Easy Pork Miso Ramen (with Homemade Broth)

This miso ramen is rich, tasty and most importantly, it's quick and easy to make! Chewy noodles in a flavourful miso broth, topped with seasoned pork, beansprouts, spinach, sweetcorn and melty butter to add a decadent creaminess!

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• What is miso ramen?
• Watch our video for how to make homemade miso ramen
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What is miso ramen?

Miso ramen is a Japanese noodle dish that uses miso paste as the base sauce (tare). Miso ramen originated from Hokkaido and "Sapporo Miso Ramen" is nationally famous, but there are also many other miso ramen dishes from other regions.

Not only is it super tasty, but it's easy to make too! My recipe includes how to make a rich and buttery miso broth from scratch in just 15 minutes!

Brief history of miso ramen

The most well-known miso ramen in Japan is Sapporo ramen which started in Hokkaido, Northern Japan in 1955 at a restaurant called "Aji no Sanpei (味の三平)". Although there are various theories, one of the well known theories is that the owner got inspired by the regular customer asking "Can you make ramen in tonjiru?".

Whatever the story, it is evident that he put it on the menu in 1955 and since then, it has become the most popular miso ramen dish in Japan!

The great thing about my recipe is that you don't need to simmer the broth for a long time. It has depth of flavour, yet it's still quick to make too!

Miso ramen VS Tonkotsu ramen: How are they different? Which ones are better?

Miso ramen and tonkotsu ramen are two completely different ramen dishes. As you can tell, miso ramen uses miso for the sauce (tare) and tonkotsu ramen uses slow cooked pork bones broth. However, these two can be combined using miso paste with pork bone broth to make miso tonkotsu ramen.

Either way, everyone has their own opinion on which one is the best. Tonkotsu is thick, fatty and rich while miso ramen is not so heavy but still packed with umami. A lot of my friends like tonkotsu ramen but I personally like miso ramen the best. Other than these two there are other types of ramen including shoyu ramen (soy sauce base) and shio ramen (salt base).

But I have to say one thing. It's extremely hard to make proper tonkotsu ramen at home because you need huge amount of pork bones and then you have to slow cook these for hours and hours. On the other hand, you can easily make miso ramen at home without any hassle. So for home cooking especially, I'd have to say miso ramen is better.

What kind of miso is in miso ramen?

Miso is a salty paste made from fermented soy beans and there are a few different kinds.

• Shiro Miso - A white miso paste that uses less soybeans. Slightly sweet and mild.
• Shinshu Miso - A yellow miso paste which uses more soybeans than white, but less than red. Fermentation time is longer than shiro miso. It is salty and slightly acidic.
• Aka Miso - A red miso paste that has the highest soybean concentration of all the miso pastes.
• Awase Miso - A mixture of red and white miso paste. The flavour is a blend of the sweetness from the white and the richness of the red.

Long story short, you can use any miso you like. But in this recipe, I used "awase miso" with dashi. Many miso pastes contain dashi for extra umami, it saves you from making dashi from scratch too! (Miso paste that contains dashi should say "出汁入り".) You can buy awase miso with dashi on Amazon.

Note: Most miso pastes with dashi contain fish products so this recipe isn't suitable for vegetarians or vegans. (If you're interested in making a vegan version of this dish, you can mix additive-free miso paste such as Hikari Miso with vegan dashi instead of water and swap the pork for tofu.)

Tips for adding miso paste to broths

There are a few techniques you can use to make sure your miso maintains a good flavour and texture in the noodle broth.

Firstly, miso should be added to the broth last when the heat has been turned off. This is because miso tends to lose its flavour if over cooked. Adding it last means it won't have a chance to lose its flavour!

When adding miso paste, you shouldn't add it directly to the broth. Doing so will make the miso paste harder to incorporate it into the broth and you'll end up with lumps of miso floating around in your soup. I recommend these tools:

• A whisk (or chopsticks)
• A mesh spoon or ladle

You can place the miso paste onto the mesh spoon and then dip it into the hot broth to loosen it, allowing you to whisk the miso paste with a smaller amount of liquid on the spoon itself. Once it's broken down it will be easy to mix with the rest of the broth.

If you don't have a mesh spoon, you can achieve the same thing by mixing the miso paste with a small amount of broth in a ladle or even a small bowl.

Topping for miso ramen

Somehow, miso ramen tends to have more vegetables than other types of ramen. It's very versatile and every restaurant and home adds different toppings.

Here are some of the toppings you might find on miso ramen:

• Pork
• Spinach
• Cabbage
• Sweetcorn
• Beansprouts
• Green onion
• White onion
• Chashu
• Ramen egg
• Carrot

As you can see, the possibilities are endless! If you don't want to use pork, you could even use tofu or a meat alternative.

Watch our video for how to make homemade miso ramen

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