Upgrade Your College Ramen into a Delicious Meal with 4 Easy Tips

Making the Best Tasting Ramen

I wanted to make ramen tasty just like the ones I would get in restaurants. Ramen has very little nutritional value unless you add things to it. The beauty of ramen is that you can pretty much add any leftovers you had from the previous day into the ramen and it will taste good! The main staple that I always like to include in my ramen is a green vegetable and a meat (usually pork of some kind, but chicken works well too). Ramen doesn’t take too many kitchen appliances, which is another benefit!

Four Steps to Upgrade Your Ramen

Ramen is pretty easy to make. Simply boil a pot of ramen noodles, add the sauce base, and you’re done! But here, I wanted to show you the four steps I use to make ramen taste a lot better!

Step 1: Buy the Refrigerated Ramen Noodles

This first step can be a little tricky since you may need to seek out an Asian market in order to find these “fresher” noodles. I prefer these noodles to the dried ones. The refrigerated ones have a lot more depth in flavor and texture. And the sauce base is usually a lot better. Another great thing is that you can freeze these ramen packets and keep them forever. If you can’t find these noodles anywhere, the dried ones will do.

I usually go with the “Shoyu” soup base (soy sauce soup base), the “Tonkotsu” soup base (pork soup base) or “Tan Tan” soup base (spicy sesame flavored soup base).

Step 2: Garnish your Ramen with Green Vegetables

Add some green vegetables and nutrition to your ramen. I personally love baby bok choy (very crispy with a suttle green taste). You can add almost any green vegetable. I sometimes add leftover broccoli or spinach. The trick is to cut the vegetables up very small so it is easy to eat with the ramen. I chop my baby bok choy diagonally and stir fry it while the noodles are cooking.In addition, I also add green onion to my ramen. The vegetables also add some needed color to the ramen.

Step 3: Add Some Protein to the Ramen

This is where you can add a lot of substance to your ramen. I personally like to add pork to ramen (as pork goes incredibly well with most ramen soup bases). In the asian market, I usually find a smoked pork belly, smoked pork loin, or simply smoked ham (that is already cooked). If you are opposed to using pork, you can also add leftover chicken or even a hard boild egg. Make sure to cut the meat into thin slices so that you can easily eat it with your ramen! The nice thing about purchasing meat that is already cooked is that you just add the meat to the ramen in the end (the hot soup base will warm up your protein).

Step 4: Boil your Soup Base Separately

In order to get a really clean and clear soup base, it is important to boil the water for your soup separately. This is because the noodles have a film on them that gets into the water. I personally don’t like to use that same water that I boiled the noodles in as my soup broth. After the noodles are done cooking, I strain them, run cold water over the noodles (to get rid of that scum and to stop the cooking process), shake off the water, and then add it to my soup base. This is an extra step, but it definitely makes the ramen more presentable and “clean” tasting.

Deluxe Ramen Upgrade Complete

This is the grownups’ ramen. Enjoy your deluxe upgraded ramen perfectly suited for your life after college! Personally, I like to add a spicy Shichimi ramen pepper to add a kick.