Ramen
Weeknight shoyu chicken ramen. Supermarket chicken stock simmered with ginger, kombu and shiitake, a quick soy tare in the bowl, spring onion oil, poached chicken thigh and a jammy marinated egg.
A deep bowl, a cloud of steam, springy yellow noodles coiled in a glossy broth, a slab of tender pork, a soft egg with a jammy yolk, a sheet of nori leaning on the rim. Ramen is Japan's great comfort food, eaten at counters, in late-night stalls and, in instant form, in student flats everywhere. It's also a Chinese immigrant dish that Japan made its own, a postwar survival food and one of the most successful inventions of the 20th century.
Background
Ramen noodles are wheat noodles made with kansui, an alkaline water; the Ramen Museum notes that even the first Chinese-style noodles eaten in Japan used something similar 3. The bowl is built from noodles, broth, a seasoning base and toppings.
Japan has three big families of ramen: miso from Hokkaido, soy-sauce (shoyu) from Tokyo and the Kantō region, and creamy pork-bone tonkotsu from Kyushu 1. Sapporo's miso, Hakata's tonkotsu and Tokyo's shoyu-and-chicken bowls are the best-known city styles 2.
History
The name comes from Mandarin lamian, "pulled noodles", though ramen doesn't actually descend from northern hand-pulled noodles; its roots lie in southern Chinese, especially Cantonese, cooking 2.
The Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum keeps a long timeline. It records Chinese-style noodles made with kansui-like water eaten in Japan in 1488, and a famous story that in 1697 the scholar Zhu Shunshui served the feudal lord Tokugawa Mitsukuni, known as Mito Kōmon, "soup noodles from his country" 3.
The real start came when Japan reopened to foreign trade in the 1860s 1. Chinese immigrants settled in Yokohama's port, and by 1887 about twenty Chinese restaurants there sold noodle soups that Japanese diners called Nankin soba, "Nanjing noodles" 1. In 1884 a restaurant in Hakodate advertised Nankin soba in the newspaper, possibly the first ad for Chinese noodles in Japan 3.
Then came Rairaiken. In 1910 Kan'ichi Ozaki, a retired customs official, opened a Chinese restaurant in Asakusa, Tokyo, hired cooks from Yokohama's Chinatown, and added toppings such as chashu pork and bamboo shoots 1. At its peak it served up to 3,000 customers a day 4. It closed in 1976 when no one in the family wanted to take it over, and the Ramen Museum later revived it with help from Ozaki's descendants 4. After the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake, portable stalls spread ramen further 1.
The war turned ramen from a treat into a staple. After 1945 Japan faced severe rice shortages, and the American occupation brought cheap wheat flour 2. Millions of Japanese came home from China, and many opened ramen stalls 23. Cheap, filling and nourishing, ramen suited a hungry country 3.
In 1958 Momofuku Ando launched Nissin Chicken Ramen, the first instant ramen 3. Cup noodles followed in the 1970s, and the world now eats around a hundred billion servings of instant noodles a year 1.
Customs, rules and rituals
Even the name carries etiquette. Ozaki called his dish shina soba, "Chinese noodles". After the war the word shina carried the taint of Japanese imperialism, so people switched to chūka soba and then to ramen 2. Instant ramen helped "ramen" become the word everyone used 3.
There's a charming naming story from Sapporo, too. At the Takeya restaurant, opened in 1921, a Chinese chef is said to have called out when each bowl was ready, and customers misheard it as "ramen" 1. Allegedly. Like many food origin stories, it's told more than it's proven.
Ramen has become a pilgrimage. From 1984 towns such as Kitakata built their identity around local ramen, sparking a national hunger for regional styles 3. Today people queue at the Ramen Museum to eat at a reborn Rairaiken, where a bowl of handmade-noodle shoyu ramen costs 1,100 yen and only 100 are made a day 4.
Place in human experience
Ramen tells the story of modern Japan in one bowl. It arrived with Chinese migrants when the country opened up 1. It changed names as politics changed 2. It fed a defeated, hungry nation on American wheat 2 and gave returnees from China a living 23.
It's also a story of class. Ramen began as cheap food from carts and stalls 13, and in instant form it became the meal of students and late-night workers worldwide 1. Yet today chefs and towns treat it as fine craft, and people cross the country for a particular city's bowl 3.
And it's a story about identity. A dish once labelled "Chinese noodles" is now one of the first foods people name when they think of Japan. Ramen was never purely Japanese, or purely Chinese. It's what happens when cooks from two countries share a kitchen for a century.
So when you pull the lid off a cup of instant noodles at midnight, tip your hat to a customs officer in Asakusa, a chef in Sapporo and Momofuku Ando. Then add an egg.
Recipe inspiration
A proper tonkotsu broth takes a day of boiling bones. This one takes 40 minutes, and most of that is the pot ticking away while you slice spring onions. It starts with a carton of chicken stock and turns it into something deep and savoury with a strip of kombu, a few dried mushrooms and some ginger, the same umami builders ramen shops reach for 2.
It's a cold-night dinner, a cure for a long week, and a fridge-friendly one: the eggs, tare and broth all keep, so the second round of bowls takes ten minutes.
Additions & substitutions
- Miso instead of shoyu. Swap the tare for 1 tbsp miso per bowl, whisked smooth with a ladle of broth before the rest goes in. Sapporo made miso ramen famous 12.
- Pork instead of chicken. Fry 250 g pork mince in sesame oil with garlic, ginger and 1 tsp doubanjiang (chilli bean paste), then spoon it on top 5.
- Vegetarian. Use vegetable stock, double the shiitake and kombu, and top with fried tofu and blanched bok choy.
- Spicy. A spoon of chilli oil over each bowl at the table, or the doubanjiang above stirred into the tare 5.
- The packet upgrade. No time at all? Cook instant noodles with half their seasoning, then add a ramen egg, sliced spring onion and a few drops of sesame oil. It's a very happy dinner.
- More toppings. Corn, bean sprouts, nori, menma (seasoned bamboo shoots) and pickled ginger all belong 56.
Expert tips
Shopping
- Fresh ramen noodles from the fridge at an Asian grocer, springy and yellow from kansui, the alkaline water that makes ramen ramen 3. Dried ramen works too. Not spaghetti.
- Low-salt chicken stock. The tare does the salting. Full-salt stock plus tare makes a bowl too salty to finish.
- Kombu and dried shiitake live in the Asian aisle. Both keep for a year in the cupboard.
- Japanese soy sauce, mirin and sake for the tare. Dry sherry stands in for sake.
Preparing
- Make the eggs the night before. Seven minutes from the fridge into boiling water, 15 minutes in iced water, then 8 to 24 hours in the marinade 7.
- Keep the broth at a lazy simmer, small bubbles only. A hard boil turns it cloudy and pulls bitterness from the kombu.
- Warm the bowls with hot water from the kettle and tip it out before building 5. Ramen loses heat fast.
- Cook the noodles last, in a big pot of boiling water, 15 seconds less than the packet says, and drain them hard 5. Water clinging to the noodles waters down the soup.
Make ahead, or for a crowd
- Tare keeps 2 weeks in a jar in the fridge. Broth keeps 3 days, or 3 months frozen.
- Ramen eggs keep 3 to 4 days in the fridge 7.
- For 8, double the broth in your biggest pot and cook the noodles in two batches. Line up the bowls with tare and oil already in them, then pour and top like a ramen counter.
Serving suggestions
Serve with chopsticks, a deep spoon, and permission to slurp: it cools the noodles. Start with gyoza while the noodles cook, or a plate of crisp tempura. A quick cucumber salad dressed with rice vinegar, sesame oil and a pinch of sugar cuts through the richness. For a Japanese night, follow with sushi.
Ramen
Published 4 Oct 2026
Ingredients
Ramen eggs (make the night before)
- 4 eggs, straight from the fridge
- ¼ cup (60 ml) soy sauce
- ¼ cup (60 ml) mirin
- ¼ cup (60 ml) water, or sake
- 1 tsp sugar
Broth
- 2 litres low-salt chicken stock
- 500 g boneless, skinless chicken thighs
- 10 cm piece kombu
- 4 dried shiitake mushrooms
- 4 cm piece ginger, sliced
- 4 garlic cloves, smashed
- White parts of 4 spring onions (keep the greens)
Shoyu tare
- ¼ cup (60 ml) Japanese soy sauce
- 2 tbsp mirin
- 2 tbsp sake
Spring onion oil
- 3 tbsp chicken fat skimmed from the stock, or neutral oil
- 2 spring onions, thinly sliced
To serve
- 4 portions fresh ramen noodles (about 500 g)
- Greens of 4 spring onions, finely sliced
- 2 sheets nori, halved
- Sesame seeds, chilli oil, to taste
Method
- Marinate the eggs. The night before, simmer the soy, mirin, water and sugar for 1 minute, then cool completely 7. Lower the cold eggs into boiling water and cook exactly 7 minutes, 6 to 6½ for a runnier yolk 7. Into iced water for 15 minutes, peel, then sit them in the marinade in a zip bag or small container, 8 to 24 hours 7.
- Build the broth. Put the stock, chicken, kombu, shiitake, ginger, garlic and spring onion whites in a large pot. Bring slowly to a gentle simmer over medium heat, small bubbles only, and skim any foam.
- Poach the chicken. Simmer 15 minutes, until the thickest piece is white all the way through. Lift the chicken out onto a board. Fish out the kombu and throw it away; lift out the shiitake, slice them, and set them aside as a topping.
- Simmer on. Keep the broth barely bubbling, uncovered, another 20 minutes. It should taste rich and gingery but plain. That's right: no salt yet.
- Make the tare. Simmer the soy, mirin and sake in a small pan for 1 minute, until the sharp alcohol smell has gone. Take it off the heat.
- Make the spring onion oil. Warm the fat or oil in a small pan over medium-low heat. Add the sliced spring onions and cook 3 to 4 minutes, until golden at the edges and the oil smells sweet and toasty. Off the heat before they go brown.
- Strain and slice. Strain the broth into a clean pot and keep it steaming hot. Slice the chicken and halve the eggs lengthwise: the yolks should be jammy orange.
- Warm the bowls. Fill each bowl with boiling water from the kettle and leave a minute, then tip it out 5.
- Cook the noodles. Boil them in a big pot of water, loosening the nest as it goes in, 15 seconds less than the packet says 5. Drain hard, shaking the colander.
- Build each bowl. Into each warm bowl: 1½ tbsp tare and 1 tsp spring onion oil, then 1½ cups (360 ml) piping-hot broth 6. Stir, taste, add more tare if you like. Slide in the noodles and lift them with chopsticks so they sit in a loose fold.
- Top and eat. Chicken, shiitake, half an egg, spring onion greens, a nori sheet tucked against the rim, sesame seeds. Serve at once.
Notes
- Too salty? Too much tare or full-salt stock. Top the bowl up with hot unseasoned broth or water. Start the next bowl with 1 tbsp tare 6.
- Bland? It needs more tare, not salt. Add a teaspoon at a time until it tastes deep and savoury.
- Broth cloudy? It boiled hard. It still tastes good. Next time, keep it at small bubbles.
- Noodles soft and swollen? They sat in the broth too long, or cooked the full packet time. Cook noodles only when everyone's at the table.
- Egg yolk hard? It cooked too long, or went in at room temperature. Fridge-cold eggs and a timer.
- Egg white too dark and salty? It marinated more than a day 7. Pour off the marinade and keep the eggs dry in a container.
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Comments
Sources
- "Ramen", The Japanese Table, Kikkoman Food Forum. https://www.kikkoman.com/en/foodforum/the-japanese-table/32-4.html
- "Ramen", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramen
- "History of Ramen", Shin-Yokohama Raumen Museum. https://www.raumen.co.jp/rapedia/study_history/
- "Japan's first-ever ramen restaurant reopens after 44 years", Japan Today. https://japantoday.com/category/features/food/japan%E2%80%99s-first-ever-ramen-restaurant-reopens-after-44-years
- Namiko Hirasawa Chen, "Miso Ramen", Just One Cookbook, https://www.justonecookbook.com/homemade-chashu-miso-ramen/
- Namiko Hirasawa Chen, "Shoyu Ramen: Recipe from Bizentei, Tokyo", Just One Cookbook, https://www.justonecookbook.com/shoyu-ramen/
- Namiko Hirasawa Chen, "Ramen Eggs (Ajitsuke Tamago)", Just One Cookbook, https://www.justonecookbook.com/ramen-egg/
