What Are The Ingredients In Ramen Noodles?

Make-Ahead and Storage

Noodles are best made 24 hours in advance to use. They can be prepared up to three days ahead of time and stored in the fridge. Noodles can be frozen and kept for up to three months after spending the night in the refrigerator.

Making good ramen noodles at home is a simple process, so long as you have a few key ingredients.

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Using bread flour, which has a high protein content, gives you a noodle with a good amount of chew.

Supplementing the protein content of bread flour with vital wheat gluten produces an even chewier noodle.

Using baked baking soda (sodium carbonate) in the dough gives the noodles their characteristic elasticity, springiness, and glossiness, as well as their flavor.

Running the dough sheets repeatedly through the pasta rollers both develops a strong gluten network and aligns it horizontally along the sheet, giving the noodles their “bite.”

You can make excellent noodles at home if you have a few essential but common ingredients: high-protein bread flour, vital wheat gluten, and baked baking soda. You can buy high-quality noodles from manufacturers like Sun Noodle, but you must have wheat-based alkaline noodles in order to enjoy a bowl of ramen.

Although they could theoretically be used with almost any ramen recipe, these noodles are intended for use in shoyu ramen and miso tori paitan, and are best paired with relatively light-bodied broths. This recipe, which yields four portions of noodles, is based on the formula shown below for a single portion of noodles (using this formula, the recipe can be scaled up or down as desired):

99g King Arthur bread flour

1g vital wheat gluten

1g kosher salt

1.5g baked baking soda

40g water

When creating this recipe, we consulted three noodle experts: Mike Satinover (a chef), Kenshiro Uki (the vice president of operations for Sun Noodle), and Keizo Shimamoto (the owner of Ramen Shack and Shimamoto Noodle). k. a. Ramen_Lord).

6g baked baking soda

4g Diamond Crystal kosher salt; for table salt or other kinds of salt, use the same weight

160 ml water

396g King Arthur bread flour (see note)

4g vital wheat gluten (see note)

To Make Noodles: Add baked baking soda to water and stir to dissolve completely, about 1 minute. Add salt, and stir until dissolved completely.

Combine vital wheat gluten and bread flour in the bowl of a food processor fitted with metal blade, or in the bowl of stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Process until thoroughly mixed, about 30 seconds in a food processor or 1 minute on low speed in a stand mixer.

Increase speed to medium-low and, with machine running, add 1/3 of liquid at a time, allowing time between each addition for liquid to be fully absorbed, about 30 seconds. After final addition, allow machine to run until flour and water mixture looks pebbly, about 1 minute. If using food processor, stop machine and let rest for 30 minutes. If using stand mixer, stop machine, cover bowl with plastic wrap, and let rest for 30 minutes. (This pause is to allow the flour to more fully absorb the liquid.)

Press dough into a ball and divide into two roughly equal portions. Place both in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap to prevent them drying out.

Working with one portion at a time, flatten balls to a thickness of about 1/5 inch (the dough will be very stiff, so do the best you can, as it will make it easier to run through the pasta rollers). Run flattened disk through widest setting of pasta roller, followed by the second widest setting, followed by the third widest setting, followed by the fourth widest setting. Fold dough sheet in half, so it is half of its original length, then repeat entire process two times (it will become significantly harder to run the doubled up dough through the rollers in each iteration). If done correctly, longitudinal lines will form on the sheet of dough. Wrap dough sheet in plastic wrap or place, folded, in zip top bag, and repeat process with the remaining portion. Let dough sheet rests for at least 30 minutes before proceeding. Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

Working with one dough sheet at a time, run dough through progressively narrower settings on your pasta machine, until it reaches the thickness you desire (~1-1.5 mm). Run final dough sheet through the spaghetti cutting attachment; dust noodles with flour or corn starch to prevent sticking, shake off excess starch or flour, and fold into loose nests. Alternatively, dust dough sheet with flour, fold it, dust again with flour, and fold again, to form a stack of dough. Using a sharp knife, cut through dough at regular intervals to produce noodles. Once finished cutting, shake noodles to loosen, and fold into loose nests.

Place noodles in zip-top bag and refrigerate overnight. (Noodles can be used immediately, but they improve significantly in texture and flavor if allowed to age slightly.)

Before Cooking Noodles (optional): Gather noodles into a ball and compress with your palms on a clean, dry surface, using a similar amount of pressure you would use to compress a snowball. Loosen noodles and repeat process, gathering them into a ball and compressing with your palms. (This brief compression gives the noodles their signature curls.)

To Cook Noodles: Bring large pot of unsalted water to rolling boil over high heat. If using noodle baskets, add noodles to baskets and plunge in water, rapidly stirring noodles with tongs or chopsticks in basket to prevent sticking. If not using noodle baskets, add noodles to boiling water and stir vigorously with tongs or chopsticks to prevent sticking. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 2 minutes if using hand-cut noodles; cook for about 1 minute and 30 seconds if using noodles cut on spaghetti cutter. (The exact cooking time will depend on your preferences and on the thickness of the noodles.) Drain thoroughly, shaking off as much excess water as possible, and add to hot ramen broth.

King Arthur bread flour is mentioned here because it has one of the highest protein percentages of all the bread flours available today. You will need to test the noodles to find out exactly how long they need to boil. One noodle should be divided into five or six pieces, added to boiling water, and then taken out of the water every ten seconds beginning at one minute and thirty seconds. To ensure the proper boiling time, according to your preferences, repeat the procedure as many times as necessary. Add 10 seconds to the total time after accounting for the time the noodles spend sitting in the hot broth bowl.

Vital wheat gluten is a protein additive that is used to increase the “chew” of breads and noodles. It can be found in most supermarkets, health food chains, and grocery stores like Whole Foods.

Water: How Much Is Enough?

Ramen differs from other noodles in part because of its relatively low water content, which is frequently expressed in bakers percentages (i e. , the quantity of any additional dough component is indicated as a proportion of the total mass of flour) Many varieties of ramen have hydration levels that are close to 35%, which means that 35g of water are added for every 100g of flour. Any seasoned baker will tell you that combination wouldn’t produce a dough per se, but rather something that looks like a bunch of crumbly, damp flour just by looking at that figure. (Bread doughs that are on the drier side have a hydration level of about 60%.) ).

For home cooks, this level of hydration creates a dough that is difficult to work with. I asked Shimamoto for a tour of his noodle-making facility, a request he graciously granted, and he also allowed me to look over his noodle recipes to gain some insight into noodle formulations and how manufacturers process ramen dough.

Ramen isn’t produced in the same way as, say, fresh pasta: There is no initial kneading step, and all the gluten development happens in the rolling process, where the dough is folded over and over itself. As a result, noodle manufacturers don’t have a problem producing a workable dough at lower hydration levels. The incredible pressure that the rollers on their ramen-specific machines can apply is what ramen manufacturers rely on to get those damp clumps of flour to stick together and eventually form sheets of dough.

A predetermined amount of flour is put in a hopper of a ramen machine. As spindles rotate and keep the flour in motion, a predetermined amount of kansui solution is added in a steady stream. The spindles are stopped and the mixture is allowed to rest for a while so that the flour can more fully absorb the liquid. After a while, the flour-kansui mixture develops a pebbly appearance. The mixture is then poured into a set of heavy rollers, which flatten it into a sheet of dough, and the hopper is raised to allow for this. The entire kneading procedure involves folding that sheet after which it is repeatedly passed through rollers. In order to give the gluten that has formed in the dough time to relax, the kneaded dough is rested for a brief period of time (at least 30 minutes). The dough is then rolled to its final thickness, cut, and packaged.

When I looked through Shimamoto’s noodle recipe book, the majority of the noodles had hydration levels below 40%, and those that did typically had more kansui added to the mixture. Satinover’s recipes follow this pattern. There are a number of reasons for this, including how kansui contributes to the flavor of the noodles, but Satinover told me that the main one is to maintain a sufficiently alkaline pH level in the dough to affect the flavor and texture of the noodles.

I made the decision to only experiment with doughs with 39% hydration or higher because in the past I have had extreme difficulties working with lower-hydration doughs—both in handling the dough and running it through my standard-issue pasta roller. Let’s just say that this recipe’s main distinction from the majority of the ramen noodles you’ll find there is that it uses slightly wetter, less dense, and slightly more elastic noodles.

FAQ

What are ramen noodles made of?

A packaged variety of instant noodle known as ramen is made from wheat flour, a variety of vegetable oils, and flavorings. To reduce cooking time for consumers, the noodles are pre-cooked, which means they have been steamed and then air dried or fried.

What are the three main ingredients in ramen noodles?

The three main components of wheat-based noodles are water, salt, and wheat flour. According to USDA regulations, instant noodles may also contain palm oil, seasoning, sodium phosphates, potato starches, gums, and other ingredients in addition to the three main ingredients.

Are ramen noodles unhealthy?

Due to the use of enriched wheat flour in their production, the majority of conventional ramen brands have high starch and carbohydrate counts (between 40 and 80 grams net carbs). At the same time, they lack any real nutritional value. And as evidenced by research, eating refined and excessively processed starches may be harmful to your health.

What are the 5 components of ramen?

Five ingredients make up ramen: tare (the flavorful sauce that gives your soup its flavor), broth, noodles, toppings, and oil/fat.