A quick chicken ramen using that uses instant noodles and cooked, shredded chicken for a speedy soup with a flavourful broth.
You can make this delicious soup in 20 minutes - including the perfect soft-boiled egg!
It can be a challenge to make a really flavourful soup broth without spending hours simmering bones or roasting veggies.
But it is possible!! This ramen is super quick, but it's rich and silky with lots of umami flavour.
If you're happy to spend a few hours simmering a pork joint for fall-apart meat try my spicy pork ramen.
📋 What do we need?
It looks like a lot of ingredients, but it's mostly just a sprinkle and a dash here and there with minimal actual prep.
The only bit that takes a little time is chopping the carrots and spring onions and peeling the egg.
I do that bit while the sauce is simmering and the noodles are cooking.
Noodles - yes, I'm using instant noodles - because they're super quick to cook. Plus I like the lightness of them. Also the squiggly-ness of them is a bonus for ensuring they don't slip off your chopsticks when you're eating. You can get rid of the flavour sachet that comes with it - we're making our own broth.
Stock - you can use homemade stock or stock cubes for this. I use 4 chicken Oxo stock cubes with water.
Don't worry about using stock cubes - it's these other ingredients that REALLY lift the flavour of the broth:
- Soy sauce - a mixture of light and dark. Light for that salty seasoning, and a dark for that wonderful colour and a tiny bit of sweetness.
- Chinese rice wine - it's like a magic ingredient to add depth to your broth. You only need a bit (1 tablespoon), but it's REALLY important. Sherry is a good replacement if you haven't got any rice wine.
- Sesame oil - for a golden toasty-ness and beautiful aroma.
- Sriracha - for a little kick of heat.
- White pepper - adds a touch of mild, warming heat.
- Ginger and garlic. They're going to be fried in butter with that sesame oil. So good.
🔪 How to make this Chicken Ramen
Full recipe with detailed steps in the recipe card at the end of this post.
- Fry minced garlic and ginger in butter with a little sesame oil. Then add in chicken stock.
- Next in goes soy sauce, chilli sauce, rice wine, white pepper, a little brown sugar and shredded cooked chicken.
- That's all boiled together for a few minutes. Then we add in the noodles and cook for 3 minutes more.
- That's it! We're ready to plate up. Use tongs to transfer the noodles to bowls, then ladle over the stock and add that chicken.
- Now you can top with whatever toppings you like. I like a soft boiled egg (see tips on this below), spring onions (scallions), strips of carrots and a few sesame seeds. I also like to drizzle with a little chilli oil, chilli paste or chilli sauce.
How to make the perfect soft-boiled egg for ramen
- Place room temperature large eggs in a medium-sized saucepan (no more than 4 in a pan) and just cover with cold water.
- Bring to the boil, then simmer very gently for 6 minutes.
- Turn off the heat and place the eggs in a bowl of water with ice for 5 minutes to stop the cooking process.
- Carefully peel the eggs before slicing in half.
👩🍳PRO TIP I like to lightly tap, then roll the boiled egg on the work surface to crack the shell all over before peeling it off.
Gooey egg perfection!
A beautiful silky broth, packed with loads of flavour!
📺 Watch how to make it
🍲 More fantastic Soup recipes
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Quick Chicken Ramen
Ingredients
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter
- 4 cloves minced garlic
- 2 tsp minced ginger
- 1.4 litres (approx. 6 cups) chicken stock - (water plus 4 stock cubes is fine)
- 2 tbsp light soy sauce
- 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
- 1-2 tbsp sriracha hot sauce - depending on how hot you like it
- 1 tbsp Chinese rice wine or sherry
- 1 tbsp light brown sugar
- ¼ tsp white pepper
- 3 cooked chicken breasts - shredded (about 340g/12 oz)
- 210 g which is 3 x 70g/2.5oz packets of instant noodles - (noodles only, discard the flavour packets)
Toppings:
- 5 spring onions - scallions chopped
- 4 hard-boiled eggs - sliced in half (buy ready-cooked hard boiled eggs, or see notes for boiling yourself)
- 1 carrot - peeled and sliced into thin strips
- 1 tsp black and white sesame seeds
- 2 tsp of chilli oil or chilli paste - such as sambel oelek – optional
INSTRUCTIONS
- Heat the oil and butter in a large saucepan, over a medium heat, until the butter melts.
- Add the garlic and ginger, and fry for 1 minute, stirring often to ensure the garlic doesn’t burn.
- Add the stock, light and dark soy sauce, sriracha, rice wine (or sherry), brown sugar, and white pepper.
- Stir together, then add in the cooked shredded chicken breast.
- Turn up the heat to high, and bring to the boil, then simmer for 3 minutes to heat through the cooked chicken breast.
- Add the instant noodles, bring back to the boil then simmer for 3 minutes, stirring a couple of times to separate the noodles.
- Use a set of tongs to divide the noodles between four bowls.
- Ladle over the sauce and add the pieces of chicken.
- Top each bowl with springs onions, 2 pieces of egg and strips of carrot.
- Sprinkle on the sesame seeds and drizzle on a little chilli oil or chilli paste before serving.
Video
✎ Notes
Reheat in the pan until boiling, then continue on with the recipe, adding the chicken and noodles. You can freeze portions of the broth (without the chicken, noodles or toppings), so you can whip up an EVEN QUICKER ramen whenever you like. Just defrost the broth in the refrigerator overnight, then reheat in a pan until boiling before continuing with the rest of the recipe. Ingredient swaps Swap out the instant noodles for dried, fresh or frozen ramen noodles (frozen Yutaka Ramen Noodles are great). Rice noodles or soba noodles Are good too. Medium egg noodles aren't bad at a push. They have more of a rich egg taste. How to scale up and scale down this recipe You can double or half the quantities, sticking to the same ratios and cooking time.
If you're just making for two, use one pack of noodles for a lighter meal or two packs for more filling ramen. Nutritional information is per serving - including the toppings.
Nutrition
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April says
SO GOOD! I will definitely make this again and again! I didn't have the rice wine or dark soy sauce so used mirin and oyster sauce. I am so glad I found this recipe!
Josie says
Really easy but so flavorful! I used some leftover rotisserie chicken and fresh ramen noodles, and added baby bok choy and snap peas. The flavor of the broth was outstanding.
I'm excited to try more of your recipes!
Pam says
had left over chicken from Sunday roast, was surprised how easy this Japanese meal was to cook ...thank you Nicky
Horse Saddlery says
It looks so delicious and a complete meal in a single bowl. I love these type of recipes because I don't have much time to prepare a wholesome meal for myself due to my Leather Halters business. Loved this easy recipe, Thank you for sharing this.
Ellen says
Super yummy and very simple to do 👍🏻
I used gochujang instead of sriracha as we brought a tub for your pork ramen recipe.
Paul says
Great recipe had some duck so used that instead and added some sweet corn, wii. Definitely be cooking this again.
Rebecca says
Such a fun recipe to make turned out so good, have frozen the leftover broth for next time. Thank you for a ready recipe!
Emma Lander says
I love all your recipes but this one made my mouth water and I love a broth-especially at this time of year. I hope you're ok and have had a good Christmas 🙂
Clare Underhill says
Hi. Can you let me know what the chilli paste/oil was that you drizzled on at the end please. Can you give me the name. Have looked on Sainsbury’s for something similar but can’t find it.