Rich, aromatic roasted chicken broth flavoured with miso and soy with noodles, chicken and shimeji mushrooms makes for the perfect chicken ramen.
I don’t know what it is about this time of the year but I gravitate towards ramen like a moth to a flame when autumn comes around. Last year at pretty much the exact same time, I posted my recipe for Pork belly ramen which remains to be one of my favourite recipes I have ever done. There’s something so satisfying about slurping piping hot noodles followed by that beautiful, rich broth. Yum!
This time around I decided to make chicken the star as I had a chicken waiting to be used in the fridge. I roasted the chicken off very simply with salt and pepper along with a few chicken wings to give the broth that delectable, deep roasted chicken flavour. You see, the broth is the star in any good ramen. The broth is what infuses the dish and if your broth is weak, you might as well not bother making ramen. The broth also takes the most time to make in this recipe because you want to build up all those good flavours.
I used the roasted chicken wings and the bones from the whole chicken to make a beautiful chicken stock flavoured with bay leaves, thyme, onion, garlic and carrot and then used that stock to create the broth for the ramen. To the stock I added garlic, ginger, a little lime juice, soy sauce (you’ll see by the colour of the broth that I was a little heavy-handed here), miso paste and a few chopped up spring onions. This was allowed to simmer ever so gently while I gathered all the extras.
I decided to use beautiful little shimeji mushrooms because I simply can’t get enough of them. I love how they look and I love that they add an almost slippery-texture to the ramen. Along with the mushrooms, I sliced the succulent, roasted chicken breasts and chopped up a few extra spring onions, chillies and fresh coriander to top the ramen with. And once again, I was just blown away by how absolutely delicious this was. That broth is so good, I could (and in fact, did) drink bowls of it. It’s just everything you want it to me. Warm, comforting and like a hug in a bowl.
Roasted chicken ramen with shimeji mushrooms
Ingredients
for the chicken stock
- 1 roasted chicken meat removed, bones chopped roughly
- 4 roasted chicken wings simply roasted with salt and pepper
- 2 onions with skin on quartered
- 2 large carrots roughly chopped
- 6 whole garlic cloves
- 2 bay leaves
- 10 fresh thyme sprigs
- 1 teaspoon whole peppercorns
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2 liters water
for the broth
- 1 liter chicken stock
- 50 ml soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons miso paste
- juice of 1 lime
- 2 tablespoons dry sherry optional
- 2 teaspoons sugar optional
- handful fresh spring onions sliced
- 2 garlic cloves crushed
- 2 teaspoons crushed ginger
- 200 g shimeji mushrooms
for the ramen
- roasted chicken breast sliced
- fresh chillies sliced
- fresh coriander
- noodles cooked
Instructions
- To make the stock, combine all the stock ingredients in a large pot and allow to simmer for 2-3 hours until the stock is golden brown and deep in chicken flavour.
- Remove 1 liter of the stock and place in a pot with the rest of the broth ingredients. (Freeze the rest of the stock for soups/stews.)
- Gently heat the broth and allow to simmer ever so slightly for 15 minutes.
- When you are ready to serve, place the noodles, chicken, chillies and coriander in bowls then top with the broth.
- Serve immediately
Pork belly ramenÂ
Hi! Do you prep the mushrooms in any way before adding them in with the other broth ingredients?
No, but you could panfry them if you’d prefer.
This looks delicious! What are the directions for cooking the chicken?
You could use any cooked chicken for this recipe. I often just use left-over roast chicken breasts or poach a few chicken breasts to serve with the ramen.