Ideas for very simple improvements to instant noodles?
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I pretty frequently eat Shin Ramyun noodles when I want a lazy meal, but apart from having absolutely nothing healthy in it, it also gets bland over time.
I’ve started cutting some spring onion and cracking an egg into it at the start, letting the egg get hard and the onion soft, in the boiling water with the noodles themselves. Do any of you have ideas to improve it further without much effort? I’d like to keep cooking times, including the ~5 minutes for the noodles themselves below 10 minutes total.
Here are things I sometimes add to my instant ramen:
While cooking:
- Frozen peas or frozen corn
- Fresh seasonal veggies
- Dried mushrooms (rinse them first)
Before serving:
- Deli meat
- Sliced fish cake. Our local Asian store sells fresh and frozen and they both last a long time unopened.
- Chili crisp
- Nori
I also make pork belly specifically for ramen. I rub it with salt and sugar, roast it, slice it into strips and freeze it in small packs so I have it handy. It cooks up pretty quickly in a frying pan. You can put it in while cooking the noodles if you don’t want to get a pan dirty but it’s not quite as tasty.
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I pretty frequently eat Shin Ramyun noodles when I want a lazy meal, but apart from having absolutely nothing healthy in it, it also gets bland over time.
I’ve started cutting some spring onion and cracking an egg into it at the start, letting the egg get hard and the onion soft, in the boiling water with the noodles themselves. Do any of you have ideas to improve it further without much effort? I’d like to keep cooking times, including the ~5 minutes for the noodles themselves below 10 minutes total.
Pork floss.
Egg.
Veg.
Mushrooms.
All of those are available in shelf stable dehydrated version and it only takes a little bit to livein up a bag of ramen. -
I pretty frequently eat Shin Ramyun noodles when I want a lazy meal, but apart from having absolutely nothing healthy in it, it also gets bland over time.
I’ve started cutting some spring onion and cracking an egg into it at the start, letting the egg get hard and the onion soft, in the boiling water with the noodles themselves. Do any of you have ideas to improve it further without much effort? I’d like to keep cooking times, including the ~5 minutes for the noodles themselves below 10 minutes total.
I do frozen vegetables, shredded chicken, and bring it to a boil. Once I add noodles, wait 1 min, crack in an egg, and cook for the 2 more min. It makes a nice runny yolk that turns saucy when you tear into it.
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If you want it creamier, add something fatty. Milk, butter, peanut butter, sesame paste. Not a lot. Just a dash. A small slice of butter. Different chili oils. Primarily the bits in the oil rather than much of the oil itself. Buy fried shallots. Baby bok choy makes it a little sweeter. A bit of napa cabbage adds some good flavor. Tubes of tomato paste freeze well, squeeze some in
Throw in something a bit acidic. Lime or vinegar. A fermented or picked vegetable. Kimchi, som pak, something. A little tamarind paste can add a kick to it. Frozen dumplings. Thai basil. Shichimi togarashi. Five spice. Curry powder.
Back to the peanut butter, I always have powdered peanut butter for low calorie peanut butter flavor. Try a dash of soy sauce or fish sauce into it. Cayenne and/paprika powder.
If you have whole spices on hand, it doesn’t take long for coriander seeds, fennel, star anise, cardamom, etc to add flavor to a broth.
A really good way to thicken your ramen is to mix a raw egg with about a tablespoon of mayo. Put this in the bottom of the bowl before pouring in the noodles and broth. It’ll mix in and create a more creamy, silky broth.
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I pretty frequently eat Shin Ramyun noodles when I want a lazy meal, but apart from having absolutely nothing healthy in it, it also gets bland over time.
I’ve started cutting some spring onion and cracking an egg into it at the start, letting the egg get hard and the onion soft, in the boiling water with the noodles themselves. Do any of you have ideas to improve it further without much effort? I’d like to keep cooking times, including the ~5 minutes for the noodles themselves below 10 minutes total.
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I pretty frequently eat Shin Ramyun noodles when I want a lazy meal, but apart from having absolutely nothing healthy in it, it also gets bland over time.
I’ve started cutting some spring onion and cracking an egg into it at the start, letting the egg get hard and the onion soft, in the boiling water with the noodles themselves. Do any of you have ideas to improve it further without much effort? I’d like to keep cooking times, including the ~5 minutes for the noodles themselves below 10 minutes total.
I add frozen mixed veggies and salmon. Its quite nice in the shin ramyun soup and adds very little extra prep.
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He said cheese, not Chinese!
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I pretty frequently eat Shin Ramyun noodles when I want a lazy meal, but apart from having absolutely nothing healthy in it, it also gets bland over time.
I’ve started cutting some spring onion and cracking an egg into it at the start, letting the egg get hard and the onion soft, in the boiling water with the noodles themselves. Do any of you have ideas to improve it further without much effort? I’d like to keep cooking times, including the ~5 minutes for the noodles themselves below 10 minutes total.
- Chopped green onion or chives
- Hard boiled egg
- Kale or another green (arugula would probably be good)
- Some fresh basil
- Sliced jalapeno or sweet peppers
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I pretty frequently eat Shin Ramyun noodles when I want a lazy meal, but apart from having absolutely nothing healthy in it, it also gets bland over time.
I’ve started cutting some spring onion and cracking an egg into it at the start, letting the egg get hard and the onion soft, in the boiling water with the noodles themselves. Do any of you have ideas to improve it further without much effort? I’d like to keep cooking times, including the ~5 minutes for the noodles themselves below 10 minutes total.
Most straightforward path from a health standpoint is switching from refined forms of noodles to whole grain noodles. I’ve never been able to find whole grain pre-formulated instant noodle brands that I like, so I just get plain noodles and flavorings separately.
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I pretty frequently eat Shin Ramyun noodles when I want a lazy meal, but apart from having absolutely nothing healthy in it, it also gets bland over time.
I’ve started cutting some spring onion and cracking an egg into it at the start, letting the egg get hard and the onion soft, in the boiling water with the noodles themselves. Do any of you have ideas to improve it further without much effort? I’d like to keep cooking times, including the ~5 minutes for the noodles themselves below 10 minutes total.
Also since no one else suggested it yet, tofu is always a great option for easy protein. And albeit unorthodox in instant noodles, I’ve found beans to be a perfectly fine addition.
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I pretty frequently eat Shin Ramyun noodles when I want a lazy meal, but apart from having absolutely nothing healthy in it, it also gets bland over time.
I’ve started cutting some spring onion and cracking an egg into it at the start, letting the egg get hard and the onion soft, in the boiling water with the noodles themselves. Do any of you have ideas to improve it further without much effort? I’d like to keep cooking times, including the ~5 minutes for the noodles themselves below 10 minutes total.
All these healthy options here, if you want to go the OTHER way and put on some calories, you can drain the broth, add in a bunch of cheese (melty stuff, not stringy), meats, jalapenos, red peppers, and such. Teriyaki sauce is good, taijin spice is delicious. Garlic and onion powder of course standard. Alfredo sauce and canned chicken. Can throw in some butter and Parmesan with some hot sauce. Really, so many ways to make it even MORE unhealthy with minimal effort if you just put your mind to it.
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I pretty frequently eat Shin Ramyun noodles when I want a lazy meal, but apart from having absolutely nothing healthy in it, it also gets bland over time.
I’ve started cutting some spring onion and cracking an egg into it at the start, letting the egg get hard and the onion soft, in the boiling water with the noodles themselves. Do any of you have ideas to improve it further without much effort? I’d like to keep cooking times, including the ~5 minutes for the noodles themselves below 10 minutes total.
Not healthy, but I love doing diced, pan seared spam in a teriyaki/garlic glaze. Sub spam for really any protein too.
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I pretty frequently eat Shin Ramyun noodles when I want a lazy meal, but apart from having absolutely nothing healthy in it, it also gets bland over time.
I’ve started cutting some spring onion and cracking an egg into it at the start, letting the egg get hard and the onion soft, in the boiling water with the noodles themselves. Do any of you have ideas to improve it further without much effort? I’d like to keep cooking times, including the ~5 minutes for the noodles themselves below 10 minutes total.
Apart from the already mentioned veggies like frozen peas and bellpepper. I often fry up a slice of ham or blood pudding, then slice it into strips to put on top of my ramen. For seasoning I put some oystersauce, soysauce and oil (the healthier the better, I use camelina oil but I realise it’s hardly available everywhere) with some spices in the bottom of the bowl and mix together before the noodles go in. Maybe some chili flakes sprinkled over?
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I pretty frequently eat Shin Ramyun noodles when I want a lazy meal, but apart from having absolutely nothing healthy in it, it also gets bland over time.
I’ve started cutting some spring onion and cracking an egg into it at the start, letting the egg get hard and the onion soft, in the boiling water with the noodles themselves. Do any of you have ideas to improve it further without much effort? I’d like to keep cooking times, including the ~5 minutes for the noodles themselves below 10 minutes total.
using a silicon ice cube maker- saute a 2:2:1 ratio by volume mix of very finely sliced garlic, shallot and ginger. add equal amount of that finely sliced spring onion after they get fragrant and saute till those are wilted. spoon into the ice cube maker and tamp down until packed tight, freeze them and use them one cube at a time with ramen.
you can freeze any prepared combo of stuff this way and put them in the ramen later. garlic-onion-mushroom-black pepper and add soy sauce while cooking for black pepper noodles, for example.
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I pretty frequently eat Shin Ramyun noodles when I want a lazy meal, but apart from having absolutely nothing healthy in it, it also gets bland over time.
I’ve started cutting some spring onion and cracking an egg into it at the start, letting the egg get hard and the onion soft, in the boiling water with the noodles themselves. Do any of you have ideas to improve it further without much effort? I’d like to keep cooking times, including the ~5 minutes for the noodles themselves below 10 minutes total.
Eat at a ramen shop sometime. You’ll get a lot of good ideas.
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He said cheese, not Chinese!
Lol I was half asleep when I read that ngl
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I pretty frequently eat Shin Ramyun noodles when I want a lazy meal, but apart from having absolutely nothing healthy in it, it also gets bland over time.
I’ve started cutting some spring onion and cracking an egg into it at the start, letting the egg get hard and the onion soft, in the boiling water with the noodles themselves. Do any of you have ideas to improve it further without much effort? I’d like to keep cooking times, including the ~5 minutes for the noodles themselves below 10 minutes total.
I usually microwave steam some veggies, like broccoli & cauliflower. And then I take some canned green beans, and slice up a few white mushrooms, drop those in a huge bowl, cover with a little soy sauce, microwave for 30 seconds. Dump the drained steamed veggies in the larger bowl. Then when the ramen is done cooking, and I never use the sauce packet, but you can, I drain all the water. Dump the dry noodles into the large bowl and cover with Sriracha, and sometimes a small drip of toasted sesame oil. Mix well and eat.
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I pretty frequently eat Shin Ramyun noodles when I want a lazy meal, but apart from having absolutely nothing healthy in it, it also gets bland over time.
I’ve started cutting some spring onion and cracking an egg into it at the start, letting the egg get hard and the onion soft, in the boiling water with the noodles themselves. Do any of you have ideas to improve it further without much effort? I’d like to keep cooking times, including the ~5 minutes for the noodles themselves below 10 minutes total.
I add a raw egg and chopped green onions after cooking and draining. My partner adds mayo, mustard, and Sriracha after cooking and draining. I use to add a tiny dab of anchovy paste, but can’t get that where I live now.
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I pretty frequently eat Shin Ramyun noodles when I want a lazy meal, but apart from having absolutely nothing healthy in it, it also gets bland over time.
I’ve started cutting some spring onion and cracking an egg into it at the start, letting the egg get hard and the onion soft, in the boiling water with the noodles themselves. Do any of you have ideas to improve it further without much effort? I’d like to keep cooking times, including the ~5 minutes for the noodles themselves below 10 minutes total.
For the Shin brand specifically, I like:
- Poached (2 minute boil) or soft boiled egg (6 minute boil)
- Frozen edamame (cooks in the broth in the same amount of time as the noodles)
- Fresh garlic (micro plane or mince and add to the broth towards the end of the cook)
- Baby bok choy (if cut into individual leaves, cooks in broth in same time as noodles)
- Shitake mushrooms (fresh, sliced, quick stir fry in the pot with butter or something to cook before adding water for the broth)
- Kimchi (just dump on top of the finished bowl as a garnish)
- Scallions (slice and put on finished bowl)
I usually only do one or two of these, but the point is to make it way better without actually adding to the cooking time. And the combinations of the above can work pretty well at mixing things up for a long time before getting bored.
Other ramen flavors, I sometimes add some of the above, or shredded cabbage, spinach, peas, other beans or legumes. Sometimes nori, canned corn, canned bamboo. Sometimes with the broth I’ll add gelatin to thicken. For some seafood flavors I might throw in frozen shrimp. Certain flavors can go with sesame seeds.
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I pretty frequently eat Shin Ramyun noodles when I want a lazy meal, but apart from having absolutely nothing healthy in it, it also gets bland over time.
I’ve started cutting some spring onion and cracking an egg into it at the start, letting the egg get hard and the onion soft, in the boiling water with the noodles themselves. Do any of you have ideas to improve it further without much effort? I’d like to keep cooking times, including the ~5 minutes for the noodles themselves below 10 minutes total.
You could throw in a couple of gyoza with the noodles. Sprinkle some sesame seeds on top. I like to add softboiled eggs, but that’s probably more effort than you want.
