generations. Appealingly crunchy from the chow mein noodles, they’re more akin to candy than cookies (sort of like chocolate-covered pretzels). Each bite was a different texture adventure because the lattice of noodles had infinite variations.

Making Yankee Noodle Dandies made me feel like a kid again. Messy stacks of noodles were all over the baking sheets, refusing to form tidy rows. After a couple attempts I embraced the disorder ... and had a blast!

I used to work in a chocolate factory and in the past would have tempered my chocolate so the finished cookies could sit out at room temperature and not bloom or melt. Melting the chips freestyle felt so easygoing! So this is how the other half lives, I thought.

If I made these again, I’d skip the butterscotch chips and use two cups (or one 12-ounce bag) of chocolate chips, either semi-sweet or milk. Butterscotch chips, to me, confuse the purity of the chocolate (no offense, butterscotch). Also, I’d only chop the peanuts roughly, as the finely chopped peanuts that I used got lost among the crunchy thickets of noodles.

Variations on Yankee Noodle Dandies

Many variations on this recipe exist, and you can easily dream up your own. Here are some ideas:

• Swap the butterscotch chips for peanut butter chips
• Swap all of the chips for white chocolate chips
• Make a Gianduja version by substituting six tablespoons of Nutella for the butterscotch chips
• Use any toasted, finely chopped nut: try almonds, pecans, hazelnuts, or cashews