How to make slow instant ramen

There’s a trend going around on social media, especially on TikTok, where women film videos of themselves living their version of a 1950s-style Stepford Wife. Self-dubbed “tradwives” take care of cooking and other household tasks with inexplicable attention to detail, all while in a poofy flowery dress and a full face of makeup. There’s no dish so simple a tradwife can’t find a way to make it unnecessarily complicated to gain homemaker clout.

I couldn’t help but wonder: How about instant ramen? Instant ramen is the peak of unnutritious but cheap and fast junk food. Surely it’s a worthy dish to make as fancy as possible to please my husband.

If you’ve ever wanted to spend an hour cooking instant ramen, instructions are below.

Dishware

Amping up your instant ramen starts before you buy a single ingredient. How can you possibly serve ramen in a generic dish—let alone the styrofoam cup? As if! You must go to a store that sells Japanese dishware such as Kogura Gifts in San Jose Japantown, Mitsuwa Marketplace or Osaka Marketplace. 

You will need: large ceramic bowls, Japanese-style spoons that look like little scoops, chopsticks (duh) and a rest for the chopsticks.

Ramen

Scan the instant ramen section in an Asian grocery store, and buy something more in the two to five dollar range. You will be surprised at the quality of the noodles and broth, even in dried and powdered forms. Some of my favorites are GreeNoodle and La Mian.

Extras

What really elevates instant ramen is adding a whole bunch of other stuff to it. Green onions are a no-brainer. You can also add: mung bean sprouts, shiitake mushrooms, dried seaweed (nori) and boiled eggs. Thin-sliced pork belly can stand in for chashu in a pinch.

One more extra is invisible but powerful: Cook the ramen in vegetable or chicken broth instead of water. This will add more body and flavor to whatever broth comes with the packet.

Attire

While cooking, make sure you wear a cute apron. Hold your hair back with a bandana, but make sure everyone can still tell how cute your hair is. Big poofy sleeves are fine but not required. Make sure your nails aren’t gnarly.

Cooking

First, cook the extras. Slice the shiitake mushroom and brown it in a pan with some neutral oil. Brown the pork belly as well. Boil the bean sprouts for one minute. Chop the green onions. Cut the nori to the right size. Put everything on its own tiny plate so it looks nice on camera.

I think six to six-and-a-half minutes is perfect for soft boiling eggs for ramen. If you don’t want the yolks to be runny, boil for seven minutes. De-shell boiled eggs and cut them in half.

Heat the broth for ramen and add the powders/pastes that come with the noodles. Boil the noodles the amount of time specified on the package. Pour the ramen into the bowl and arrange the extras on top in a nice pattern. I like putting the green onions in the middle.

Your ramen is ready to serve. But this entire time, it was you who was serving up love, care and classy looks.

The point

Is there any point to making ramen at home? Once you add up all the serveware and ingredients, it’s not super cheap anymore. You can go out to a restaurant and be served ramen just as good or better. You can DoorDash ramen that will be lukewarm by the time it arrives. In this context, spending an hour cooking seems pretty pointless.

In fact, all home cooking is pointless in a sense when chefs can cook the same dishes better, and the amount you save by cooking for yourself is probably less than what you would earn if you spent the same time working. Many would happily never touch a stove again if infinite outsourcing of meal prep was an option.

But I will cook up some La Mian curry ramen with all the toppings at least every couple of weeks, and it’s one of the weeknight meals my husband and I look forward to the most.

I think it’s a mistake to decide that time is time and food is food, and that the ultimate flex is making enough money that you never have to learn the little skills of homemaking. While I’m not nearly put together enough to be a tradwife, I am drawn to the idea of learning hands-on practical skills, such as creating a fun meal out of unconventional ingredients.