The Many Things You Can Do With Ramen

Ramen will be one of those magic foods for the bachelor. It’s a good staple food, and can be easily adapted for a variety of uses. Better yet, it is extremely cheap, easy to fix, and can be transported easily. You can also add pretty much anything to it and still tastes good. So, let’s talk ramen.

Although this is mostly about packaged ramen noodles, let’s deal with Cup O’ Soups first. The packaging says that it can’t be cooked in the Styrofoam cup. This is a lie. When you lift the lid, tilt the cup about 45 degrees when you put water into it, but go sort of slowly. When you see water, stop putting water in. You should be able to nuke it for about 3:30 (depending on microwave power) and there will be no spill-over; you may have to adjust the time a little bit.

As far as ramen itself goes there are some basics: If you’re just doing the noodles, do yourself a favor and just use the microwave; put it in a bowl, cover it with water, and nuke it for about three minutes. If you want to break it up, you can either do it in the bag, break it into quarters as you are putting it into the bowl, or just leave it as a block. This saves on dishes and makes clean up a lot easier.

As a meal, you can have a lot of fun with it. Let’s start with vegetables: The best thing you can do is use plain frozen or canned vegetables. You want to put them straight into the noodles as they are boiling for best effect, and so anything with spices or sauces usually won’t work. You want to debate beans and any other starches, such as potatoes; you should always debate doubling your starches. If you’re going to use fresh vegetables, avoid leafy vegetables such as cabbage and lettuce; they tend to wilt in the soup, making for more of a mess than you would like. Peppers are another great addition, as are chopped green onions, celery, and carrots.

With meat, you have two basic options: eggs and sliced meats. Eggs are arguably the best option, as you can boil them in the same water as the noodles. Once you’ve let them boil for as long as you want, and then possibly slice them when you’re done. You can also do an egg-drop effect by breaking the egg over the soup and then using a whip to mix the egg in. When it comes to sliced meats, you want to avoid luncheon meats and instead go for meats you can slice thick, such as some cuts of beef or pressed turkey; you want something that will soak the juice up while adding its own flavor, as well as avoiding anything with sodium  in it. You can use hot dogs and crumbled bacon, but debate it for more than a second.

As for spices, go for liquids and avoid the salt. You can use soy sauce, but go light on it. The ideal is anything that adds a little heat, such as hot sauce and pepper, make for a great mix. Teriyaki sauce is another good option, but not by itself; add a little something spicy for better flavoring.

Ultimately, have fun with the ramen, and treat it as a stew. There are a lot of things that can be done with it. Just remember that it has a lot of sodium already, and so your best bet is anything that is either plain or spicy. Otherwise, this is something that you can have fun with and actually make it taste great.