Ramen is a Japanese dish that consists of Chinese-style wheat noodles served in a meat or (occasionally) fish-based broth, often flavored with soy sauce or miso.

Ramen are quick-cooking spaghetti-like noodles served in a broth. Although they originated in China, ramen gradually became a symbol for the people’s food in Japan, where long strands of fresh pasta were added to soups made with vegetables, fish or meat.

The only similarity between instant noodles and ramen is that they’re both noodle soups. Ramen is made fresh while instant noodles include a vast variety of manufactured noodles. The next time you call something ramen, think about it first.

Japanese Ramen for Beginners

• Sapporo Black Shoyu Ramen.
• Ajisai Shio Ramen.
• “Human Beings Everybody Noodles (HBEN)” Ramen, Osaka.
• Hakata Ramen in Fukuoka.
• Classic Chicken Shoyu Ramen in Tokyo.
• A5 Wagyu Beef Ramen.
• Tokyo’s Top-Rated Tsukemen.
• Next time you head to Japan, be sure to try out these incredible bowls of ramen!

11 Types of Ramen you should try

• Tonkotsu Ramen – My favourite of all, a ramen dish that originated in Fukuoka, this ramen is made with a soup broth prepared with pork bones and other ingredients.
• Karē ramen – As the name says this is made with curry so it usually appears in a yellow to orange thick broth.

Beef. You can never go wrong with a classic, which is why Beef ranks so high at the top of our list of Maruchan flavors. It’s probably one of the first ramen flavors you tried, and therefore, it’s probably one of your favorites.

Narutomaki

Finally, you can successfully make the perfect bowl of ramen by making sure you drain the water from the noodles well before you add them to the soup. This ensures that the deliciousness of the soup isn’t lost.

Noodles destined for room temperature or cold dishes benefit from a rinse. When noodles cool down, they can clump and taste pasty; rinsing them keeps them loose and arrests the cooking process so they don’t go limp.

Bring 2 1/2 cups of water to a boil in a small saucepan. Add the noodles and cook for 2 minutes. Add the flavor packet, stir, and continue to cook for another 30 seconds.

To recreate her recipe, I first made Chicken Ramen—my favorite, since she didn’t specify the type—by boiling water, adding the noodles and flavoring, and then her special ingredients: butter, garlic powder, onion powder (about 5 or 6 shakes of each, since she didn’t say), and an egg.

When the noodles are starting to turn slightly yellow, they are done. At this point, the ramen should be completely broken apart, and, when you put your fork in the water, a few noodles attach themselves to your fork. The ramen is ready to eat when it is flexible.

Cooking time varies, but Tong recommends following the packet instructions (usually a couple of minutes). Once cooked, drain and rinse the noodles under a stream of cool water to stop the cooking process and discard the oily boiling water. This, he says, makes instant noodles just that little bit more healthy.

Summary: Instant noodles are low in calories, which could help decrease calorie intake. However, they are also low in fiber and protein and may not support weight loss or make you feel very full.

Japanese Ramen consists of a lot of fat and carbs as expected for most noodle dishes. This means that it offers a high potential for weight gain as it is very dense in calories. However, with any food, you can manage to have a bowl or two as long as you are aware of how many calories you consume on a daily basis.

Ramen noodles are really effin’ fatty. A little known — and less thought about — fact is that ramen noodles are incredibly high in fat, with a single brick containing around eight grams, four of which are saturated fat. In other words, those noodles are fried in fatty-fat-fat.

They’re so iconic they have an entire museum dedicated to them. Instant ramen is easy on our pockets because it is cheap to produce. Healthline says the noodles are made from wheat flour, which has been fortified with synthetic forms of vitamin B and iron.