When I was a kid, I would always be so hungry after school. For the longest time, my favourite after-school snack would be ramen—I used to love beef-flavoured broth, and I’d always chop up some green onions to sprinkle over the noodles after they finished cooking. I’d only have it once a week, but it was so delicious that I wished I could eat it every day. Now, I still love ramen, and the kids in my life do too, but for such a rare and special treat, we try to dress up the noodles to make them even more delicious.
The easiest way to change your ramen up is by replacing the flavour packet that usually comes with your block of noodles. You can mix different sauces together or use actual beef or chicken stock, or you can mix in a spoon of miso paste instead. I love yellow miso paste in my ramen, it gives the soup such an earthy flavour that you can’t replicate with MSG.
In university, to try and add some more nutrients to my otherwise unhealthy bowl of ramen, I’d throw in a handful of frozen vegetables a few minutes before everything was done cooking. If I felt like microwaving things instead, or using boiled water poured straight on the water, I just put the frozen vegetables in the bowl before pouring the water in. I also like adding bean sprouts, tinned corn, and leafy vegetables to the broth just before it’s done cooking.
Adding protein to meals is very important, and you can do that to ramen by adding eggs, fish cakes, or whatever else you have on hand. You can fry or scramble an egg to eat with your ramen, or if you really don’t feel like cooking anything, just boil a hot dog and slice it up. It sounds a bit weird, but hot dogs in ramen taste really good!
