Fideo is a traditional Mexican dish that is delicious and inexpensive to make. It is a noodle dish with a cumin and tomato taste. It is also relatively quick to make.

My version is non-traditional since I use Spam and make the sauce separately.

Step 1: Gather Your Ingredients

Sauce Part
* 4 cups of water
* 4 chicken bouillon cubes of packets (each makes 1 cup bouillon)
* 6 ounce (oz) tomato paste
* 14.5oz can low sodium V8 or vegetable juice cocktail
* 1/2 teaspoon (tsp) salt
* 1/2 tsp pepper
* 3/4+ tsp cumin (can be increased to 1 tsp)

Noodle Part
* 3+ Tablespoons (Tbs) Light Cooking Oil
* 3+ Tbs garlic, minced (jarred or fresh, not dried)
* 1 cup yellow onion, chopped (Vidalia is best)
* 12-oz can of Turkey Spam, cubed
   (substitute: precooked chicken breast, or can be omitted)
* 12 to 16-oz fideo pasta
   (substitutes: fine egg noodles, vermicelli coils, angel hair pasta broken into 1" pieces)

Cooking items
* 2 quart saucepan
* 12" jumbo/deep skillet
   should be able to hold about 3-4 quarts.
   non-stick is best
* cutting board
* sharp knife
* measuring spoons for dry ingredients
* non-stick spatula

Step 2: Make the Sauce

1. Heat 4 cups of water in a saucepan.
2. Add the bouillon cubes or packets and bring to a boil.
3. Add the tomato paste, V-8 vegetable juice cocktail, salt, pepper and cumin.
4. Stir well to ensure all the spices are blended
5. Let the sauce simmer for about a minute or so and then turn off the heat.
6. Keep the saucepan on the burner until you're ready for the sauce.

Step 3: Chop & Sautee the Garlic, Onions and Turkey Spam

1. Chop the onion into 1/4" sized pieces.
2. Cube the spam into 1/2" size pieces.
3. Mince the garlic, if you're not using jarred minced garlic to make roughly 3 tbs.
4. Heat the oil in your skillet (preferably non-stick) over medium to medium high-heat.
5. Add the garlic and sautee for about a minute or less.
* Just enough to make the oil fragrant but don't brown the garlic.
6. Add the onions and spam.
7. Sautee the onions and spam until the onions are soft.

Step 4: Sautee the Fideo Noodles

8. Add your fideo noodles to the skillet.
9. Add more oil if required, just enough to ensure the noodles have some oil on them.
10. Reduce heat to medium.
11. Keep the noodles moving so they don't stick to the pan.
   * You don't need to stir fry, just gently move them at least every 30 seconds or so.
   * Make sure you flip the bottom noodles to the top.
   * Avoid letting them carbonize/burn, a little browning is OK.
   * Sautee the noodles until they become pliable and seem to shrink - see the second picture for a comparison.

Step 5: Add the Sauce, Stir and Simmer for Five Minutes

12. Pour the sauce into your skillet of fideo noodles.
   * You should have enough sauce to just about cover all the noodles.
13. Stir the fideo noodles while they simmer over medium heat for about five minutes.
   * When stirring, gently scrape the bottom of the skillet to keep the noodles from sticking and burning.
   * If you're at the right temperature it will bubble slightly.
14. At the end of five minutes your fideo should look like the last picture in this step (same as the intro).

Serve while still warm.
Makes about 6 - 8 cups?
   * I really have no idea, but three of us get seconds and I still have one or two Gladlock lunch size containers left over usually.

You can keep cooked fideo covered in the refrigerator for about 3-4 days depending on how cold your refrigerator is. In a microwave this takes about 2 minutes to reheat.

You can also freeze it. Not sure how long it will keep. In a microwave, I use "fish" defrost mode and set the weight to about double of my estimate.

Step 6: Variations

Meat
* Replace the Spam with about 1 cup of grilled chicken breast.
* Use precooked chicken nuggets and add them in at the end (don't sautee them like you would the Spam)
* Never used pork, but it might be worth a try.

Vegetables
* Add about 1/2 cup of dried rinsed shitake mushrooms.

My mom's recipe
Does not have meat in it.
Does not use V8.
Does not use tomato paste, instead she uses tomato sauce, not sure how much.
Does not use bouillon as far as I know.
I don't recall tasting cumin in hers, she probably uses less.
I don't recall the garlic in hers, she probably uses less.
Funny thing is, is that her fideo is very tasty.