Easy Homemade Ramen Bowls {Best Ramen Recipe}

Looking for the best Ramen recipe to make at home? These Easy Homemade Ramen Bowls let you make restaurant-worthy soup in the comfort of your own kitchen. 

Ramen Bowls in the Comfort of Your Own Kitchen.

This easy and approachable homemade Ramen recipe remains a reader favorite after all these years. To be able to enjoy a big comforting bowl of your favorite Japanese soup in the comfort of your own home is some kind of bliss!

We aren’t all fortunate enough to have access to restaurants that offer this good stuff. So having this simple recipe up your sleeve is awesome.

The ingredients list includes accessible ingredients you can get at your local grocer and the process couldn’t be more simple.

What Is Ramen?

You’ve certainly heard people joke about Ramen being a food staple for broke college students. But today, Ramen joints are popping up in Western cities everywhere, attracting even the most haughty of food snobs.

So, what the heck is it—a meal for cheapskates or nosh for the posh? Both, really.

Traditionally, Ramen is a Japanese noodle soup made with a rich-flavored broth, then topped with an assortment of meats, vegetables, and a soft-boiled egg. In Japan, Ramen is dubbed a fast food and it’s made available in tiny restaurants and late night street carts.

But no matter where you’re slurping your Ramen, whether it be in a shoddy college dorm or that chic new Ramen bar in town, comfort is the name of the game with this coveted soup. 

What Are the Different Styles of Ramen?

If you’ve ever had the privilege of slurping up real-deal Ramen, then you’ve been exposed to the various types. The menus are always full of options and the differences in tastes and broth-textures are notable.

When you decide to make your homemade Ramen bowls, you might want to check out different varieties for some inspiration! Here are some of the most popular types:

Shoyu

This is the most common style of Ramen. Shoyu is the Japanese word for soy sauce, and that’s exactly what’s simmered into the base of this broth.

The result is a light-bodied broth that is brown and clear, unlike the more milky and opaque tonkatsu broth.

Intrigued? Check out my recipe for Spicy Shoyu Ramen.

Shio

Another light broth—in both body and flavor—is shio, which means salt. This simple broth is golden in color and is made up of chicken or fish bones.

Miso

If you’ve had miso soup, then you’re familiar with this cloudy and complex broth. Made with fermented soy bean paste, miso can be white or red in color.

The broth is packed with umami and feels thicker on the palate than the lighter broths used for shio or shoyu broths.

If this sounds good to you, check out my Miso Ramen.

Tonkotsu

Full-bodied, fatty, and satisfying, the tonkotsu broth is the richest of them all. It’s made up of simmered pork bones which break down during the cooking process and release collagen, which makes a broth so thick it’ll coat the back of your spoon!

The broth is often fortified with pork or chicken fat.

So if you’re ordering yourself some Tonkotsu Ramen from a menu, know that you’re in for an indulgent treat.

Is Ramen Healthy?

There are articles out there that label Instant Ramen as packaged death—but I’m not into fear mongering. Especially with food. With anything in life, moderation is key.

My advice is to trash the flavor packet that comes with your Instant Ramen and make your own broth, like in this recipe. That way, you’re dodging shitty additives, preservatives, and you’re avoiding all of that unnecessary sodium.

Instant Ramen noodles themselves are lacking in nutritional content, so building your homemade Ramen bowls with proteins and vegetables is important.

To make your bowl even better, use homemade Ramen noodles if you have access to them. Sadly most of us don’t, so just toss that squiggly brick into some boiling water and make up for it in other wholesome ingredients. 

Ingredients for These Homemade Ramen Bowls.

• Sesame oil
• Olive oil (or avocado oil)
• Garlic
• Fresh ginger
• Chicken or vegetable broth
• Rice vinegar
• Low sodium soy sauce
• Sriracha or hot chili garlic sauce, like Sambal Oelek
• Shredded carrots
• Shiitake mushrooms (optional)
• Scallions
• Sesame seeds
• Soft-boiled egg

Other fun toppings you might want to include:

• Narutomaki (fish cakes; you’ve likely seen them. They’re the thinly-sliced rounds with pink spirals in the middle)
• Enoki mushrooms
• Nori (dried seaweed)
• Bamboo shoots
• Bean sprouts
• Corn kernels

How to Make Ramen Soup at Home.

I kept this recipe approachable. It’s great as is, and if you feel like getting creative, use this recipe as a base!

A lot of readers have tweaked this recipe to make it their own and I think that’s fantastic. Feel free to share your creations in the comments below.

1. Heat the oil in a medium-sized saucepan over medium heat. Once the oil is hot, you’ll add the garlic and ginger, and simmer until fragrant.
2. Add the rest of the veggies you want to cook—in this recipe, the carrots and mushrooms—and cook them until they soften up.
3. Transfer the broth to the pot and add the rice vinegar, soy sauce, and Sriracha. Give the broth a good stir to combine the ingredients.
4. Let the soup simmer for about five minutes, then give it a taste and add more soy sauce or Sriracha if needed. (This depends on how salty and spicy you want it.)
5. While the soup simmers, cook the Ramen noodles in a separate pot as per the packages instructions.
6. When done, drain, rinse under cool water, place into your soup bowl, and set aside.
7. Once the broth is ready, spoon it over the noodles, then garnish the bowl with whatever you please!

How to Make a Ramen Egg.

Everybody loves that custardy soft-boiled egg sitting in their Ramen broth. It just might be the best part of the bowl. Luckily preparing it is very simple.

1. Bring a small pot of water to a boil, add the egg, and time it for five minutes.
2. While the egg is boiling, get an ice bath ready in a bowl big enough to cover the egg.
3. When the egg is ready, carefully transfer it from the boiling water to the ice bath and let it cool for about a minute. (The ice bath prevents the egg from cooking further once removed from the hot pot.)
4. Finally, lightly crack and roll the egg on a cutting board, peel it, and slice it in half. 

Equipment You’ll need:

• Saucepan
• Microplane, this is a great tool to grate your ginger and garlic to a nice paste!
• Sharp knife
• Cutting Board
• Wooden spoon
• Colander

Ramen Bowl Essentials:

• Japanese Style Ramen Bowl
• Chopsticks
• Wonton soup spoon, the best way to slurp up that homemade Ramen broth.

Is This a Vegetarian Ramen?

As long as you use vegetable broth instead of chicken broth and ditch the egg, yes! In fact, since most brands of soy sauce are vegan friendly, this recipe could easily count as vegan Ramen bowls with those same changes.