My version of Ramen Broth is made from a combination of pork bones, chicken carcasses and bonito flakes. It takes a few hours to make but it is not very difficult. It can also be made in the slow cooker or pressure cooker.
This Home-made Ramen Broth Recipe is one of the most popular recipes on my blog. So, I decided to republish it with a video showing how to make a broth on the stove top.
I thought of publishing a tonkotsu (pork bones) ramen but making a tonkotsu ramen broth is an extremely time-consuming process, requiring the broth to be simmered for a minimum of 6-8 hours, preferably 14+ hours. So to start with, I am posting a ramen broth that takes much less time to cook but still has a bit of tonkotsu flavour. It’s a kind of hybrid tonkotsu soup.
While all ramen will have a broth that is usually made from chicken or pork bones, dashi or seafood, the addition of the tare will be what sets the ramen apart and which kind of flavors will be more predominant in the dish.
Keys to A Good Ramen Broth
If you let the bones and the other ingredients simmer for a long time, you will be able to make a soup stock. But it’s not going to be a good and tasty broth because coagulated blood on the bones and other unwanted substances gets mixed into the broth, making it extremely cloudy and degrading the flavour.
The following are the 4 key points to remember when making a good ramen soup stock:
- Blanch the bones and clean them first before cooking the bones for a long time
- Remove the scum as much as possible while cooking
- Simmer gently
- Do not mix the bones vigorously while simmering.
Ramen Soup Flavouring (Tare)
There are no seasonings added to the soup stock. When you taste it, you only taste the flavour of bones and vegetables, with a touch of bonito flakes.
If you have watched how the ramen shop makes a bowl of ramen, you probably know this, but the ramen soup is made by mixing the flavouring base with the ramen soup stock.
This flavouring base is called ‘tare’ (タレ). Pronounce it as /tare/, not ‘/teː/’ or’ /teə/’. ‘Tare’ is actually a generic word for sauces that are made of two or more seasonings mixed together. The ramen flavouring base is hence called ‘ramen no tare’ to be accurate, but when the context of discussion is clear people simply call it ‘tare’.
There are many different tare and some unique flavours developed by Japanese ramen shops but all of them are based on the three common soup flavourings – salt flavour, soy sauce flavour and miso flavour.
Ramen with the soup made from these base flavourings are called ‘shio ramen‘ (salt flavoured ramen), ‘shōyu ramen‘ (soy sauce flavoured ramen – today’s ramen) and ‘miso ramen‘ (miso flavoured ramen). See my home-made base flavourings below.
Even in making these flavourings, there are many variations. Since the soup stock does not have flavouring, the ‘tare’ needs to be quite salty and often contain some kind of umami. The ramen shops make every effort to create ramen ‘tare’ that are packed with umami and some of them take many days to make.
RAMEN BROTH | Easy but Pro Quality
FAQ
Is ramen broth just stock?
Is it healthy to drink ramen broth?
Is ramen broth always made with pork?
Is ramen broth bone broth?
What is ramen broth made of?
The first one is chicken broth made from chicken carcass. The second is a combination broth made from chicken and Japanese dashi stock. And the third is Tonkotsu which is made from pork bones. Many ramen restaurant chefs create their own unique flavored broth for their ramen and that is their secret weapon.
What are the calorie and fat content of Ramen Noodles?
Ramen noodles can have different caloric and fat values depending on the brand, type and method of preparation. For example, 100g of raw noodles has around 157 calories while a serving of dry ramen noodle soup has around 187 calories.
What color is ramen broth?
This gives you a “cleaner” more pure-tasting ramen broth that’s light-to-milky in color (not brown). *If you’re short on time, you can make the ramen broth by just blanching the bones and not cleaning them of the darker elements — it will taste really good, but the broth will be a dark brown color.
What are the different types of ramen broth?
Ramen broth can be classified by ingredients into three categories. The first one is chicken broth made from chicken carcass. The second is a combination broth made from chicken and Japanese dashi stock. And the third is Tonkotsu which is made from pork bones.