I love ramen. You love ramen. EVERYONE loves ramen. There’s such a wide range available too, from the 4/$1 packs to fancy organic brands at your local grocery, even entire restaurants dedicated to the noodly goodness. For me, what separates okay ramen from freaking amazing ramen are the toppings. Veggies, fresh or frozen are great (I love me some sugar snap peas), and according to Instagram a lot of you also like putting vegan egg on there as well. And that’s great, but the thing is, unless you’re making Korean BBQ Ramen… you’re missing out! It’s easy, you just whip up a batch of my Beefy Style Seitan (I always keep some in my freezer- the Chick’n flavor too!), slice it up and cook it in some flavorful Korean BBQ sauce (homemade or store bought), and you have savory, chewy BBQ that takes the noodles and broth to a whole new flavor universe! An added, unexpected, bonus was how much better the broth got, as some of the sauce from the seitan mixed in with it! Next time I might even mix a little of the leftover marinade directly into it.
Here’s the beefy seitan cooking up in the sauce. It’s a little bit spicy and a little bit sweet and all kinds of delicious. The trick is to add the extra marinade in at the end of the cooking process, so the pieces get all sticky and chewy and mmmmmm!
Another thing I like about this recipe is how budget friendly it is, especially assuming you have the seitan in your freezer, all ready to go. Pro tip: Nissan’s Top Ramen brand has a Soy flavor that is vegan (it used to be called Oriental, but they got woke) that generally goes for ~25 cents per package.
You may have heard that Denver experienced a Bomb Cyclone last week, and the dogs and I were holed up at home enjoying a snow day. I really wanted something warm, comforting and hearty, and this is what I came up with. I had veggies and seitan in the freezer, and ramen in the pantry. This time around I did “cheat” a little and used a store-bought Korean BBQ sauce… mostly because I was in a hurry to get back to the couch and the dogs.
Back when I first started making Korean BBQ dishes there weren’t a lot of options at my local grocers, and so I always made my own (here’s a recipe in you’re interested), and it’s still my preferred, but honestly some of the mass produced brands they have now are really good. And because this was EASY Korean BBQ Ramen, that’s what I went with.
If you’re also a fan of Korean BBQ, you should check out these recipes….
Sweet Potato and Korean BBQ Bites
There’s also pizza and meatballs and quesadillas!
Are you sold yet? Here’s a close-up of that lucious bbq-y seitan, all crispy and chewy and SO DELICIOUS!
What is YOUR favorite way to enjoy ramen? What toppings or brands do you love the most?
Korean BBQ Ramen
Ingredients
- 1 loaf Beefy style seitan link below
- 1 cup Korean bbq sauce
- 1 tbsp vegetable or chili oil
- 4 packages ramen noodles + seasoning
- 1-2 cups frozen vegetables
- sliced scallions or jalapenos optional toppings
Instructions
- Slice the seitan in half lengthwise, then into thinnish strips. Marinate in the BBQ sauce for 30 minutes.
- Heat the oil in a frying pan, medium high. Cook the seitan, 2-3 minutes each side, reserving some of the marinade in the bowl. When the seitan is crispy and brown, pour the remaining marinade over it and turn the heat to low. Allow it to cook for another 2-3 minutes until the marinade-covered seitan is all sticky and fabulous.
- In a separate pot, cook the ramen per package directions, adding in the frozen veggies for the last minute or so. Drain most of the liquid then mix in the seasoning as you normally would. Serve in bowls topped with the seitan.
Notes
Follow
