When you are a college student you don’t have a lot of money, so you just turn to the cheapest option for food. Which is typically not the most nutrient filled, or healthiest. One of the most common food items for college students is ramen. Ramen on average is $0.39 a package, which is cheap and easy for a college student. How do you make a nutrient dense meal? According to “My Plate” a nutrient dense meal has food or elements from all categories. There are five categories: fruits, vegetables, grains, protein, and dairy. When making ramen straight from the package it contains food from the grains and protein section. After using this new recipe of “Ramen made Healthy” it contains food from all sections except fruit. You can get that last section just by having an apple on the side. It’s as simple as that! Now you have a nutrient dense, balanced, healthy meal. 

Check out the cost breakdown of this quick, inexpensive meal:

The Cooking Process

Now along with being healthy and money cautious, college students are also stressed and limited on time. They don’t want to have to spend one hour cooking a full meal when they can just heat something in the microwave for two minutes. This recipe is very friendly for those who are stressed on time. In total this recipe will take you 15 minutes! That gives you 45 extra minutes of studying for that hour block! The process of cooking this meal was also very simple.

This is what we did. We started off by measuring out the ingredients, so everything was ready to go. Getting everything measured out and in its place is called mise en place, and makes the whole cooking process easier and quicker. Then we started boiling water. Once the water was boiling, we added in the noodles and vegetables. While the noodles were cooking, we pan-fried the egg. Next we drained the noodles and added the seasoning packet. Last, we added the egg on top! Super easy process with simple cooking techniques.

Finding the ingredients for this recipe was also simple. These are simple ingredients that can be found usually at any grocery store. To make this meal more cost effective you can use the same ingredients in a different meal, since you will not be using the full packages or containers. This recipe is simple and healthy, a great one for any college student!

Cost Calculator

This recipe makes one serving, so the total cost is the same as an individual serving cost. This recipe is easy to double if cooking for more people, but does not make very good leftovers. There are a few ways to make this recipe more budget friendly. The thing that will have the largest impact is the type of ramen you buy. There is a wide variety of instant ramen to buy, and the generic maruchan or top ramen brands are generally the cheapest. Sapporo or other brands, while they taste better, cost more. Buying a pack of 24 ramen packages will lead to a lower unit price as well, as opposed to buying singular packages. Another way to reduce cost is to use frozen broccoli instead of fresh broccoli, and steaming it in the microwave. This recipe only uses a small portion of a head of broccoli and a package of spinach. Don’t just use them for this recipe! Plan to make other recipes that use broccoli or spinach to reduce food waste. None of these items were listed as ingredients that the SNAC pantry was offering.

I make this recipe often and use different variations. One thing I do sometimes that allows the egg to cook faster is to crack it into the pot and cook it more like a poached egg and then add the ramen noodles to the same pot once it begins to boil and reduce the heat. An issue I run into with this is some pots are ridiculously hard to clean after cooking an egg this way which defeats the purpose of a quick meal. Another issue is different amounts of broccoli cook for different amounts of time, so it is important to check it every now and then to ensure it doesn’t burn.

This recipe is very versatile, and the cost can vary a lot depending on what ingredients are used. Buying ramen in packages of 12 or 24 significantly reduces the cost. There are also many different types of ramen noodles. Lotus Foods sells a kind of ramen made from millet and brown rice that is significantly more nutrient dense and sustainable, but also more expensive than the typical Maruchan or Top Ramen. Another way to mix it up is to use other vegetables in place of the broccoli! A fun way to prepare the egg is by frying it in a separate pan. If you break the yolk it cooks very quickly.

General information:

• Time management during preparation went pretty well. The way the recipe works tends to help all the ingredients be ready at the right time.
• It was very easy to find the ingredients needed for this recipe! All of the ingredients are pretty standard ingredients and grocery stores.
• I did not make any alterations to lower the cost, but I did make sure to try to buy the cheapest type of each ingredient.
• The cooking techniques for this recipe are pretty simple, just make sure not to forget about the broccoli in the oven

I love this recipe! One thing to note about it is that this recipe does not keep very well. Refrigerating and reheating ramen noodles gives them a weird texture and the liquid gets too absorbed into the noodles. This is best served hot, right when it is off of the stove. I like putting some spinach on the bottom of the bowl before the noodles and then some on top of the noodles with the broccoli and egg, and then pouring the broth over it all. It is an easy recipe to adjust for different numbers of servings. Some fun ideas to change it up would be to experiment with other vegetables and greens! Happy cooking!