Wednesday, July 27, 2022

Easy Ramen Salad by @LeslieKarst

 
One dish I like to prepare for potlucks is a ramen salad my mom used to make, as it’s inexpensive, easy-to-prepare, colorful, and quite tasty.

Ramen soup noodles come in packages of six, so for this large gathering, I purchased two of those (i.e., 12 noodle packets). I buy the “oriental” flavor—which is vegetarian—so everyone can indulge.

For the vegetables, I had a few red bell peppers left from my last harvest of the year, and supplemented these with a head of napa cabbage and two bunches of green onions. But feel free to use other veg too, such as sliced raw mushrooms, bean sprouts, julienne-cut zucchini, etc.

 


Easy Ramen Salad

(serves a large party or potluck)

 

Ingredients

12 packets dried ramen

6 red bell peppers

1 head Napa cabbage

2 bunches green onions 

any other veg that strike your fancy!

12 ramen flavor packets

¼ cup soy sauce 

¼ cup white vinegar 

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon ginger powder

 ¾ cup sugar

 ¼ cup toasted sesame oil

1 cup neutral oil (such as canola or peanut) 

black sesame seeds (for garnish)

chopped cilantro (optional, for garnish)

  


 

 

Directions

 

Thinly slice the peppers, and chop up the onions and cabbage:

 


Next, open up all the ramen packets, take out the “flavor envelopes,” and break the noodles in half (for easier eating).

 


Drop the noodles into boiling water, and cook them for about five minutes—until tender, but not yet mushy.


The noodles can be cooked at any stage of the salad process, as once they’re done, you’ll drain, and then rinse them in cold water (to remove the excess starch, so they don’t stick together). Once rinsed, drain them again and put them back in the pot you cooked them in.
 

Rip open the flavor packets and pour the powder into a medium-size mixing bowl. To this, add the soy sauce, vinegar, garlic powder, ginger powder, and sugar.


Mix this all together well, and then taste it, and add more of anything that you think is required. Then add the sesame oil and whisk this in. Finally, whisk in (adding it gradually) the canola or peanut oil. Finish the dressing by adding 1 or 2 tablespoons of cold water, and whisking this in well.

Pour this dressing over the cold, drained noodles in the pot, and mix it all together.

 


Now it’s time to add the vegetables. I recommend using your hands, because you want to pull the noodles apart as you mix it all up; they tend to clump together, and you want to have the veg well-integrated into the salad. First I added the bell peppers and green onions.

 


Then the napa cabbage:

 


Once it’s all combined, dump the salad into your serving bowl, sprinkle on black sesame seeds, and garnish it with a few sprigs of cilantro:

 


The salad can be made a day ahead, and kept covered and chilled until service. 

 

🍃  🍲  🌱


The daughter of a law professor and a potter, Leslie Karst learned early, during family dinner conversations, the value of both careful analysis and the arts—ideal ingredients for a mystery story. Putting this early education to good use, she now writes the Lefty Award-nominated Sally Solari Mysteries, a culinary series set in Santa Cruz, California.

An ex-lawyer like her sleuth, Leslie also has degrees in English literature and the culinary arts. She and her wife and their Jack Russell mix split their time between Santa Cruz and Hilo, Hawai‘i.


Leslie’s website
Leslie also blogs with Chicks on the Case
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THE FRAGRANCE OF DEATH, coming Aug. 2, 2022, 

is now available for pre-order!

 


 

Praise for Leslie's most newest Sally Solari mystery, THE FRAGRANCE OF DEATH:

 

“A pager turner for me from the very first chapter, THE FRAGRANCE OF DEATH had everything I’m looking for in a mystery and more.”

Lisa K's Book Reviews



"[An] enjoyable fifth outing for Santa Cruz, Calif., chef Sally Solari.... This well-done culinary cozy should win new fans for the ever enterprising Sally."

Publishers Weekly



All five Sally Solari Mysteries are available through AmazonBarnes and Noble, and Bookshop.

 


 


Dying for a TasteA Measure of Murder, and Murder from Scratch are also available as AUDIOBOOKS from Audible!



 

 

 

10 comments:

  1. Thank you for the Easy Ramen Salad recipe! Sounds yummy and this will be a dish I will be trying.
    2clowns at arkansas dot net

    ReplyDelete
  2. This looks delicious. I will have to give this a try.

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  3. Sounds good.
    The picture of the chopped veggies is really pretty.
    Does using the ramen seasoning packs add a lot of sodium?

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    Replies
    1. No doubt it does, Libby. You can look on the package to find out how much.

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  4. The Maruchan products you show have never been vegetarian -- all of their flavors have meat products in the seasoning. Nissin Top Ramen's Soy Sauce (formerly Oriental) and Chili flavors are vegetarian. The Chili flavor is one of my favorite comfort foods, though for decades the Oriental was the only vegetarian flavor available and I'm fond of it as well.

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  5. Thank you for this great recipe. I can't wait to try it. Could you also use the chicken flavored ramen with the same ingredients for the sauce? ioncookbooks (at) yahoo (dot) com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, you could use any flavor of ramen you wanted. Depending on which flavor packet you use, it will have a slightly different taste (but not much, as they all taste pretty similar). Enjoy!

      Delete