What is your favorite way to Jazz up cheap ramen?

Putting boiling water in it for once instead of eating it dry :3
- It's so hard to swallow the boiling water though, my throat keeps burning.
- Look at Mr Fancy-pants here...
- Do you have a recipe? Not all of us are gourmet shefs here
  
  Step 1. Boil water
  What am I, a chemist?
  
  Step 1: Put water in the kettle
  Step 2: Click the little button
  Step 3: Open your noodles, and put them in the bowl, along with the spices, vegetables and oil
  Step 4: Once the kettle turns off pour the water onto the noodles till it covers about half
  Step 5: Put a plate over the bowl and wait about 4 minutes
- we called plain dry ramen "food brick"
  lol man that brings me back! it was ok for some flavors. put the flavor packet into the package, give it a shake and crunch crunch
  being 20 something in the 1990s was fun
- Now thats a game changer!
- You probably don't have raw sewage coming out of your pipes ala Michigan. Fancy!
  
  Had sand come out once :3.. that's on me for not checking the filters in ages tho
- Dont forget to snort the spice packet!
- never!

If I'm trying to make it a real meal whatever veg / seafood / meat I might have around. But my lazy addition is a spoonful of crunchy peanut butter (and usually some extra spice) makes it feel more nutritious creamier and kinda like satay.
- See, people think that me using butter is weird, but peanut butter sounds atrocious to me and multiple people have suggested it.
  
  You should try it! Personally, I don't find butter weird (I think it's just people don't think of it as an 'Asian' ingredient) but I was shocked by the mayo. But a couple of folks mentioned it, so I'm going to try!
  And thanks for this post BTW, I'm a bachelor again for a week while my partner is away, so I'll defintely be cracking out the ramen. And now I can pretend I'm experimenting, rather than just being lazy!
  
  Peanut butter + sriracha + a bit of lime juice for “pad thai” works well.
  
  Peanut butter is a common ingredient in some Thai recipes. It just sounds weird to people who have only used peanut butter for PB&J sandwiches.

Hot sauce and a soft boiled egg
- Chili crisp is a game changer for me. And i chop and freeze cilantro in an ice cube tray, so I have fresh cilantro to throw in at the very end. I'm going to start doing that with spring onions too, because I never use them all before they go bad.
- Yep. Egg + sriracha for me.
- Haha was gonna type this exactly
- Also a good option is a hard boiled egg that has been marinated in soy sauce.

I didn't see this listed yet, but this is by far the best I've had. I use Shin Ramen, it's pretty spicy. This offsets the spice a little, but it's still pretty spicy. I'm sure this works with other ramen just fine as well.
Noodles and flavor/herb packets into bowl with water, bowl into microwave.
In another bowl put 1 egg, about the yolks sized amount of kewpie mayo, and a few shakes of soy sauce, however much you want. Whisk it all together well.
Once your noodles are done cooking, SLOWLY pour its super hot contents into the egg mixture while whisking the entire time. Basically you don't want it to get hot enough to cook the egg until it all evenly incorporates.
Enjoy. I like this more than most restaurant ramen.
Sometimes I'll add meats or a boiled egg or green onions if I have it on hand, but that's absolutely not necessary for it to be amazing.
- This is almost my exact process, too! Had to verify you weren't a housemate, lol. We do a dash of fish sauce in ours, instead of soy sauce.
  
  Oooh, that sounds like something to try.
- This sounds amazing and I will be picking up some Shin today to give it a try. Thanks for sharing!

Fried spam.
crack an egg into it.
add some curry paste.
add fresh green onions.

Make the ramen as normal but once the noods are cooked crack an egg, add some mayo, then stir it all up. It adds great flavor and makes the meal more filling.
- I'm guilty of throwing a drizzle of mayo on top of the Ramen right before serving. That and toss on some sesame seeds. Amazing.

Frozen veggies so I feel like it’s a real meal.
Fire-roasted corn is a fave, then usually peas and carrots, and the weird one I found: frozen okra. It seemed wrong but I had some on hand and figured why not? Turns out I like it a lot! It also thickens the broth just a bit in a good way.
- okra is totally underrated.
  
  My parents briefly hired a private chef. She used (frozen) okra in ways I never expected and it’s what made me always keep a bag on hand.
  The best was oven-roasted veggies with beets and asparagus (fresh) plus okra and fire-roasted corn (frozen). Nothing else, not even seasoning, and it was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten.
  She also used it in salads! I questioned it until I tried it, and then I was sold.

….butter??? In ramen???
- You only need a little. Fat disperses flavor.
  
  Yeah, but sesame oil is customary.
- Butter corn miso ramen is a thing in Sapporo. Probably invented to promote regional products (Hokkaido is famous for corn and dairy) to tourists.
- Yes. Not a whole bunch but it makes it like a creamy texture. Idk I been eating it that way since I was a kid. The mustard normally trips people out too, but when they try it they say its good.

Boil tea and using that to cook the noodles. Poach one or two eggs with the noodles. Salt and pepper to taste.

Sprinkle some nori rice seasoning.

Defiant jazz
- Sun Ra for some extra funky jazz

A soft boiled egg and some kimchi.

First of all, I never use that flavor packet. It’s a ridiculous amount of sodium.
To keep it quick and easy, I’d use garlic powder and/or chili flakes.
Edit: pepper, too. Pepper mills are inexpensive, and fresh ground pepper is MUCH better.

Sliced up fish cake or sausage, seaweed snacks and pickled mustard greens are my go to. When I want something spicy, and I usually do, I grab a block of hot pot seasoning I keep in the freezer and cut off a piece to melt in the broth.

Chop up a spring onion and chuck that in with some toasted sesame seeds.
For a bit more effort I'll chuck in some frozen stir fry veg when I'm cooking it. Sometimes I do an egg too

Sauces, Sauces and more sauces. I never user the flavor packet (Or just use a little bit) and add my own sauces. Soy sauce, fish sauce, hoisin, oyster sauce, miso etc. They are just sitting there ready to be used to make it delicious

Make the noodles in a pot, drain, put in flavor packet and pepper.
- Revolutionary
- I add some butter too so it makes a bit of a sauce, and don't be too thorough when draining so that there's a little bit of starchy water to saucify things even more.

Jammy soy eggs
Extra dehydrated veggies
Dollop of gochujong or some other hot sauce
Sprinkling if sesame seeds or crunches up nori

Stir fry the cooked noodles with whatever.

Add instant potatoes until it gets to the desired thickness and add ground beef and cheese.
In college we called it "poverty slop"
- This sounds bomb as fuck to me.

I put boiled eggs, frozen vegetables, and chili crisp along with any leftovers I have. Today I had some extra bacon but things like pork chops or chicken is good too.
Still experimenting with different brands of chili crisp. I like the ones with a bit of crunch but they are not spicy enough. I put a couple big spoonfuls on top and would like it hotter with less oil.

Any combination of ginger, garlic, onion, pepper, and whatever leftover meat and/or veggies I've got.
Or, if I have leftover soup, I do one cup water, one cup soup and one half of the seasoning pouch. It's especially great with cabbage and sausage soup, but split pea is pretty good too.

Soft boiled egg, always. I usually have some kimchi, so that, too. Got a bag of nori sheets for sushi, so I cut up some of that as well. Made my own chili oil, and a friend got me some momofuku chili crisp, and I alternate between those two. Always growing some green onion out back, so some of that, too... Sliced ham? Hell yeah. I also keep a jar of pickled carrots shreds, so why not. Thin slivers of red onion, too. Toasted sesame seeds sometimes, just a little, for texture.
Ramen takes a long time to make at my place, but I got just about whatever you could want.

Spam and fried egg is a classic. Maybe some kimchi or whatever leafy vegetables I have around
- I've never heard of using spam until today but a few people suggested it. I have cheap "spam" in the house so maybe I will try it.
  
  I think the Spam thing is part of Korean food culture with their "army stew", made from ramen, spam, baked beans, kimchi, cheese and such.

Egg, peanut butter, frozen peas, chopped up deli meats, thin sliced cabbage, sriracha or gochujang.

A small amount of cream cheese.

Make your own broth from concentrates and things like doenjang, miso, gochjang, hoisin, fish sauce etc. Then a bunch of veg. If I'm feeling it, ill use fresh veggies and prepare each accordingly, but if I'm making a quick bowl, a big handful of frozen veg does the trick.

kimchi or an egg
- ooh, kimchi in ramen sounds interesting, I may try that...

Egg, julienned courgette
- For fellow Americans just waking up, observe how much better this sounds than ‘zoodles’
  (and don’t @ me about chiffonades and spiralizing and julienning. actually do, spiralizers kick ass)

Start with miso or vegetable broth, with dark soy sauce, pepper/paprika, MSG, and maybe a little garlic if you're feeling it. (Light soy sauce too if you don't use the flavor packet, I use the soy sauce flavor top ramen packet though)
Add silken tofu, bok choy, and mushrooms (I like enoki and shiitake)
Wait a bit, add noodles, let it cook.
Drizzle some toasted sesame oil on top
Eat with chopsticks and slurp the broth!

I keep some frozen vegetables to add in. Corn, peas, peppers, and onions usually.
- Frozen onions?
  
  My grocery store sells a mixed bag of pre-chopped onions and green peppers. I also use them for tacos

If it's Korean noodle soup (like buldak or nongshim), I throw in some sliced spam, an egg, fresh spring onion and a couple slices of American cheese (that plastic cheese they use on burgers). If it's dry noodles, specifically IndoMie's Mee Goreng, I shit you not, try adding a teaspoon of unsalted peanut butter in there.

I made some ~~rocket fuel~~ chili oil a while back. I add about half a teaspoon to the water while waiting for it to boil.

I drop an egg in when heating up the water, do a quick reconstitute sauté of some dried mushrooms in butter with a little garlic and then top with a sheet of nori and fresh scallion.

With Jazz :p
But actually: https://www.justonecookbook.com/ramen-egg/

Bok choi, Sriracha and a crispy fried egg.
And some MSG if it can take it.
Aside - any broadly available alternatives to Huy Fong? I know they fucked their supplier, and I’ve heard it’s not the same anymore.
- I just had some of the new stuff today for the first time today, its still better than any alternative I tried while they were on shortage. I just finished my "real" stash up yesterday so I have a good base for a comparison. I did think it tasted a little different, but its definitely not bad.

Medium boiled egg. Some frozen potstickers, I heated up on the side.

Concentrated ramen broth concentrate. Mizkan and Yamasa have a few varieties, including tonkotsu, shoyu, and vegetarian. Had to go to half a dozen stores. A mom-n-pop Japanese market had them on the shelf.
The suggested servings are way too salty. 1/2 to 1 tbsp is enough to really enhance the flavor.

When i get to the end of a rotisserie chicken, or I've made pulled pork, i create a broth of meat, mushrooms, chopped spinach, celery, soy sauce, lime juice, and a bunch of spices like garlic, ginger, parsley, chives, salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper.
Then i add the real star of the show - Korean Gochujang paste, which is fermented red pepper paste. It is spicy, but not too hot, with a really delicious flavor.
Then I add the ramen, and serve. Absolutely delicious, one of my favorite foods in the world. I just cooked up a crock pot of pulled pork, and I'll be making a big pot of soup today to dip into for the weekend. I also saved the pork broth, which will make an amazing base for it.
Dont use gochujang in a bottle, get the real stuff in the tub. It runs about $7-10 on Amazon. I've used Roland because it is all exactly the same, and Roland is among the cheapest. Publix just started carrying the tubs, but a different brand, so now i dont have to mail away for it. The new brand is exactly the same as Roland. It obviously all comes from the same factory, just different labels.
I also sometimes sautee up the same ingredients in a pan, toss in rice noodles, or drained ramen noodles, then add guochujang, thinned with a bit of oil and soy sauce, to coat it all. Also amazing.

Bone broth, you get me?

An egg and some onions

The "ramulet" 2 egg omelette with ramen noodles

Slice of cheese on top.

mincemeat sauce is pretty good with it or some tuna and mayonnaise

Sriracha or your preferred hot sauce, egg, chopped veg like celery or carrot, a shot of malt vinegar or Worcestershire or a1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsB57FtaxXQ

Deepfry

A spoon of TomYum Soup paste (spicy ground shrimp basically)
Diced onions and bell peppers added raw once the ramen is off the heat. Adds crunch with taste
Any of my favourite cup soup mix, mostly hot and sour

A couple/few steamed eggs, bean sprouts, some relevant protein to the flavor of ramen I'm having, be it sliced lunch meat, left over pot roast, what have you.

Make it with miso, tempeh, whatever veggies I have around

Mint Jams by Casiopea is really good.

Egg and chilli crisp both work equally well to elevate ramen. I still use their powder pack, but I'm sure there are good recipes without so much salt.