This is how you can tell I’m poor as fuck.
Most dried ramen is deep-fried which is why it’s so unhealthy. If you boil in plain water, strain, and then add to fresh hot water/broth, it’s a lot better for you in general.
Boil your noodles. Strain. Take a small frying pan and melt two tablespoons of butter (margarine works but butter is better) on low heat. Add the noodles and flavor powder and mix well.
Get a bag of frozen stir-fry veggies from wal-mart. It’s like a buck fifty. Fry those suckers up with some tonkatsu sauce or soy sauce. Boil your ramen, strain. Pile the noodles on a plate, top with your veggies and sauce. Sprinkle a tiny bit of the ramen flavoring on top. Bam, stir fry. The veggies make enough to serve three people (three packages of ramen).
Other things you can add to ramen to make it taste better:
A half a can of tunafish to the shrimp kind.
CHIVES MAKE EVERYTHING BETTER.
Oddly enough, boiled potatoes to the beef kind.
Matchstick carrots (you can get them from most grocery stores for like a dollar a package; alternately make your own from a cheap-ass bag of whole carrots).
If you’re gluten-free, you can make a gluten-free version of ramen by making and preparing spaghetti squash and using the bullion recipe above (substitute anything with gluten in it for something without, obviously). The “noodles” are smaller but damn is it tasty. Spaghetti squash, incidentally, grows at the least provocation so if you get a spaghetti squash (which are generally kind of expensive), save the seeds and plant them anywhere. Water them once a day.
Spring-noodle soup, courtesy my husband’s Asian-American ex-girlfriend: Boil your ramen and strain. Heat up a can of soup broth, or simply prepare the ramen bullion. Dip the noodles into the broth forkful by forkful as you eat. You can add other stuff to the noodles, like veggies and meat, as you’re boiling it.
Saute some green onions and minced garlic in a pan in butter or margarine for a few minutes (you can substitute sesame oil for the butter or margarine as well, if you happen to have it around. The sesame oil gives it a really good flavor). Add a dash of seasoned salt. Boil and strain your ramen noodles. Add to the saute mix, fry for a hot second, and you have awesome garlic noodles.
Minute rice! You can add a small handful of minute rice to your ramen as it’s cooking for a more carb-heavy soup to get you through the day. If you couple this with veggies and meat it’s almost a round meal.
THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH RAMEN, but if you make macaroni and cheese (Kraft dinner), add a can of tunafish and a half a can of peas to it to make a more filling, more rounded meal.
Seriously, if you are broke and need to vary your diet in any way, I am the person to talk to. I grew up on this shit. A lot of is really unhealthy, but at least you won’t die of boredom.
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