As a kid, I loved Ichi-Ban instant noodles. I used to ask for them by colour. I usually wanted pink, but sometimes brown or green would be ok (I also preferred pink, a.k.a. 2%, milk). Sadly, as I grew up I realized Ichi-Ban is pretty much a stew of MSG, sodium, and refined starch and flour. Not that a slew of relatively poor ingredients would stop me from eating something entirely, but the fact that it’s not available in a vegetarian version is.
A trip to my local Asian grocer saw me loaded up with a whole lot of different kinds of noodles, including some ramen noodles. After a few nights of frozen mangoes and sweet potato fries for dinner, I started to think about something to do with them… and homemade ichi-ban sounded pretty good.
I started with the broth. Vegetable with added ginger, garlic, chili garlic sauce, sesame oil, black bean sauce, and green onions. Once it came to a boil I cooked the noodles in it. After a couple minutes I added a handful of frozen peas and corn, and some chopped up tofu. Serve! Omnomnom.
Homemade Instant Noodles
1 package fresh ramen noodles
1 cup vegetable broth
½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp garlic powder
1 tsp sesame oil
½ tsp black bean sauce
½ tsp chili garlic sauce
¼ cup sliced green onions1/3 cup frozen peas & corn
1/3 cup diced firm, flavoured tofuCombine the broth and all the spices and flavourings and bring to a boil. Boil the ramen noodles and add the frozen veggies and the tofu.
Serve & enjoy!
It would be nice to see you do this in a video as I have never heard of these type noodles before and cannot well imagine your written instructions with the ingredients of which most I have never heard of either.
Thanks for the tip 🙂 I doubt I’ll be doing a video of this anytime soon, but I can direct you towards some more photos so you can see what I’m talking about. Ramen noodles are pretty easy to get your hands on at any grocery store. They often come packaged with a flavour packet under brand names like Ichiban. I think vegetable broth and the ground spices are fairly self explanatory and easy to buy at any grocery store. Sesame oil is easily found at grocery stores or Asian grocers and is the oil from sesame seeds. Black bean sauce is a fermented condiment made from black beans, and is readily available at any Asian grocer for a dollar or two. Chili sauce is another popular condiment you can get as Asian grocers—Sriracha is a popular brand. I’m pretty sure you know what green onions are, they’re also called scallions sometimes. Frozen peas are pretty self explanatory, and for the tofu I’d recommend you buy a package of the type that’s been pressed with garlic and other flavorings rather than the plain stuff most grocery stores carry. Something like this. So, basically all you’re doing is using the spices, sesame oil, black bean sauce, chili sauce, and green onions to flavour the broth, and then cooking the noodles in the broth, and mixing in some peas and tofu. Quick, easy, and delicious!
Thank you for your extremely detailed reply Marie. For some reason I thought it was an actual type of noodle you were making, duh!
Haha, no problem! I can see why that would be confusing 😛