Easy Homemade Miso Ramen with Butter (味噌ラーメン)

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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Miso Ramen

Miso ramen is a delicious noodle dish made with Chinese style noodles in a hearty miso flavoured broth. Not only is it super tasty, but it's easy to make too!

My broth is rich and buttery, and I'm going to show you how to make it from scratch!

What is Ramen?

Ramen is a Japanese dish consisting of Chinese style wheat noodles served in a tasty broth and it's probably one of the most famous and well loved Japanese dishes in the world. Every region of Japan has it's own unique ramen, but overall there are 3 main types.

• Shoyu (soy sauce base)
• Shio (salt base)
• Miso (fermented soy bean paste base)

Of course, it's not limited to these three. But most ramen dishes start with one of these bases and then build up. Today's recipe has a miso base!

What is Miso?

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.

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, 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.

Toppings

Somehow, miso ramen has more vegetables than your usual ramen. It's very versatile and every restaurant and home adds different toppings.

Popular toppings

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

• Pork
• Spinach
• Cabbage
• Sweetcorn
• Beansprouts
• Green onion
• White onion
• Ramen egg (Check out my recipe!)
• 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.

Miso Ramen in Japan

The most well-known miso ramen in Japan would be 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 this recipe is that you don't need to simmer the broth for a long time. It's rich, flavourful and delicious! I hope you enjoy this quick and easy Miso Ramen!

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