7 Cheap and Easy Ramen Noodle Hacks

What's up, dude? At this point, I think it's pretty safe to say the population of Earth really loves ramen. Ramen! Today, I'm gonna show you seven cheap, easy, fast, and absolutely delicious ramen hacks. And as always, there is no time to waste. Now let's go! Woo! Before we even get into the ramen first, we need to talk about eggs. Because eggs and ramen are absolutely a match made in heaven. You can't have one without the other, if you ask me. I'm gonna show you four different ways of cooking eggs that you can have with your ramen. And you can apply each of these egg techniques to any of these ramens I'm about to show you. Now the first one is just gonna be a boiled egg. Not too soft, not too hard. And for this, I like a seven minute egg. Bring some water to a light simmer, and then just drop in your eggs. And while these begin to cook, swirl the water a little bit with the eggs, gently being careful not to break the eggs. This is basically gonna keep that egg yolk in the center of the egg, where it belongs, and not pushed off to one side after the cook. As soon as those seven minutes are up, transfer the eggs into some ice water and let them cool for another five to 10. Now break off a little piece of the shell and make sure you get under that first piece of membrane. And then simply take a spoon and slide it under the shell and pull back. This is a really great and easy way to peel an egg. And if you want hard boiled eggs, just cook them for a few minutes longer. That's absolutely fine too. The second egg for me is gonna have to be sunny side up. And for this, we'll just bring a pan up to medium heat. Put it in a little cooking oil. I'm just using avocado oil right here. Crack in your eggs and cook them for about three minutes. But as you're doing this, what I like to do is tilt the pan back a little and take a little bit of that oil and baste it, not on the yolk, but right around the yolk because that is the part of the white that tends to get undercooked a little bit. Once done, just remove, hit it with a little bit of salt and pepper if you want, and you're good to go. For my third egg choice, I'm gonna have to go with poached eggs. I love a good poached egg. For this, bring water to a simmer and just add a teaspoon of white vinegar. Crack your egg first into a little bowl and gently release it into the water. You'll see some of the egg whites rising to the surface, so just skim those off and continue to cook. For me, a poached egg only takes three and a half to four minutes and then it's completely done. Also, when it comes to poached eggs, you could absolutely do this in the water that the ramen cooked in. Right after you take out the noodles, that works absolutely fine as well. And for the fourth and final preparation of eggs, we are gonna use those same boiled eggs from before, and all we're gonna do with those is put them in a container with water, soy sauce, and mirin. These make the most unbelievably delicious ramen eggs. Now, you can use these after a couple hours, but they are best if they sit for a full day, so keep that in mind. Before we get into all of these ramen hacks, I need to confess, this has nothing to do with actual Japanese ramen, okay? So don't come at me in the comments. These are cheap, easy, and fast hacks that just make for some delicious ramen. This one is just your standard awesome ramen. It is super easy to pull off. I'll show you how to do it right now. We start with one raw egg, the seasoning packet from your ramen of choice, the broke boy vegetables, little bit of this QP mayo, but you could use another mayo if you don't have this, and a little minced garlic. Now, just mix it all up nicely, then simply just cook your ramen noodles per the package instructions, but save this water that it's cooked in because we'll be using this to cook the egg that's in there. Now, simply just start adding in your ramen water while mixing just like this, and because that water is just boiling hot, it's gonna cook the eggs for you, which is also gonna give the sauce a little bit of viscosity, meaning just make it a little bit thicker and stick to those noodles in a better way, and if you want it more soupy, add more of your ramen water. If you want it thicker, add less water. Simple as that. Just a little over a cup of water for me. Now, we're gonna add the noodles in here, and I'll just finish with a little bit of sliced green onion. Well, it looks good. Let's first try this broth. Mm. Oh, it's a little spicy, creamy, full of flavor. The salt level is just spot on. Let's try some noodles. It's delicious. I like that one a lot. The second ramen on our list involves peanut butter. Look, when I think of peanut butter, I'm not just thinking of a peanut butter and jelly. I think about it both equally for savory and sweet applications. If you love peanut butter, then this is definitely the one for you. Let me show you how to make it. Start with just a little touch of oil, about a tablespoon or so. Go in with a little minced garlic. Cook that for just 10 seconds, then add some sesame seeds, a little bit of chili flake, or any kind of dried chili of choice. Cook for another 10 seconds. Add a good spoonful of peanut butter. That's about two tablespoons worth. And I'm just adding a little bit of my ramen water. Mix, mix, mix. Keep adding water until you get it to your desired thickness. Now, just like about a teaspoon of soy sauce, maybe a little more if you like it. Work that in. Now, add your seasoning packet and your vegetables. Mix again. And you'll see when you make this one, because of the peanut butter, it will keep thickening up on you, so keep adding that ramen water as necessary. My noodles are done. I'm gonna add those in. Mix, mix, mix. Now, we'll add those to our serving bowl. Garnish them however you like. I'm doing some sesame seeds, some green onion, a little more chili flake, and how about a fried egg? I absolutely love the way the peanut butter ramen looks. Let's first try the sauce. Let's try some noodles. The sauce is delicious. Oh, come on, that one is good. I like it just as much, I think. It's a little spicy. It's really, really tasty. And the way the peanut butter coats the noodles is truly something to behold. So far, I've loved the first two, but as we do on this channel, we always save the best for last. The third ramen on our list uses American cheese. Just the way that American cheese melts into the sauce and coats the noodles is truly something to behold. And if you've got some American cheese lying around in your fridge, why not try this one? Here's how you make it. Heat up a little bit of milk over medium heat, and a touch of cream as well, but you could do one or the other. You don't need milk and cream. Now, we add a couple slices of American cheese, add our broke boy vegetables, seasoning packet, almost all of it, and the key ingredient, sriracha. Let this all heat up, and that cheese is really gonna bring this sauce together. Add a little bit of our ramen water. And of course, if you want this more like stir-fried noodles, you can not add any ramen water, and you can also add extra American cheese to make it thicker. But once the noodles go in here, it's gonna thicken up again. Oh, oh, oh, ah! Noodles enter the chat, toss it in, and in with the ramen. I'll finish this one with a little bit of green onion, a little furikake, furikake? I'm not sure if I'm saying it right, but it's a Japanese spice, some sesame seeds, and how about one of our soft-boiled eggs? With a little more of that spice on top. I love the way this one looks with that, correct me if I'm saying it wrong in the comments, furikake, seasoning. Let's try the sauce. Oh! This is my favorite yet, just from tasting the sauce. Okay, let's get the noodles with the seasoning. Oh, a little egg. Dude, this one is ridiculous, this one is so good. Mm, mm, ah! Marcus, get me the pillow. Ah! The fourth one on the list combines two of my favorite things, ramen and carbonara. Oh, I can feel the Italians' hate already brewing for me, but this is absolutely delicious, and if you like carbonara and you like ramen, you are definitely going to love this. For the carbonara ramen, I'm just doing bacon, I'm not using guanciale or pancetta or anything like that, because come on, this is American ramen, doesn't matter. So just get it on a tray lined with parchment paper, and we'll roast this off at 400 degrees for about 18, 20 minutes, or until nice and crispy. Just take two egg yolks, some Pecorino Romano cheese, and some Parmesan cheese, and all you gotta do is mix the egg yolks with the cheese until you have a sort of sludge formed, First, putting just a little bit of that bacon fat in the pan. In hindsight, I would've just cooked the bacon pieces in the pan, but this is fine. We'll add our chopped up bacon, add your ramen water, about 3 1⁄4 of a cup, keep the heat just a touch under medium, and I'm gonna add in my egg mix, keep this moving, and that ramen water is slowly gonna cook the egg and thicken this sauce up. Just make sure you don't have the heat too high or it's gonna curdle. I'm pulling out my noodles just a minute early from what the package says. Now keep that heat low and keep stirring, and we're gonna let the noodles finish in the sauce. Hopefully, the Italians watching will at least like that we did that, because that is how you always cook good pasta, pull it out early and finish it in the sauce. There we go, you can see it's starting to thicken up in a really beautiful way right now, and we're ready to taste. In it goes, a little fresh ground black pepper on top if you like, and I'll finish with just a little more Parmesan cheese. All right, here we go, carbonara ramen. Sorry, Italy, but I bet you it's good. It smells just like carbonara. Marcus, I'm gonna need the pillow. Pillow! One screaming pillow, sir. Each one is better than the last. Wow, mm, I know this is wrong, but at the same time, it's just so, so right, mm. The fifth ramen on our list, and my personal favorite is chili oil ramen. You pour hot oil over all your ingredients and then mix it in with your noodles to make the most unbelievable bite of ramen. It's seriously good, and this is how you make it. Start with minced garlic, minced ginger, the white part of the green onion, sesame seeds, a little bit of chili flake or dried chili of choice, just half of a packet of seasoning, a little bit of pepper, this is white pepper. This is great in ramen, a little bit of everything bagel seasoning, and this is neutral oil I brought up to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. It's avocado, but you can use whatever. Pour it over, stir, stir, stir. Now I'm adding a little bit of soy sauce, sesame oil, don't really need this, but a tiny little touch of sriracha. Now you have the most amazing chili oil. It smells so frickin' good right now. We'll add our strained noodles, and we'll give this a really good mix, wow. I'll go with a little everything bagel seasoning on top, green onions, that's kind of our number one garnish, and some of our soy pickled eggs, which you can see now are stained a little bit black from that soy sauce, and here we go. Out of all the recipes, this one tastes the most kind of authentic to something that's not just Americanized ramen like what you've been seeing here today. It's really good. Let's try this egg, mm, I just love those eggs so much. I could seriously sit here and eat this whole bowl. It's gonna be death from ramen today. The sixth ramen on our list is kimchi ramen. I don't know about you, but I absolutely love kimchi, and it fits in perfectly with this ramen dish, and our good old friend American cheese is coming back out to play with this one as well. Here's how you make it. Start with some unsalted butter, add minced garlic, touch of minced ginger, but you don't need it. This one's gonna be a little bit similar to the American cheese one, but with a twist. Cook for 30 seconds, and then add chopped up kimchi. Now add cream, a little sriracha for extra spice, and again, with the American cheese, although if you wanna leave it out, you absolutely can, although I'm really a fan of it in here. We'll let that melt into the sauce with the help of some of this ramen water. I'll add almost a full packet of seasoning and the broke boy vegetable. Mix, mix, mix, add our noodles, and that ramen is done. Into the bowl they go, and this one gets sesame seaweed as a garnish, whole bunch of it, and some more of our Japanese seasoning, and let's do a regular poach tag with this one. I absolutely love the way this one looks. Let's give it a shot. However, I do have to mention as we get to these final ramens, I'm getting a little bit sick of ramen. You know what I'm saying? I don't know how that much affects my scoring, but let's see. This one looks good. The look of the seaweed on top is cool. Mm-hmm, it's good. It's like the basic American cheese one with sriracha, just a little bit better if you ask me. The seventh ramen on our list is ginger ale ramen. Who knew ginger ale could be so good when mixed with ramen? Oh, this may seem weird to you at first, but it just adds a little bit of ginger flavor and a little bit of sweetness as well that makes a really great bite of ramen. Let's see if the last really is the best. Starting with peanut butter, everything bagel seasoning, sesame oil, sriracha, full seasoning packet, your little dried vegetables, and the key ingredient, my friends, which is Canada dry ginger ale. Little bit in, as well as one whole egg, and we mix up all these ingredients first. Now we start adding our ramen water in order to cook this egg and get all the ingredients nice and happy. There we go, three big ladleful. In with the noodles, go in with a little bit of green onion, little bit of everything bagel, some of our furikake, couple little noris in there, our soy pickled egg, and happy days. Ginger ale ramen, who knew? This one could be the best. My friends, best for last. This is good, this is really good. It's like you wouldn't think about it, peanut butter, ginger ale, but it just works. It's just fricking tasty. Hope you had fun. Until next time, you know I love you and I'm out.