Ramen Girl...

DIY Ramen Seasoning

The story of  one girls search for the perfect bowl of Ramen,

No I am not THAT Ramen Girl, obviously....I am the home sick, to tired to cook, need to feed children quickly kind of Ramen girl.

Who doesn’t remember coming home from school, grabbing that individual red and white packet, popping a bowl of water in the “nuker” and fighting with the little foil packet of overly salted flavor goodness for a quick meal.  It was the food for when mom and dad where not home to make dinner, the cheap eats that got us through college, and the warm winter meal when we were sick or in my case, just to lazy to cook dinner. Ramen Noodles.

I love ramen in just about every flavor. And there were lots of flavors. There was chicken, shrimp, beef, kimchi and hot and spicy varieties. In my youth I ate it right out of the package, uncooked sprinkling the packet O'flavor on the crunchy noodles. In college it was the food of necessity. Now, I add sliced steak, shredded veggies and some hard boiled or even shoyu pickled eggs. If you have had bad experiences with certain brands and unidentifiable "ingredients" but still like ramen type soups this is the recipe for you. Or you can shoot over and give my fish based more "grown up" recipe a try-(check it out). 

Unfortunately, anyone who has stumble onto this blog and actually read it will know that I have gone from carefree food girl, to (semi) gluten free girl because of a combination of old age and digestive problems.

This meant Ramen's traditional yellow curly noodle and gluten laden flavor packets was out. What’s a girl to do. I could cry in my empty bowl, pay the ridiculous price for gluten free (and tasteless) ramen type noodles, OR make my own.We all know option number 3 is my style. I googled a ton of DIY ramen seasoning recipes. Tried many of them, and then decided to mix and match to find the perfect taste. Here is what I came up with.Your tastes may differ, so I recommend playing with the amounts until you get your perfect Ramen!

Basic “Chicken” Ramen Seasoning

3 tablespoons cayenne

3 tablespoons Truvia

5 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons ground ginger (i like heavy ginger, this may need adjusting for others)
6 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoons ground black pepper

8 tablespoons chicken bullion
1 tablespoon Parsley

Mix it in a bowl and place in a container for storage 2 tbs to 3 cups of water (give or take on each of the spices depending on your taste)

Now as mentioned above, you can make various types of ramenesque seasoning by adjusting the ingredient list ever so slightly.

DIY “Beef” Ramen Seasoning

3 tablespoons cayenne

3 tablespoons Truvia

5 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons ground ginger
6 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoons ground black pepper

8 tablespoons BEEF bullion
1 tablespoon Parsley

DIY “Spicy” Ramen Seasoning

5 tablespoons cayenne

3 tablespoons Truvia

5 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons ground ginger
6 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoons ground black pepper

8 tablespoons chicken or beef bullion (you get the idea on changing the base “flavor” by now. Chicken, Beef, fish bullion, even vegetable works fine)
1 tablespoon Parsley

DIY “Kimchi” Ramen Seasoning

2 tablespoons cayenne

3 tablespoons ground dried Kimchi (see below)

3 tablespoons Truvia

5 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons ground ginger
6 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoons ground black pepper

8 tablespoons chicken bullion
1 tablespoon Parsley

This one takes a bit more effort to make. If you are a Kimchi fan, as I am, and you make your own, set a jar in the back of the fridge and forget it for 2 months or so. Then remove it, drain and dehydrate until it turns into kimchi chips. Throw those in the blender or in my case my magic bullet and turn into powder. Voila!! Kimchi powder. All the unctuous, spicy, cabbagie goodness in dust form.

If you don’t make your own kimchi there are two other ways to do this. One- go to the grocery story and buy already made kimchi, then dehydrate and grind or if you live near an Asian market you can often find already dehydrated kimchi “chips” in the junk food isle. Grind those up and off you go.

Customize and adapt: 

These DIY recipes are infinitely customizable.  Mix and match as you see fit! In my trials I used gluten free bullion, low sodium bullion and Truvia instead of sugar. Yes, one bullion brand even had….MSG. GASP! But it did not really matter one way or the other. The taste was similar whether I used low sodium, non msg or regular. I prefer the low sodium, gluten free variety myself. But that's just me.

The only thing I have not been able to overcome is the noodle issue. The type of noodle used in classic ramen is a gluten based noodle. That can normally be found in the international isle of your grocery store if you want to buy just the dried noodle. I have experimented with bean thread noodles and they were not bad. I also have tried the Korean glass noodles, made with sweet potato starch, chewy, also not bad, but I have not yet found that PERFECT gluten free noodle that screams I AM RAMEN.  If you have found my missing noodles, let me know where and what brand, I will will be a happy girl. 

Until then, enjoy with your favorite noodle.