This Spice Mix Helps Me Make Ramen That Rivals My Favorite Restaurant’s — and I Could Eat It Every Day
On the weekends — and especially on Sundays — I like to dedicate a good chunk of time to working on a fun cooking project. Whether I’m simmering a big pot of various meats and veggies for hours or painstakingly kneading out sourdough bread until it can pass the windowpane test (still working toward that), those are the meals that make cooking fun for me. During the week, though, I’m pretty much just eating for fuel. I’m being serious — during the pandemic, it got to the point where my girlfriend would just call my post-work meals my “slop,” since they consisted of various kinds of ground meat mashed up into a gray blob with rice and air-fried broccoli.
Thankfully, since I joined the team at The Kitchn, I’ve been slowly but surely leveling up my weeknight meal game, which is why I’m always on the lookout for easy and delicious products to streamline that process. I recently got to try the Black Garlic Ramen mix from the editor-favorite online food marketplace Savory Spice — and let me tell you, it rocks.
Black Garlic Ramen
What Is the Black Garlic Ramen Mix?
The Black Garlic Ramen soup mix from Savory Spice is a take on a Japanese favorite, shoyu-style (soy sauce-based) ramen. It’s deeply savory and full of umami flavor, along with sweet and earthy notes from the suggested (but optional) maple syrup and soy sauce additions. The best part about this soup base is that you can turn your bowl into whatever you’re hungry for: You can add scallions, eggs, mushrooms, onions and peppers, chicken, pork, beef, fish, and shellfish — you get the drift. That way, the Black Garlic Ramen soup mix can just live in your pantry and work with whatever you have on hand, which is a great way to use up ingredients that would otherwise go to waste.
Why I Love the Black Garlic Ramen Mix
When I’m not in the mood to make a savory ramen stock from scratch after a long day of work (read: never), this shoyu-style ramen soup base is a godsend. I just whack it into some boiling water, add some soy sauce and maple syrup per the instructions — trust me, it’s really good — and in 10 minutes, I have restaurant-quality ramen with a depth of flavor I never thought I’d get outside a noodle shop. Plus, it’s super affordable (though, to be fair, it’s not as cheap as regular instant ramen, but you’re paying for quality). Overall, it’s my new favorite way to take my weeknight meals up a notch! And, I’m not alone.
“Flavor is great, and this is really convenient for a quick weeknight meal without the typical junk ingredients in most packaged ramen,” one reviewer wrote. “Package said it served two, so we prepared two for our family of four and had plenty of leftovers, which were even better the next day!” So, if you’re in the market for a new hassle-free way to (literally) spice up your weeknight dinner situation, snag a bag of Black Garlic Ramen from Savory Spice straight away.
Buy: Black Garlic Ramen, $6.99
