Carrot ramen, in a mushroom, chicken, onion and steel-cut oat broth, with soft-boiled egg, black sesame seeds, and toasted sesame oil.
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Isn’t finding healthy alternatives a good thing?
This wound up turning out pretty scrumptious, except I wish I’d cooked the carrot noodles a little longer.
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NOTES:
- Steel-cut oats are something I routinely replace rice with as a healthier alternative. (more nutritious, less glycogen spike, no chance of arsenic content).
- I love wheat ramen as much as the next blokey, but for health purposes I often try a replacement, such as rice noodles, konjac (i.e. Shirataki), or in today’s experiment, carrot.
- I used a cheapie spiraliser to make the noodles, and tried to cook them as little as possible in order to retain most of their crunchy texture. Noodles made with other veggies tend to get soggy and limp real fast IME.
- I don’t know if I’ll try this again, but I’d say cooking time is key for carrot noodles. You want to go for that sweet-spot that walks between crunchy and limp.
- The base of the soup was simply a can of Progresso’s reduced sodium “Savory Chicken & Wild Rice” soup. (which contains very little actual wild rice of course, but the broth is tasty, and the chicken, fairly well-represented)
- COST: Mostly the can of soup in this case, i.e. US$4. Little more than a buck-fifty for everything else. Makes about 2-3 servings.
What an awesome idea for the steel cut oats! Never thought of that. Will definitely try it. Thanks!! And your ramen looks scrumptious.
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What an awesome idea for the steel cut oats! Never thought of that. Will definitely try it. Thanks!! And your ramen looks scrumptious.
Well, thank you.
Modest as it might be, using SCO to replace rice is probably my greatest personal culinary discovery. They are surprisingly and unbelievably good in all kinds of non-breakfast dishes. Bonus pts for having a calming effect (being oats, you know).Possible downsides:
- For people who absolutely love the taste and texture of rice, well… SCO have a nuttier taste and more of a slight crunch to them.
- They cost more than rice.
- They work great as a side-dish (just like rice), but they tend to be a bit slimy after cooking. If you don’t like that, you’ll need to strain and rinse them, and then probably reheat them in an air-fryer or whatnot.
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Isn’t finding healthy alternatives a good thing?
This wound up turning out pretty scrumptious, except I wish I’d cooked the carrot noodles a little longer.
Oh, absolutely. I think it comes down to whether you are looking to make a tasty meal or whether you are looking to make ramen. To make ramen is to make a tasty meal, but to make a tasty meal is not necessarily to make ramen. You know, squares and rectangles.
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Western-style ramen from the cheap, dried packs, made according to the directions, is some of the worst, shittiest-tasting food I’ve ever eaten. It’s soggy noodles, salty, tasteless broth, and just a disaster, health-wise. Eastern-style is almost always better, but still not great, and pretty much bottom of the ‘tastiness scale’ IMO. That stuff’s little more than hangover food to me, at best.
What I’ve done across the years is to experiment endlessly to see how I might make a ramen that’s not swimming in salt, empty calories and mediocre taste. What I came up with above wasn’t perfect, but it tasted great and was about as healthy a way as one could possibly eat ramen AFAIK.
Bonus pts for pissing off a couple people who were offended at the very idea of carrot noodles.
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Western-style ramen from the cheap, dried packs, made according to the directions, is some of the worst, shittiest-tasting food I’ve ever eaten. It’s soggy noodles, salty, tasteless broth, and just a disaster, health-wise. Eastern-style is almost always better, but still not great, and pretty much bottom of the ‘tastiness scale’ IMO. That stuff’s little more than hangover food to me, at best.
What I’ve done across the years is to experiment endlessly to see how I might make a ramen that’s not swimming in salt, empty calories and mediocre taste. What I came up with above wasn’t perfect, but it tasted great and was about as healthy a way as one could possibly eat ramen AFAIK.
Bonus pts for pissing off a couple people who were offended at the very idea of carrot noodles.
I make ramen starting with bones and such, but most of the time, rather than what you’re describing, I get the good, frozen instant ramen. These are a few dollars per serving, more if you’re making it from scratch.
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Sounds good!
I’m thinking you could also make the noodles by hand. If they’re anything like pasta and chinese egg noodles, they’re surprisingly easy to make. You could make a big batch and freeze the rest, say. -
Sounds good!
I’m thinking you could also make the noodles by hand. If they’re anything like pasta and chinese egg noodles, they’re surprisingly easy to make. You could make a big batch and freeze the rest, say.You should look up videos of how ramen noodles were traditionally made. Spoiler: it involves using a large piece of bamboo or a log because the dough is too dense to knead by hand.
I tried. It was…unproductive but enlightening. Fortunately, you can get high quality frozen ramen noodles in any Japanese grocery store.
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Japanese grocery store.
Must be nice!
Closest thing we had where I once lived was the Korean “H-Mart.” Gosh, I miss that place. -
Japanese grocery store.
Must be nice!
Closest thing we had where I once lived was the Korean “H-Mart.” Gosh, I miss that place.I would assume that H-Mart and other Korean stores also sell frozen ramen noodles, but yes, it is so nice. I used to have to make a monthly trip to a Japanese grocery store that was about an hour from where I lived or order things online. Access to a variety of, well, everything is really the best part of living in an urban area.