Chicken miso ramen

Instant ramen. It’s dirt cheap, quick to make, and it’s fairly tasty. But instant ramen is also low in fiber, vitamins, and minerals; the flavor sachets are typically full of artificial flavors and preservatives; and the noodles are usually dried by flash frying (typically in highly saturated palm oil). So you’re not exactly doing your body a favor by eating it regularly.

Real Japanese ramen, on the other hand, is far more tasty than the instant variety and a lot more balanced and healthful. It’s also much more pleasing to the eye. Admittedly, it’s not as quick to make — but the actual base soup and noodles can be prepared in under 5 minutes, and the toppings don’t take long to prepare either, so it’s still a quick and easy meal to make.

The other great thing about ramen is that the topping ideas are only limited by your imagination. Here are a few tasty topping ideas:

• Roasted or poached chicken
• Cooked shrimp
• Seared scallops
• Sliced fish cakes
• Fresh tuna or salmon — grilled and sliced
• Sliced crab sticks or fresh crab
• Sliced roast pork
• Cubed tofu
• Boiled eggs
• Thinly sliced shiitake or button mushrooms, or whole enoki mushrooms
• Finely grated carrot
• Finely sliced scallions
• Chopped chives
• Finely grated radish
• Bamboo shoots
• Nori (sheets of dried seaweed)
• Sweet corn kernels
• Finely grated ginger
• Cooked edamame
• Finely shredded cabbage
• Water chestnuts
• Mung bean or snow pea sprouts
• Blanched snow peas
• Sautéed spinach
• Thinly sliced celery
• Toasted sesame seeds

So simply adapt the toppings to suit your own palate. In this version we use sliced grilled chicken, scallions, some nori (dried seaweed) that we cut into small rectangles, boiled egg, finely grated carrot and thinly sliced mushrooms.