Ginger Garlic Beef Ramen
Ramen with dried beef, ginger, and garlic. Built to warm you up on a cold night.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 113
- protein
- 30 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 10 min
- total time
- 12 min
- water
- 600 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Campfire coals
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Winter / snow
- Basecamp
- Nut free
- One pot
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Instant ramen | 1 block | keep one seasoning packet per serving |
|---|---|---|
| Home-dried cooked ground beef | 1/2 cup | brown lean beef at home, rinse the fat off, dry it hard |
| Dried stir-fry vegetable mix | 1/2 cup | peppers, carrot, cabbage, edamame |
| Ground ginger | 1/4 tsp | |
| Garlic powder | 1/2 tsp | |
| Dried green onion | 1 tbsp | |
| Sesame oil | 1 tbsp | dropper bottle |
| Red pepper flakes | a pinch | optional |
Method
- Put the dried beef and vegetables in the pot with 600 ml of water. Bring it to a boil.
- Cut the heat to a low simmer and hold it there five minutes. The beef needs that time to take water back on.
- Break the ramen block into the pot and add the seasoning packet, ginger, garlic powder, and green onion. Simmer three more minutes.
- Pull it off the stove, pour the sesame oil over the top, and stir. Add pepper flakes if you want it hot.
- If the beef is still chewy, put the lid on and wait two minutes before eating.
The home version browns fresh ground beef and dumps in a bag of frozen vegetables. Neither of those travels, so the beef gets cooked and dried at home and the vegetables come dried. That changes the cooking order more than anything else: the meat and vegetables need a five-minute simmer to drink water back up, and the noodles only need three. Put the ramen in early and you get mush around gravel.
Rinse the fat off the beef before drying it. Fat left in dried meat goes rancid in a pack, and it is the reason home-dried ground beef sometimes tastes off two days out. The sesame oil at the end puts the fat back, after the heat is off, where it will not oxidize sitting in a food bag.
Packing
Beef and vegetables ride in one bag, ramen and seasonings in another. Keeping them apart means you can start the rehydrating soak before the noodles go anywhere near the water.
Variations
- No dehydrator: a foil packet of chicken or a shelf-stable beef stick stirred in at the end does the same job for more weight.
- Swap the seasoning packet for a bouillon cube and a spoon of miso if the packets are too salty for you.
https://morefood.org/recipes-for-cold-weather