Instant ramen is unhealthy. It’s been said and written about in every imaginable version and with varying degrees of outrage. Refined carbs, a mere token of dehydrated veggies, broth in powder form often high in sodium… The list just keeps getting longer.
Yet people keep buying and consuming instant ramen. Because why not? It’s inexpensive, the sheer number of flavors to choose from is mind-blowing, the required preparation is fast and easy, and it’s filling.
The thing is, while there’s not much that can be done to remove unhealthy ingredients (if any) already integrated in the contents of a pack of instant noodles, the shortage (or lack) of nutrients in a bowl of instant ramen can be fixed. You can add vegetables, meat, egg, mushrooms and just about any fresh ingredient you have in your pantry. If you don’t, there’s another easy trick.
Use bone broth to make the soup
Here’s how we do it at home.
Soup bones are roasted in the oven (those are pork ribs in the photos above but you may use beef, chicken, fish bone and head or even shrimp heads and shells depending on what flavors of instant ramen you consume most often). No salt, no pepper. Just the bones which roast long enough until browned. The browned soup bones go into the slow cooker, water is added, no salt, no pepper, no herbs and no other spices. The cooker is set on LOW for eight hours. Yes, overnight. When you wake up, you have broth that you can use to prep your instant ramen for breakfast. All the excess broth can be stored in containers and frozen for future use.
But why no salt and no pepper? You want the nutrients drawn out from the bones (and little meat attached to them) but you want to keep the flavor neutral. The reason people buy instant ramen in different flavors is to enjoy variety in taste and aroma with their meals. You really don’t want to drown out the flavor specified in the pack by using broth that had been generously seasoned and even cooked with a variety of herbs. So, keep the broth neutral-tasting.
When you have your bone broth, use it to cook your instant ramen.
You may simply cook the noodles in broth and add the rest of the contents of the packet. Personally, I find that this technique yields a starchy broth which can also turn yellowish depending on whether food color was added to the noodles when they were prepared. So, I prefer to cook the noodles in plain water. I drain them, refresh them in cold water (prevents them from clumping) and leave them to drain. Then, I make the soup.
The water in which the noodles had cooked is thrown away, the pan is rinsed, the bone broth is poured in and reheated until boiling. The seasonings and dehydrated vegetables are added and, if available, we like to drop in seafood balls too. Everything just boils together until uniformly heated. If the packet of instant ramen includes a pouch of cheese powder, the powder is stirred in towards the end. Then, the noodles are dumped in. When the soup boils once again, the ramen is ready to be served.
We garnish as we please. Adding boiled egg with runny yolk and finely sliced scallions is very Japanese.
See also: Guide to ramen broth: shio, shoyu, miso and tonkotsu
More instant ramen hacks
