Life Tips for College Students: How to Keep Ramen Interesting

The dilemma of the college student:

Budgeting for food can be frustrating when you’re in college. While ramen is by far the easiest food to afford, it’s not that healthy and can very quickly become boring. That said, there are a few things you can do to add flavor, some of which add nutrients as well. So, to help spark your own creativity, here are my favorite things to do with ramen. (Some of these mix and match pretty well.)

1.) Drain the water

               If you add other things to the ramen (which I’ll go over later), cooking the ramen with the flavor packet, then draining the water, is a great way to get the flavor of the packet without all of the excessive salt.

2.) Replace the water with milk

               My first roommate when I first moved away from home taught me to drain the water that the ramen was cooked in and mix the flavor packet in with some milk. The hot ramen thickens the milk a little bit and leaves it wonderfully creamy. This works best with real milk, but soy milk and almond milk work too, although they won’t thicken like real milk.

3.) Make it a desert

               This is my favorite nighttime snack after peanut butter on crackers. Drain the water and add milk. When adding the milk and flavor packet, also add a little bit of honey, some cinnamon, and just a hint of cayenne. The ramen will be sweet with just a little kick.

4.) Add vegetables

               Whether you are planning on using milk or water, vegetables are your friend. If you don’t get to the store much like me, frozen vegetables are great because a few bags will last for a long time, and if you get different blends, you can change up what kind of veggies you add very easily. But if you do have the chance to go to the store every week, get fresh vegetables. They will add to the nutritional value of your meal, plus you can change what you get every week to keep things interesting.

5.) Make it a stir fry

               Adding ramen (cooked just enough to soften it up) to a stir fry or putting stir fry on it is a fun way to use ramen in a slightly healthier way. The sauce from the stir fry will soak into the noodles and add great flavor.

6.) Add soy sauce when cooking

               Putting soy sauce on ramen along with the flavor packet can make ramen too salty. Putting both the flavor packet and a little soy sauce in the water while cooking and then draining the water, however, adds the flavor of both to the noodles without making them too salty. It’s a win-win!

I didn’t mention meat in any of these, but that doesn’t exclude it! Play around with it, and come up with your own favorite ramen recipes. Have fun and happy eating!