Instant Ramen Pot? Sure. You can use a pressure cooker to make steaming bowls of umami-filled noodles! It’s total comfort food.
Want the best comfort food? Steaming bowls of sorbible ramen is where it is. The authentic ramen of a Japanese restaurant is the best. But it’s best to try it homemade! This recipe was born out of a challenge: can you use your pressure cooker to make ramen? (Spoiler alert: you can.) This Instant Pot ramen features a tasty miso-flavored broth loaded with umami and soy sauce, tender noodles, and liquid hard-boiled eggs. Ready to cook?
What’s in this Instant Pot ramen?
Ramen
is a traditional Japanese dish of broth and wheat noodles (here’s a ramen guide for more information). Alex and I love to look for amazing ramen in restaurants. We also love doing it at home! You’ll need some special ingredients to make ramen at home, but it’s not hard to put together:
- Boiling eggs
- Miso paste of any kind
- Onion, garlic and green onion for aromatics
- Spinach, carrots, mushrooms and cabbage Napa for vegetables
- Ramen noodles (below!)
- Vegetable
- broth Sesame oil, soy sauce and mirin
- Coconut milk for creaminess
Is it faster to make ramen in a pressure cooker?
Actually, not necessarily! This Instant Pot ramen recipe is based on our Easy Miso Ramen, which takes only 30 minutes to prepare on the stove. This recipe lasts about 35 minutes, and more if you want to gently boil your eggs in the Instant Pot. Why?
- Preheat the time! The Instant Pot needs to increase the pressure before cooking food. While it has incredibly short cooking times, the time to “preheat” adds to that every time you use it. The time varies depending on the volume of food in the pressure cooker.
- What is the time breakdown? This Instant Pot ramen takes 10-15 minutes to preheat, so add it to everything else and it’s a bit longer than the stove version. If you want to gently boil eggs in the Instant Pot, that adds another 10 minutes.
While it’s not faster: it’s still valuable to have an Instant Pot version of ramen! It’s useful for when you don’t have access to a full kitchen. It’s amazing all the food you can make in this relatively small pot with only access to 1 outlet.
Want more ramen recipes? See 6 ramen ideas to try at home.
Two ways to cook noodles Can you
cook ramen noodles
in the Instant Pot too? There are different methods to make ramen noodles in a pressure cooker. The main challenge is that cooking the noodles directly in the broth causes them to absorb it, resulting in less broth. Here’s what we recommend to avoid this:
- if you serve ramen, you can cook the noodles in the instant pot. Once you have finished the broth, you can return to Sauté mode and cook the noodles directly in the broth. But eat them right away! If you have leftovers in the pot, you may even want to separate the broth noodles into two containers so they don’t absorb too much broth.
- If you can have leftovers or are doing it ahead of time, cook the noodles on the stove. Yes, it’s not as dependent on Instant Pot as a recipe that way, but this avoids the problem of soaked noodles!
What is miso paste?
Miso is a Japanese fermented soybean paste that is packed with nutrients and salty taste. It is full of umami, the so-called fifth flavor that is the definition of salty. You will find umami in meats, mushrooms, cheeses… And of course, miso! You can find miso in most major grocery stores near the other Japanese ingredients. There are many different types of miso: red, yellow, and brown. You can use any type for this ramen recipe!
“Instant Pot ramen” />Where to find noodles for Instant Pot ramen Where
to find ramen noodles for this Instant Pot ramen
? Here are some tips on the types of noodles and where
to find them:
- Standard Groceries vs Japanese or Asian Edibles: Most grocery stores offer you 1 or 2 options for ramen noodles – you’ll usually find them dried. You can also go to your local Japanese or Asian supermarket; They will have a wider variety including fresh and frozen.
- Fresh vs dry: You can use fresh or dried noodles here. Fresh ones are our favorites, but dry ones are easier to find.
- Curly vs straight: You’ll find noodles packed with the word “ramen” that are curly or straight. Ramen is basically a wheat noodle served in broth, so there’s a lot of variation. You can use either! Here we use a straight noodle, which works as well as a curl as in our mushroom ramen.
Want to learn more about noodle types? Here’s a review of 6 different packaged ramen noodles.
plant-based!
Is there a plant-based or vegan variation?
This Instant Pot ramen recipe is vegetarian. But if you’d rather not use eggs, you can use tofu instead to make it vegan or plant-based! The easiest option is to make our marinated tofu, which doesn’t require a stove! Or, use the tofu preparation in Tofu Ramen or Vegan Mushroom Ramen. The former has crispy and seasoned tofu cubes, and the latter is lightly seasoned and quicker to prepare.
What type of Instant Pot to use?
The pressure cooker
we used to test this recipe is the Instant Pot 6 Qt pressure cooker. But there are a lot of great brands out there! If you’re using a different brand, the cooking times may be slightly different.
This Instant Pot ramen recipe is…
vegetarian. For vegan, plant-based, dairy-free, use marinated tofu
more soups Instant Pot
A pressure cooker is so versatile that you can use it for so many things. Here are some of our
favorite Instant Pot soups: Instant
- Potato Soup It’s incredibly creamy, a healthy spin with no heavy cream and no blender. Instant
- Pot Wild Rice Soup Fan favorite! Creamy, cozy and plant-based.
- Instant Pot Minestrone Cut vegetables, pasta and a hearty broth – top with pesto or parmesan for a tasty healthy meal!
