LEVEL UP YOUR COLLEGE FOOD STAPLE

Being a college student means constantly shuffling between homework deadlines while trying to keep every other aspect of life from falling apart.

It doesn’t help that food isn’t exactly cheap these days. Trying to eat healthy can also get time-consuming, unfortunately, especially when the daylight is getting shorter by the minute.

Throughout the country, instant noodles are recognized as a college student staple. They’re quick, budget-friendly and easy to prepare.

Here are some recipe combinations to give a little more “oomph” to your bowl of instant noodles:

1. An easy chicken noodle soup can be made with instant noodles. Start by boiling water. While waiting, stir fry chicken slices until they’re fully cooked. Add the chicken along with shredded carrot, cabbage (alternatives may include Bok Choy or spinach), one minced garlic clove and a pinch of ginger. After adding those, you can either use half the noodle’s sauce packs or add salt, pepper and soy sauce accordingly.
2. To make an Asian-style shrimp noodle soup, while the water is boiling in a pot, add green onions, fish sauce, chili sauce, garlic and ginger. For flavor, add in around 1/3 of the ramen pack before adding in some peeled shrimp, mushrooms, spinach (or vegetable of choice) and the noodles.
3. Adding eggs and Spam slices to a packet of instant noodle soup is undeniably a pretty unhealthy sodium fest. However, when it comes to the taste, it makes for a delicious combination of “junk food.”
   This one’s pretty simple: When your noodles are cooking, quickly cut around a quarter of a Spam can, chopping it into small cube-shaped sizes. After that, crack one egg into the pot and stir it in together with the spam. When everything is mixed evenly, add the packet from the noodle pack to flavor.
4. Fish ball noodle soups are a delight during the winter time; they also make for a tasty add-on to instant noodles. If you’d like to opt out using the flavor packet from the instant noodle, an option is to use chicken broth when boiling the fish balls and noodles together. Putting in some veggies (preferably fast-cooking ones like spinach or corn) into the soup also works really well.

Get Cooking 

When it comes to cooking these instant noodle add-ons, the quantity really depends on preference and the amount of noodles cooked.

I recommend doing some taste tests before finalizing and serving the ramen. Slurp up!