Easy Creamy Vegan Ramen

This Creamy Vegan Ramen is  packed with veggies as well as protein in the form of tofu instead of meat. It is dairy-free, refined sugar-free and can easily be made gluten-free by switching to gluten-free noodles. Ready in 30 min!

What is Ramen?

Ramen is a traditional Japanese/ Chinese (this is still heavily debated 😜) soup. With it's umami flavour ("delicious taste" in Japanese) it has quickly become a popular dish also in the rest of the world. It usually contains vegetables as well as meat. This recipe is vegetarian and uses tofu instead of meat. It's also ready in 30 minutes- making it the perfect healthy lunch or dinner when you're short on time.

 

How to Make Vegan Ramen

Start by removing the excess water from the tofu. Wrap a kitchen towel around the tofu and  push down a couple of times with your hand to squeeze out moisture.

Heat some sesame/ olive oil in a pan over medium heat, add tofu and fry until slightly brown and crispy. 

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To add even more taste to the tofu, mix maple syrup and soy sauce and pour it over the tofu. Let simmer a little longer until the tofu has fully absorbed the liquid. Then remove it from the pan and set aside.

In the same pan, heat some oil, add in spring onions, garlic and ginger and fry until tanslucent. 

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Then add your mushrooms of choice and fry for a couple more seconds until mushrooms become slightly brown. 

The add your veggie broth. 

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Add in carrots, nori sheet, coconut milk, miso paste and peanutbutter and adjust with salt (the amount will depend on how salted your veggie broth already is). 

Let simmer until carrots are "al dente". Then add in bok choy and let simmer for another 5 min. 

Cook your noodles of choice (ramen/ soba/ udon) according to package instructions and add them to the soup. 

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Ingredients & Substitution Notes

• (Extra) Firm tofu: In order to ensure that your tofu absorbes all the flavours properly and becomes crispy, you might want to remove the water that’s inside the tofu. To achieve that, wrap a kitchen towel around the tofu and apply a weight (something like a heavy pan or simply push down a couple of times with your hands) to squeeze out moisture. Be aware that you can only do that with firm or extra firm tofu. If you don't like the texture of tofu, you could use tempeh instead. 

• Noodles: I used ramen noodles for this recipe, however, feel free to use any noodles of your choice. This could be soba/ udon or also gluten-free noodles if you wish to keep this recipe gluten-free.

• Fresh ginger: If you don’t have any fresh ginger or turmeric, you could replace it with ginger powder. However, I would highly recommend using fresh ginger.

• Shiitake mushrooms: I like the texture of these type of mushrooms very much, but feel free to replace them with oyster mushrooms or other types that you prefer. 

• Nori sheets: These are essential for flavour and should therefore not be omitted. You could remove them before serving the soup, in case you don't like the taste/ texture of them. 

• Miso Paste: Similarly to the nori sheets, the miso paste also plays an important role in terms of flavour. Usually, you can find them in any health food stores. Alternatively you could use soy sauce but the taste won't be the same. 

• Peanut butter: If you are allergic you could use tahini instead. 

• Vegetable Broth: I use store bought veggie broth powder in all my recipes that contain veggie stock. I make sure that it contains almost no additives- it might take a while to find an appropriate one but once you’ve found a brand that you like, it saves a lot of time and energy. With the veggie stock powder that I use, 1 tablespoon of powder is enough to produce 2-3 cups of veggie stock. In addition, mine is a bit salted so I usually don’t need to add a lot of additional salt but that might be different in your case. 

 

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