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Try this recipe for Japanese ramen noodles, then also check out our chicken ramen, vegetarian ramen, vegan ramen and more ramen recipes.

Looking for more Japanese recipes? Try our wakame seaweed salad, Japanese rice salad, miso soup and plenty more ideas.

This ramen recipe is from MasterChef champion Tim Anderson. Tim believes cooking Japanese food is a lot easier than people think and he’s written a book, Japaneasy, to prove it! Tim also talks about his time spent living in Japan, how he conquered MasterChef and why it's possible to make the best ever ramen in less than an hour...

"Good ramen is pretty simple to make at home, but really good ramen is almost impossibly difficult. Our ‘basic’ ramen at the restaurant is a complicated two-day process and the finished dish has eight different toppings, most of which are made in-house and involve quite a lot of labour. So even though ramen is my favourite food, I almost never used to make it at home.

Then I recalled a ramen shop in Sapporo called Keyaki that I visited in back in 2007. They produced an immensely flavourful and deep ramen in a matter of minutes: they stir-fried a combination of miso, pork mince and other seasonings in a rocket-hot wok before combining it with their broth, which browned the meat and caramelised the miso until the mixture was nutty and rich. I decided to give something similar a go, and it worked wonderfully.

So here it is: a truly excellent bowl of ramen that can be made from scratch in under an hour. This, to me, is as rare and exciting as a unicorn."

  • 1.4 litres fresh chicken stock
  • 100g miso
  • 2 pak choy
    cut into quarters
  • 150g bean sprouts
  • 4 tsp sesame oil
  • 4 portions ramen noodles
    (dried is good; instant is better; fresh is best)
  • 50g parmesan
    finely grated (optional)
  • 4 soy-marinated eggs
    halved

SPICY MISO PORK MINCE

  • 1 leek
    washed and trimmed
  • 40g red or barley miso
  • 1 tomato
    roughly chopped
  • 1/2 onion
    roughly chopped
  • 4 cloves garlic
    peeled
  • 1 red chilli
    roughly chopped
  • 2 tsp dried chilli flakes
  • 2cm piece (unpeeled) 
ginger
    finely sliced
  • 1/2 tbsp sesame seeds
    toasted
  • freshly ground to make 1/4 tsp black peppercorns
  • freshly ground to make 1/2 tsp Szechuan peppercorns
  • 2 anchovies in olive oil
    (optional)
  • 250g pork mince
  • for frying vegetable oil
  • 50g butter

    Method

    • step 1

      Put the chicken stock into a large pan and bring to a simmer. Add the miso and whisk to dissolve.

    • step 2

      For the spicy miso pork mince, cut the leek in half and roughly chop the green part. Finely shred the white part of the leek and soak in iced water.

    • step 3

      Put the green leek, red miso, tomato, onion, garlic, fresh and dried chilli, ginger, sesame seeds, black and szechuan peppers and anchovies, if using, into a food processor and whizz to a coarse paste. Tip into a large bowl along with the pork mince and mix well.

    • step 4

      Heat a wok to very hot with 2 tbsp of vegetable oil. Carefully add the pork mixture and cook for 10 minutes, stirring regularly, until dark brown. Remove from the heat, stir in the butter and keep warm.

    • step 5

      Bring a large pan of water to the boil and blanch the pak choy for 1 minute. Remove with a slotted spoon to a bowl. Blanch the bean sprouts for 20-30 seconds and remove with the slotted spoon to the same bowl. Pour over the sesame oil and mix well.

    • step 6

      Cook the noodles in the same boiling water following pack instructions and drain well.

    • step 7

      Divide the miso-chicken broth between four deep bowls and add the noodles and divide half of the pork mince to each and stir well. Taste the broth and adjust the seasoning with salt or soy.

    • step 8

      Top each with the remaining pork mince, parmesan, if using, drained shredded white leek, pak choy, bean sprouts and marinated eggs. Enjoy piping hot, and don’t forget to slurp!

    Recipes taken from Japaneasy by Tim Anderson (£20, Hardie Grant). Photography Laura Edwards.

    Listen to Tim Anderson chatting about Japanese food with our food director Janine here:

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