Homemade Ramen Recipe: How to Make It From Scratch

Ramen is not a single recipe. It is a system.

The components that get assembled in a ramen bowl are: broth (the base, usually simmered many hours), tare (a concentrated seasoning sauce stirred in at serving time), noodles (alkaline wheat noodles, distinct from pasta), and toppings (chashu pork, soft-boiled egg, nori, scallion, bamboo shoots, etc.).

Understanding the system means you can make a different ramen every time: shoyu ramen (tare = soy sauce), miso ramen (tare = miso paste), shio ramen (tare = salt), tonkotsu (white pork bone broth). The structure is always the same. What changes is the tare, the richness of the broth, and the toppings.

This recipe builds a complete home ramen bowl from scratch. It takes 3–4 hours total, with most of that being passive simmering time. The active work is about 45 minutes, spread across the day.

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The Components

What you're making:

1. Shoyu tare (seasoning concentrate) — 30 minutes
2. Chicken-dashi broth (the base) — 2 hours
3. Chashu pork (braised belly or shoulder) — 2 hours concurrent with broth
4. Marinated soft-boiled eggs — 1 hour (or 24 hours for maximum flavor)
5. Noodles — fresh or dried, cooked at serving time
6. Assembly — 5 minutes

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Step 1: Shoyu Tare

The tare is stirred into the broth at the last moment — this is how professional ramen shops customize each bowl's saltiness and seasoning without making separate batches of broth. It's the ramen cook's most important tool.

Makes: enough for 4–6 bowls
Keeps: 2 weeks in the fridge

Ingredients:

• 100ml (⅓ cup + 1 tbsp) soy sauce (Kikkoman or similar koikuchi)
• 50ml (3½ tbsp) mirin (hon mirin, not mirin-style seasoning)
• 2 tablespoons sake
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 cloves garlic, smashed
• 1 small knob ginger (about 1cm), sliced

Method: Combine everything in a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook 5 minutes until sugar dissolves and alcohol cooks off. Strain out garlic and ginger. Cool and store.

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Step 2: Chicken-Dashi Broth

A clear, golden broth made from chicken and dashi. This is the foundation for shoyu and shio ramen. For a richer, cloudier tonkotsu style, you'd substitute pork trotters and boil hard (rather than simmer gently) — but chicken-dashi is the easiest entry point and produces a broth that's complex without being heavy.

Makes: about 1.5 litres (enough for 4 bowls)

Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken carcass (or 2–3 lbs chicken backs/wings/necks)
• 10g kombu
• 10g katsuobushi (bonito flakes)
• 2 green onion stalks
• 3 cloves garlic, smashed
• 1 knob ginger, sliced
• 2 litres cold water

Method:

1. If using a whole carcass, chop it into pieces with a cleaver or kitchen shears. Place in a pot, cover with cold water. Bring to a boil. After 2 minutes, drain and rinse — this removes surface blood and impurities that would cloud the broth.

2. Return the chicken to the pot with 2 litres of fresh cold water, kombu, green onion, garlic, and ginger. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Remove the kombu just before the water boils (this prevents bitterness).

3. Add the katsuobushi. Simmer gently (not a boil) for 1.5–2 hours. Skim any foam from the surface in the first 15 minutes.

4. Strain through a fine mesh sieve. Press the solids gently to extract liquid. You should have about 1.5 litres of clear golden broth.

Season with salt to taste — the broth should taste balanced and savory on its own, but underseasoned (the tare will add the final seasoning in the bowl).

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Step 3: Chashu Pork

Braised pork belly rolled and tied, simmered in soy sauce, mirin, sake, and sugar until tender. Served sliced, either cold (from the fridge) or quickly seared in a hot pan just before serving.

Ingredients:

• 400g pork belly (skin-on, in one piece)
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons mirin
• 2 tablespoons sake
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 200ml water

Method:

1. Roll the pork belly tightly along its length, skin-side out. Tie securely with kitchen twine at 2cm intervals.

2. In a saucepan just wide enough to fit the roll, combine soy sauce, mirin, sake, sugar, and water. Bring to a simmer.

3. Add the pork roll. Cover with a drop lid (otoshibuta) or parchment paper cut to fit. Simmer over very low heat for 1.5–2 hours, turning every 30 minutes, until the pork is tender when pierced with a chopstick.

4. Remove from heat. Cool the pork in the braising liquid. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before slicing — cold pork slices cleanly.

5. To serve: slice 1.5cm thick rounds. Sear briefly in a hot dry pan or with a kitchen torch for caramelized edges.

The braising liquid: Don't discard it. Add it to the tare for extra depth, or use it to season the eggs.

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Step 4: Marinated Soft-Boiled Eggs (Ajitsuke Tamago)

The best ramen egg has a fully set white and a custard-like yolk — soft enough to flow slightly when broken, fully jammy. The marinade adds a savory-sweet exterior.

Ingredients:

• 4 large eggs
• 50ml soy sauce
• 50ml mirin
• 50ml water
• 1 tablespoon sugar

Method:

1. Bring a pot of water to a full boil. Carefully lower the eggs in. Cook exactly 6 minutes 30 seconds for a jammy yolk (adjust to 7 minutes for firmer).

2. Transfer immediately to an ice bath. Cool 5 minutes. Peel carefully under running water.

3. Combine soy sauce, mirin, water, and sugar in a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer. Cool to room temperature.

4. Place the peeled eggs in the marinade. Refrigerate at least 1 hour (4 hours is better; overnight is the ramen shop standard). Turn the eggs occasionally to ensure even color.

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Step 5: Noodles

Ramen noodles are made from wheat flour and kansui — an alkaline solution of potassium carbonate and sodium carbonate. The kansui raises the pH of the dough, which changes the structure of the gluten and the starch gelatinization, producing the characteristic springy chew and slight yellow color of ramen noodles.

Options:

• Sun Noodle brand (fresh, if you're near a Japanese grocery or Whole Foods with ramen supplies): the best widely available option.
• Dried ramen noodles (Myojo, Maruchan, or any Japanese brand without the seasoning packet): widely available. Cook per package instructions — usually 2–3 minutes.
• Homemade: possible but requires baked baking soda to create a kansui substitute. Worth attempting for a dedicated weekend project.

Do not use: Italian pasta, soba, udon, or regular spaghetti. The alkaline chemistry of ramen noodles is what gives them their specific texture.

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Assembly

Per bowl:

1. Warm your serving bowls (fill with boiling water for 1 minute, dump before assembling).
2. Add 2–3 tablespoons of shoyu tare to the bottom of each warm bowl.
3. Ladle in hot broth (about 350ml per bowl). Stir briefly — the tare will dissolve and season the broth.
4. Add freshly cooked noodles (do not rinse — ramen noodles go straight from the cooking water to the bowl).
5. Arrange toppings: 2 slices chashu, 1 marinated egg (halved), nori, green onion, bamboo shoots, a drizzle of sesame oil.

Serve immediately. Ramen waits for no one.

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Ramen and Fusion

In the Borderless Kitchen context, ramen is not the endpoint — it's the starting point.

Ramen alla Carbonara — the recipe that started the whole series — treats ramen noodles as the structural equivalent of spaghetti in carbonara. The guanciale, eggs, Pecorino, and black pepper are unchanged; the ramen noodles' alkalinity creates a sauce texture that spaghetti can't achieve. Get that recipe here.

Birria Ramen — Mexican braised beef birria broth served as a ramen soup, with the consommé replacing dashi as the broth base. The fat layer, chili depth, and slow-braised richness of birria functions identically to tonkotsu broth in its structural role. Get that recipe here.

Dashi-based pasta broths — the ichiban dashi method above produces a broth that works for far more than ramen. Thin it with pasta cooking water and it becomes the base for Dashi Risotto. Concentrate it and it becomes a sauce for soba or for Italian pasta dishes that need invisible depth.

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For the full dashi-making guide that underpins everything above — including how to make ichiban dashi and where else it applies — see How to Make Dashi: The Complete Guide.

For Japanese pantry setup before making your first ramen bowl, see Japanese Pantry Essentials for Italian Home Cooks.