Confession time: sometimes I actually like instant ramen. You know, those cheap little packets of salty noodles that only cost 30¢? I don’t eat them often, maybe once per year, but when I get the craving I love grabbing a packet of instant noodles and going to town with all sorts of add-ins and toppings. Over the years I’ve found 6 easy ways to upgrade my instant ramen, to the point where it feels like fancy ramen and can qualify as a legit meal. Plus, I get to use up the leftovers in my kitchen at the same time! So I’m going to share what I add to instant ramen to make it better because it’s a total win-win.
Can you believe that’s instant ramen in that bowl in that photo?? And those upgrades were pretty inexpensive.
Now it’s obvious that the best way to make instant ramen better is to just get real ramen noodles from a restaurant or from an Asian grocery store, but that’s not what we’re talking about today.
We’re talking about what you can add to those inexpensive little ramen packets to make them better. Ingredients that you can find in your fridge or just about any grocery or convenience store. So, when cheap ramen packets are what you’ve got, here’s how you can spice up your instant ramen and turn it into a bowl of fancy ramen!
What to Add to Ramen
Instant ramen is a blank slate for all sorts of flavors and ingredients, so you can really have fun when customizing your bowl! Here is a summary of some of the ingredients that I like to add to a bowl of instant ramen to really spice it up:
- Broth: experiment with using your own broth and different flavors of broth (vegetable, coconut, curry, shrimp base, etc.)
- Aromatics: Adding a few fresh aromatics, like garlic, ginger, or scallions, can really add a lot of depth to the flavor of your broth.
- Sauces: scour your fridge for sauces that you can stir into the bowl, like sriracha, chili crisp, oyster sauce, hoisin sauce, fish sauce, or even peanut butter.
- Vegetables: Instant ramen is a great way to use up leftover vegetables in your fridge. They add color, flavor, and texture to every bite!
- Protein: Make your bowl a little heartier by adding in some rotisserie chicken, cooked shrimp, a soft-boiled egg, or some tofu.
- Toppers: I like to add a little flair at the end, whether it be something for texture like sesame seeds or furikake, or something fresh like cilantro. It’s just another layer of delicious that takes the ramen over the top!
how to Make Ramen Better – Step by Step
1. Use Your Own Broth
Skip the flavoring packet and use your own broth, whatever kind you prefer. I like to use either vegetable or chicken-flavored Better Than Bouillon (I do half broth, half water to keep the salt down), but you could also use a homemade bone broth, dashi, or even just some miso mixed with water. Not only does this give you more control over the salt and other ingredients, but it offers you a lot of flavor options!
2. Add Aromatics
Upgrading instant ramen is all about the add-ins, and that begins with adding fresh aromatics to your broth to really give the flavor some oomph. I like to add fresh garlic, ginger, and green onion. I usually have all three of these on hand (I keep my ginger in the freezer), so it’s a no-brainer. Plus, fresh ginger gives the soup a pleasant medicinal quality that is great when you’re under the weather.
TIP: Mince the garlic and grate the ginger. Sauté both in a little oil for a minute or so before adding your broth to the pot. The green onion can either be sprinkled over top at the end, sautéed with the ginger and garlic, or both!
3. Sauce it Up
If you’re like me, you have no less than 20 half-used bottles of sauces in your fridge. Well, Instant ramen is a great way to use up some of those sauces. You can stir sambal, chili garlic sauce, sriracha, oyster sauce, hoisin sauce, fish sauce, gochujang, soy sauce, or any number of other sauces into your broth for more flavor. Or add them to the finished bowl as a sort of table seasoning.
TIP: Adding sauces usually comes with added salt, so keep this in mind when choosing your broth. That is one reason I like to do half broth and half water—it gives me more wiggle room to add sauces later.
4. Add Vegetables
I looooove my bowl of ramen packed full of vegetables. This is where spicing up instant ramen gets really fun and useful. Browse your fridge for any vegetable that might need to be used up, like carrots, bell peppers, mushrooms, cabbage, and more. You can also toss in frozen vegetables, like broccoli florets, peas, or corn.
TIP: If you don’t have any vegetables in your fridge, stop by the salad bar at your local grocery and grab a small handful or two of your favorite vegetables. That way you don’t have to buy a whole package of each one. You can also score proteins like tofu (see photo above) or rotisserie chicken to toss in there.
5. Add a Protein
My favorite protein to add to my ramen is an egg because it’s just so easy and I always have them (soft boiled egg or hard boiled egg). But there are so many more options! Tofu cubes, sliced tempeh, rotisserie chicken, ground pork (browned), shelled edamame, pulled pork, shrimp, you name it!
TIP: You can crack a raw egg straight into your simmering broth and let it cook for about 6 minutes. Make sure the broth is not vigorously boiling or the egg will break apart into a million pieces and just make the broth cloudy. For the egg in the photo above, I cooked it separately, using my easy 6-minute Soft Boiled Egg method, and then added it to the finished bowl.
6. Top it Off
Time to go wild! Top off your ramen with lots of fun goodies to give your bowl flavor, color, and texture. Here are some things to add to ramen:
- Sriracha
- Kimchi
- Sesame seeds
- Crumbled bacon
- Nori (dried seaweed)
- Fresh herbs (cilantro, Thai basil, chives)
- Sesame oil
- Crushed chiles
- Furikake
- Fresh lime
And that’s it! That’s all it takes to turn a sad little packet of instant noodles into a truly epic bowl of fancy ramen that I’m sure I’d probably pay at least $8 for in a restaurant.
My Favorite Instant Ramen Recipe:
The bowl of instant ramen shown in the photos here is the ultimate representation of how to make ramen better, but on a regular run-of-the-mill day, I kind of go halfway between plain and the ultimate version. Here is my favorite upgraded ramen recipe:
Upgraded Instant Ramen
Servings 1 to 2Ingredients
- 1/2 Tbsp cooking oil
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger
- 1 handful sliced mushrooms
- 1 cup vegetable broth
- 1 cup water
- 1 package instant ramen (seasoning discarded)
- 1 handful fresh spinach
- 1 large egg
- 1 green onion, sliced
- sriracha to taste
Instructions
- Add the oil, garlic, and ginger to a small sauce pot and sauté over medium for about one minute.
- Add the sliced mushrooms and sauté for about a minute more.
- Add the broth and water, and bring to a boil.
- Once boiling, add the uncooked ramen noodles. Boil for about 3 minutes, or just until they are tender. Do not overcook the noodles.
- Stir in the spinach until wilted. Turn the heat down to low, crack the egg into the broth, and let sit for about six minutes, or until the egg whites are cooked and the yolk is still runny.
- Transfer the soup to one or two bowls, then top with sriracha and sliced green onion.
See how we calculate recipe costs here.
Nutrition
And then depending on whatever else I have in my kitchen, I might add some other fun stuff in, like in the photos. :) Want to meal prep it? Check out our Meal Prep Noodle Soup Jars!
Try These Other Instant Ramen Recipes:
What About You?
Share your favorite ways to spice up instant ramen in the comments below! I love reading all the unique and creative ingredient combinations people come up with for their ramen!
I put in leftover meatballs, micro greens, sesame seeds, chili crisp, and a drizzle of sesame oil. SO GOOD.
What spices do you add if you don’t add the spice packet from the ramen? I am trying to make my ramen fresh since my son loves it but I’m afraid of all the sodium he eats. He eats ramen 4-5 times a week!
Instead of the packet included with the noodles, I added fresh garlic and ginger and used my preferred broth (Better Than Bouillon). You can see what I used in the recipe card at the bottom of the page. :)
Herb-Ox makes sodium-free boullion. It’s wallet-friendly and is a great base. Just add salt or salted ingredients to taste.
But the photo looks different from the recipe you’ve put. I see tofu and a soft boiled egg. Added a different from photo from a different recipe maybe??
Yes, the recipe card is my “basic” version and if you read the steps outlined in the blog post with all the photos I talk about all the variations, including what I used the day that I took the photos. It’s all explained in the blog post. :)
I agree. I don’t want to be forced to read such a lengthy blog post just to find out the picture I clicked on is entirely different from the recipe given. Click bait? In actuality it makes you lose stars. The recipe may be great! So let it stand on its own merits. The deception was unnecessary.
Dude, it’s a blog post about a modular recipe. It’s not a step-by-step thing. It’s a mix-and-match, choose-your-own-adventure type thing. The recipe card at the bottom is just an example to get you started.
Though I guess you’d have to read the first paragraph, all six sentences of it!
Calling this post “click-bait” just because you don’t want to expend the tiny effort required is ridiculously insulting.
Yeah, that guy is being ridiculous. What you’re doing here is exactly what I had in mind. I searched for an article like this to get extra ideas for what I might be missing. Good job on this.
After further review, this recipe seems more like a 3 star recipe. I am curious how the bot will respond.
There is no bot. First-time commenters are held in moderation until I can personally read the comment and make sure it’s not spam.
This seems like a decent recipe. I’m going to list as 4 stars to see if it goes through what I expect is automated moderation.
Why are you like this
Back in college my best friend and I were on very tight budgets. Her way of preparing ramen quickly became our go-to spent-grocery-money-on-books meal. Boil up the ramen, drain (reserve broth to drink), stir in toasted sesame oil, chili paste with garlic, and grated parmesan to taste (it will cut the burn if you put in too much chili paste).
Now she can’t have wheat any more and she was missing this, until she found 100% buckwheat ramen. Now she can have it again!
I agree; this is my go-to “clean out the fridge” or “guess I should eat some extra veggies today” meal. I’ve been really into collard greens lately, and I have found that ramen is a great place to use the chopped stems! I basically use them in place of celery, so lately I have been doing a sliced onion, sliced carrot, handful of collard stems, ginger, garlic, some collard leaves, and a few sliced mushrooms if I have them. I love a soft boiled egg in it, but often I forget and just have to fry one at the end. I recently tried it with the last of my bag of frozen meatballs, which I heated in a sauté pan with hoisin sauce and cider vinegar to give them a sort of glaze. That was pretty legit, too.
Wow, I wish I’d known about this in college! It’s a great sweep-the-fridge kind of meal – I used up some chard and green onions I had lying around. That, plus a soft-boiled egg and your delicious broth made the perfect easy dinner on a cold, rainy, tired-and-don’t-wanna-cook night! Tomorrow I’m thinking I’ll use up some leftover tofu, broccoli, and peanut sauce from your soy-marinated tofu bowls recipe. And then maybe your creamy mushroom ramen after that – the possibilities are endless!
Why discard the seasoning packet? Because of the siracha?
Yes, because I add all my own custom seasonings and broth. You can certainly do the packet if you prefer, but if you do both, it will probably be overkill. :)
I made meatballs with rice/gravy/veggies but my niece wanted ramen :( and I just can’t see myself eating plain ramen with the flavor packet! So glad I found these recommendations! I added what I had on hand (carrot, garlic, green onion) and WOW! It adds a mellow, yet noticeable flavor change! I then topped it with chili garlic sauce and now this is going to be my go to rainy day meal :) going to try with mushrooms next time! Thanks for sharing!
I love to add corn and sometimes beans. Also I saw online about mixing in egg to make creamy along with butter (kind of like carbonara).
I just have a few questions, 1) when in the cooking process do you add things like the red pepper strips & tofu, and 2) should I pan-fry the tofu first before I add it? I am really looking forward to making this dish for my family as we experienced something similar in a Japanese market in Hawaii and everyone loved it.
Thanks.
Megan
I just add those things in toward the end. :) Instant ramen noodles cook very quickly, so I add the extras when the noodles are almost done. You can pan fry the tofu first if you’d like, it’s totally up to your personal preferences. The tofu I used was smoked, so it was already very flavorful without me having to do anything extra to it.
It was super easy to make and super yummy in the end.
I usually will make my ramen how it says to on the instructions with my stove, however afterwards I’ll usually put my own little spin on t a little bit different every time. However usually after I make the noodles I’ll make two scrambled eggs, cut up a green onion, cut up a slice of an onion, cut of a small chunck of a broccoli head (depending on my mood), add two strips of diced bacon, some cilantro leaves, black pepper, and occasionally some thyme leaves. It’s probably my favorite way to make it.
Dang …thats sounds hell of good im going to try that today. Lol
Miso and Easy (instant miso soup mix in a condiment bottle) has been a game changer for me. Spinach, roasted corn, shredded carrot, and poached egg are probably my favorite add ins that I usually have on hand, krab if I’ve got it.