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Rice Sticks substitute

Best substitute

A different width of rice stick

Use the same amount by dry weight, with the soaking time adjusted as the rice sticks you are replacing

Best for pho and noodle soups

Different texture

The same rice-and-water noodle in another size, which is why most recipes will work with whatever the store stocks.

Other rice sticks substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

Substitutes for Rice Sticks with ratios

  1. 2Fresh rice noodles (ho fun, sen yai)

    Different texture

    Use about 2:1 by weight, 8 oz fresh for every 4 oz dried

    Ribbons cut from freshly steamed sheets of rice batter, sold in refrigerated blocks and ready to use.

    What changes
    Best for
    stir-fried noodles, beef chow fun, pad see ew, noodle soups

    Silkier and softer than any rehydrated dried noodle, and no soaking required, but much more fragile. Cold fresh noodles shatter into fragments because the starch has firmed up in the fridge, so warm the sealed block in the microwave for 30 to 60 seconds until the sheets separate. In the pan, lift and fold with a wide spatula rather than stirring.

  2. 3Rice vermicelli (bun, sen mee)

    Different texture

    Use the same amount by dry weight

    The thread-thin end of the rice noodle family, sold in white bricks or coils.

    What changes
    Best for
    noodle soups, cold noodle bowls, spring roll fillings, noodle salads

    Excellent in a bowl of broth, where the thin strands soak up the soup, and poor in a wok, where they tangle into a nest and go mushy under a wet sauce. Soak in hot water for five minutes or pour boiling water over and stand for three, no boiling. Because they are so fine they absorb liquid fast, so a soup bowl thickens as it sits.

  3. 4Linguine, fettuccine or spaghetti

    Taste and texture differ

    Use the same amount by dry weight

    Flat or round wheat pasta of a comparable width, for when there is no rice noodle in the house.

    What changes
    Best for
    stir-fried noodle dishes, saucy noodle bowls

    Strong and forgiving, which makes it the best pantry stand-in for a stir-fry, and clearly different to eat: firmer, wheatier and sweeter, and it never gets the soft slipperiness of rice. Boil two minutes shy of the package time, rinse cold to strip the starch, and toss with a teaspoon of oil. It is not gluten-free and it goes cloudy and starchy in a clear broth, so keep it out of pho.

  4. 5Glass noodles or sweet potato starch noodles

    Different texture

    Use the same amount by dry weight

    Translucent gluten-free noodles made from mung bean or sweet potato starch.

    What changes
    Best for
    stir-fried noodles, hot pot and soups, gluten-free noodle dishes

    The best gluten-free swap when the dish involves vigorous tossing, because starch noodles are far tougher than rice noodles and refuse to fall apart. They are springy and bouncy instead of soft and chewy, so the dish reads as Korean or Chinese rather than Thai or Vietnamese, and they absorb broth greedily, which can leave a soup looking short of liquid. Soak 10 to 20 minutes in warm water.

  5. 6Shirataki or kelp noodles (low-carb)

    Taste and texture differ

    Use 1 package (7 oz) for every 2 oz dried rice sticks

    Near calorie-free konjac or kelp noodles, already hydrated and packed in liquid.

    What changes
    Best for
    low-carb noodle soups, low-carb stir-fries

    Honest assessment: right transparency, wrong everything else. They are rubbery rather than chewy, they contain no starch so sauce slides off instead of clinging, and they never soften or absorb broth. Rinse them well for a minute, dry-fry them in a hot pan for five minutes to drive off water, and thicken the sauce slightly. Good for the carbohydrate maths, not a like-for-like noodle.

What is Rice Sticks?

Rice Sticks is a dried flat noodle made from rice flour and water alone, sold in widths from thread-thin to almost half an inch and labeled rice stick noodles, banh pho, bun gao or sen lek depending on the brand, and it contributes chew and slipperiness rather than any flavor of its own.

Cooking tips

  • Soak rather than boil for anything that finishes in a pan. Warm tap water and patience gives you a noodle that bends without snapping but still has an opaque core, which then cooks through in the sauce. Boiling rice sticks cooks them fully, and a fully cooked rice noodle disintegrates the instant it is stirred into a hot wet pan.
  • For soup, do the opposite: dunk the soaked noodles in boiling water in a strainer for 10 to 20 seconds, lift, shake and drop them straight into the bowl before ladling the broth over. Cooking noodles in the broth itself sheds starch and turns a clear pho broth cloudy and slightly gluey.
  • Rinse and oil. A quick cold rinse after soaking removes loose surface starch, and a teaspoon of neutral oil tossed through the drained noodles keeps them from fusing into one solid block while you prepare everything else. Rice noodles glue themselves together faster than any wheat pasta.
  • Work out the width you actually need before you buy: thin 1 to 3mm sticks for pho and brothy soups, medium 5mm for pad thai, and wide 10mm for pad see ew and beef chow fun. Packages often use S, M and L codes with no other clue, and the wrong width is the most common reason a home version feels off even when the seasoning is right.
  • Dried rice sticks keep for a year or more in the pantry but grow brittle with age, so old noodles snap into short pieces during soaking. Store them flat in the sealed sleeve, and if a package has been open for months, expect shorter strands and soak them a few minutes longer.

Frequently asked questions

Are rice sticks the same as rice noodles or rice vermicelli?

Rice sticks are a type of rice noodle, specifically the flat dried kind, in widths from about 1mm up to 10mm. Rice vermicelli is the very thin round or thread-like version, sold in bricks and used in soups, salads and spring rolls. Both are just rice flour and water, so they substitute for each other with a change of soaking time, but a flat stick holds sauce and survives stir-frying far better than a thread.

Which size rice stick do I need for pho, pad thai or chow fun?

For pho, thin 1 to 3mm sticks, sometimes labeled banh pho S, because they soak up broth and stay tender. For pad thai, medium 5mm. For pad see ew, drunken noodles or beef chow fun, wide 10mm, which is the closest dried equivalent to fresh ho fun. If the store has only one width, use it: the flavor is identical and the only real difference is soaking time and mouthfeel.

Do I boil rice sticks or soak them?

Soak them if they are going into a stir-fry, in warm tap water until pliable but still opaque inside, which takes anywhere from 10 minutes for thin sticks to an hour for wide ones. Only boil them, and briefly, if they are going straight into a bowl of soup. The single biggest cause of mushy home noodle dishes is fully boiling rice sticks and then cooking them again in the pan.

Are rice sticks gluten-free?

Pure rice sticks are made from rice flour and water, so yes, and they are one of the most useful gluten-free noodles there is. Check the ingredient list anyway, because a few brands blend in cornstarch or tapioca starch, which is fine, and a very small number of Asian noodle products add wheat starch, which is not. Cross-contamination warnings are also worth reading if you are cooking for coeliac disease.

Can I substitute pasta for rice sticks?

For a stir-fry, yes: linguine or fettuccine boiled two minutes shy, rinsed cold and oiled will carry an Asian sauce well, though it tastes of wheat and stays firmer than rice. For a clear soup like pho, avoid it, because pasta leaks starch into the broth and turns it cloudy and thick. And if the reason you needed rice sticks is gluten, pasta is obviously no help; use glass noodles instead.

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