Hey! We got a secret to share on how to make most flavourful and healthy homemade ramen soup with just 7 ingredients!
Delicious. Simple. Quick. Those three words above doesn't seem to make sense when we talk about making homemade ramen.
Traditionally, it takes HOURS or even days to boil the broth down and transform it into a hearty and flavourful soup.
Now I have a quick and tasty solution for you to make ramen at the comfort of your home. With only 7 ingredients you can create a beautiful soup base that is tasty in every slurp. It's creamy, light, and oh so satisfying.
The amazing part is that the 7 ingredients you may already have in your fridge right now!
This post is all about making the easiest homemade ramen at your own home.
Homemade Ramen
The 7 ingredients to make this simple yet flavourful broth are:
- a whole chicken
- pork leg
- onion
- garlic
- ginger
- kombu (dried thick seaweed kelp)
- sake.
How is it the easiest homemade ramen?
The secret on how it is the easiest homemade ramen is all about the time. I learned a secret way to cut the time down dramatically.
With only TWO HOURS of rapid boiling time, we were able to extract the chicken and pork flavour out. And the most important part is what we do once we finish the rapid boil. We blend the meat and soup together to create a creamy thick texture. And that is how we get the thick and creamy consistency ramen shop gets after 16 hours of boiling the meat and broth.
Meat
We are using a whole chicken and pork leg to give the broth the meaty flavour. Lots of ramen shop sometimes stick to only chicken or only pork. I find using the combination of both chicken and pork works best for the quick ramen recipe. When the broth is done boiling, we will take some pieces of the meat to blend it into the soup to give it that hearty thick flavour, so don't throw out the meat and bone yet!
If you want a stronger flavour, you can use a rotisserie chicken instead of a regular raw whole chicken.
Onion, garlic, and ginger
Besides the meat, aromatic is another key ingridents to making the soup packed with flavor. Onion, garlic and ginger is main players here. Some people like to charr the onion, garlic and ginger before adding to the soup, but I want to clean and clear colour broth so there will be no charring in this soup today. Just adding the onion, garlic and ginger to the soup, you're about fifty percent done for the homemade ramen sauce.
Kombu
What is a kombu seaweed? kombu is a dried sea kelp and the cornerstone to great soups for both Korean and Japanese. Why add kombu to the homemade ramen soup? Kombu add umami to the soup. Umami is a bit hard to explain, but its like adding chicken flavour powder to the soup. It gives it a well rounded satisfying taste, but it is completely natural and has no msg like those store bought chicken flavour powders. It's a flavour enhancer and rich with lots of health benefits.
Sake
Sake is another flavour enhancer that adds another depth of flavour. It refreshes the soup with a more robust flavour that matches with the chicken and pork flavour. If sake is hard to find, a glass of dry wine also does the trick.
Rumor has it that the best homemade ramen recipe contains sake. Some people even adds it to their instant noodle to mimic restaurant style ramen.
Now you know the secret the the quick homemade ramen recipe. What else do you need to know?
Fat
Once the broth is hard boiling for two hours you will notice there's a yellow fat floating to the surface. Most ramen restaurants keep that fat because its PACKED with flavour and texture. This chicken fat is what will give you tons of flavour when you're adding the final touches in the ramen bowl.
You have the option to not use it if your priority is health. However, I do recommend you to keep it and drizzle a tsp of this delicious fat on top of the ramen. If you have extra, save it in the fridge and it can keep for a long time! It's a great flavour enhancer for other food!
Let's talk about the options in the recipe
So the options in the recipe are chicken powder and soy milk. Chicken powder add more chicken flavour into the soup and creates even MORE umami taste. The flavour I have is just right, but if you're a chicken loving ramen sort of person, you have the option to add more.
Soy milk is another option to give it more of a creamy silk texture. If you choose to use soy milk, remember to use the no sugar soy milk! I also have a recipe here on how to make your own homemade soy milk if you're interested. I absolutely love making my own soy milk because the taste is so much more flavourful and healthier compared to store bought soy milk in a box.
Noodles
I believe the best noodles for homemade ramen are soba, somen, and udon noodles. Ramen noodles comes in fresh, dried, and packaged. My favourite you can find on Amazon is this ONE: Hime Japanese Dried Ramen Ramyun Noodles.
If you're feeling up to a challenge, you can also make your own homemade ramen noodles. I have the recipe here. I use the Philips Pasta and Noodle Maker to cutback on elbow grease and time
(RELATED POST: HOMEMADE RAMEN NOODLES)
Is homemade ramen healthy?
Yes, homemade ramen is healthy because you get to control the amount of salt and fat in your broth. Most restaurants would just dunk a bunch of salt, sugar, and salt into the soup to give it that super umami taste and that can jeopardize your health. Here, when you make your own homemade ramen you get to say how much fat and salt goes into your it, ergo the health benefits are all at your fingertips.
Can I make this a homemade spicy ramen?
Absolutely! The recipe I have for you is just the beginning! It's the base of a great soup and what you add on top is really up to your taste and creativity. I love adding my homemade spicy hot sauce on top to give it that vibrant red colour and the kick to the ramen. Spicy homemade ramen is just something you just add to the top of this recipe to change it from an ordinary ramen to a spicy homemade ramen.
Pro Tip #1 Clean the pot and meat
Once you wash the meat and boil it in the pot, you will notice a lot of residue starts to boil over. Let it boil for 5 minutes and immediately throw out the water. Rinse the pot so it's clean, and scrub the meat and bones from the residue as well. Why do we do this? The grey residue gives the broth a unpleasant colour and also gives the flavour a more clear and clean taste. Trust me, don't skip this step, it's a must!
Scum stuck on the meat before washing it out.
Pot and meat rinsed and cleaned from all the scum.
Pro Tip #2 Boil Boil Boil
Yes, you need to give this soup a hard boil. Don't give it a shallow simmer. In order to extract the most out of the meat and bone we need to boil all the flavour out. I set the stove at a medium high heat with the lid on for TWO hours. Don't get curious and keep opening and closing the lid. Let the magic happen with the lid on and trust in two hours you'll get a gorgeous soup. This is how we get the cream flavour taste and look.
Pro Tip #3 Blend the soup and meat
Because we don't want to boil this on a stove for 16 plus hours, we are going to do a small short cut. And that is we are going to blend some of the meat and soup together, and using a strainer we will get our creamy, golden broth. This way we can quickly extract the texture and flavour directly into the soup with a high speed blender.
the yellow hue is the broth boiled for 2 hours
the broth and meat blended together and strained to get this silk white soup
7 simple ingredients to make the most flavourful homemade ramen
Equipment
- strainer
- high speed blender
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken 1.5 pounds
- ½ kg pork leg chopped
- 1½ oz ginger sliced
- 2 bulbs garlic smashed
- 1 large white onion halved
- 1½ oz kombu
- 1 cup sake
- 5½ Litre cold water
- 2 tbsp chicken powder optional
- 300g chicken and pork meat from broth shredded
- ½ cup non sweet soy milk optional
- salt to taste
Noodles
- 1 portion fresh / frozen / dried noodles
Garnish
- 2 green onion sliced
- 1 soft boiled egg
- 1 portion veggies
- 1 portion chicken and/or pork shredded meat
- 1 garlic clove minced
Instructions
- In a large bowl, put the pork leg in cold water with some salt. Let it sit for 1 hour. Also wash the chicken in cold water, and chop the chicken into smaller pieces: separate the legs, wings, and breasts.
- Fill a stock pot with water (doesn't matter how much as long as it covers the chicken and pork legs) and bring it to boil. Add the meat and let it boil for 10 minutes in high heat. Scum will rise to the top, but don't worry about it as long as it doesn't boil over.
- Carefully take the stock pot with the meat and pour it in a clean sink. With the tap running, clean the chicken and pork until there's no scum stuck on the meat. Also wash the stock pot as well with no scum to the side.
- Refill the stock pot with 5.5 Litres of water, and add the cleaned meat back in. Wait for the water to boil and watch to see if any scum rises to the top. If it does, clear it out with a strainer. Once the water has no more scum or you see it is clear, add in the rest of the ingredients: ginger, garlic, onion, and kombu. Now close the lid and DO NOT open it until one hour pass.
- After one hour, take a potato masher and mash the stock up to break the bone and meat. This is how we can extract more flavour from the meat. Close the lid and let it boil for the last one hour.
- Turn the heat off and take the lid off to cool. Meanwhile set up a pot and strainer in the sink. Carefully strain the soup. Put the pot of soup back on the stove and stir in the sake. Give it a taste and add the amount of salt suited to your taste.OPTIONAL: Add in the chicken stock if you desire.
- In a blender, add the strained broth to the blender with the 300g of chicken and pork. Blend until silky smooth. strain again to get the creamy thick soup.
- In another pot, cook the noodles to the package instructions.
- Once the noodles are finished cooking, add the cooked noodles into a bowl.
- First add in the hot broth into the bowl. OPTIONAL: add ¼-½ cup of non sweeten soy milk.
- Garnish the soup with veggies, boiled eggs, green onion, and finely minced garlic. Serve immediately.