Survival Sunday 203: Improving Instant Noodles

One of the things I've done on here more often than anything else, I think, is dressing up instant noodles. Here are a few ways Z & I have spruced up instant noodles (like the little square bricks of ramen you can pick up at the supermarket!).

This was a fairly plain ramen that we added a lot to!

One of the things you can do with ramen is dress it up. This bowl only came with some powdered ramen soup base and the noodles. We added some chicken bacon (delicious), frozen corn, scallions, an egg, and then some store-bought gyoza on top! First, I boiled water on the stove, then I added the corn & bacon to cook into the ramen. Next came the scallions, which Z cut into nice, big, grabbable pieces. Then I added the noodles & floated the egg on top of them, where the water cooked the egg perfectly. I believe we also seasoned this (honestly fairly bland) soup base with some curry powder, garlic powder, ramen pepper, and soy sauce!

This and some pepper were the whole of the ingredients in the next dish.

It was some sort of a red miso soup. I did my best to eyeball things, but...
It would very much behoove you to get a ml measuring cup when you're dealing with products from other countries.
It turns out that 3 servings of this soup base plus the udon needed maybe 5 cups of water instead of the 4 or so I used?

I say this because that soup? It's the consistency of gravy.
And it's incredible.
On second thought, just use the 4 cups if you find this product.
The thicker, richer texture is perfect with a mass of udon and an egg!

You may have noticed at this point that we add eggs to most of our ramen. The reason for this is twofold: 1) we saw people doing this in videos of ramen shops in Japan, and 2) I really like eggs.

Obviously, if you can't or don't eat eggs, you can add whatever you like to ramen! Before I added eggs, I would sometimes add torn up slices of deli chicken or any other lunchmeat we had in the fridge. Had I had more tofu growing up, that would've been my go-to, I think. You can also add different sauces and seasonings to ramen to completely change the flavor. If you don't have much of a budget, just grab a couple packets of red pepper flakes next time you're at a Pizza Hut - they go great in cheapo ramen and help boost the flavor while knocking off some of the salt content.

Soy sauce, sriracha, and even mustard can really change a dish - try weird things. The best part is that most grocery store ramen costs less than a dollar a brick, so even if you botch it, hopefully it won't put you too far into the red.

My mother does something else with ramen - she doesn't use the flavor packets from the ramen she buys. Instead, she adds pre-made alfredo sauce or tomato sauce to hers and has a cheap lunch between jobs. I legitimately enjoy the flavor packets (well, after amendments are made, like dumping half the spice cupboard in there...), so that's not really my style.

What do you guys like to do with your cheapo ramen? Do you have anything special you add to it? Have you tried turning it into yakisoba? (I am actually planning on trying that some time...) Let me know in the comments, eh?

Go Enjoy Something!
FC