• use broth instead of water
• cook in a pot instead of with a water boiler
• add baby bok choy
• get better brands of instant noodles (according to your preference). Some brands are quite good already on their own

Egg drop is the best I’ve found, at least for the classic chicken flavored ramen packs.

Get some dried wood-ear or shiitake mushrooms. Soak them in boiling water to rehydrate them, then use that mushroom-infused water to make your noodles. If you’re using shiitake, fry them up in a pan; wood-ears are ready to eat without doing so.

Throw some kimchi in there, too. It’s good for your guts.

Cook noodles, but drain most of the water, add some peanut butter with the seasoning, some veg, and some chili crisp. Now you have pad thai ish.

Cheese is a thing some people do as well.

Add stuff and flavor. When it comes to ramen, more is more.

I usually use some combination of these:

Stuff:

• Softboiled egg
• Onion, Carrot, Veg
• Pork/Chicken/White meat
• Sardines/Fish

Flavor:

• Lemon joose
• Honey
• Worchestershire
• Fish sauce

Really anything that’s fresh from the grocery store can be cooked and added.

Fry an onion and some bits of bacon drop in the ramen with some
frozen peas, add seasoning’s and an egg if wanted.

You can also add hot-sauce and mix up the veg by adding bell peppers, maybe add paprika or even cheese.

Ramen has little flavour of its own and little nutrition but it makes a great base for anything. Imagine ramen tortilla :)

Two to three drops of sesame oil will help the flavor of any ramen considerably. Also a dash of chili flakes, or a tiny (like 1/2 tsp) scoop of fermented miso. Oh and a pinch of MSG

Chili crisp. Easy, cheap (homemade to make it as cheap as it gets), delicious

Wilted collards

That doesn’t mean old collards, it means separate the center stem from the leaves, cut them up and in the same pan you fried your bacon and eggs for your ramen, pan fry them until they turn a darker deeper green.

It’s called kilt as well if you’re in a place where people do this.

Save the cut up stems for stock or pickling. Pickled collard stems, bamboo shoots and watermelon rinds are good in ramen too.

You can do this with all kinds of greens but some like turnip don’t need it.

If you’re insanely poor and ill equipped, a half cup of the little frozen mixed vegetable cubes turns packet ramen into cup noodles.

Mix some tuna into that bad boy

Ramen eggs if I remember to make them. Otherwise I like adding some dried mushrooms when it’s boiling away. Even if it already has some, more mushrooms!

Throw the packet away. Reserve a little water you boil in. Drain pasta. Add pepper, parm cheese and some of that water you reserved

#2. Cook a breaded chicken patty. Boil ramen noodles. Toss the packet. Plate the noodles. Top with chicken patty. Top that with red sauce. Finally add a sprinkle of mozzarella

My lazy way to make it more delicious is to add chopped garlic and a a little bit of mayo. Stir. Instantly tastes a lot more complex with so few extra ingredients.

I would say your best bang for the buck is something concentrated you can add in small amounts, combined with cheap frozen veggies.

Marmite, fish sauce, whatever kind of umami face slapper you prefer, plus a handful of frozen peas will go a long way towards satisfying you rather than just feeding. Gotta go easy on stuff like marmite though, the salt levels combined with the packet can be intense.

But you can grab a bag of peas, plus whatever other veg you like. Split them up into single serving containers of whatever sort you prefer, then just pull them as needed. You gotta make sure that the biggest pieces will be done in the time ramen takes to boil and finish, but that isn’t difficult