Your first weekend of ramen making

Making ramen from scratch sounds like a project. It is. But it breaks down into three distinct skills (broth, noodles, tare), and you can tackle them one weekend at a time.

By Colin B. · Published June 17, 2026

Ramen has a reputation for being either instant-noodle-simple or chef-level-impossible. Neither is right. From-scratch ramen is three separate skills that happen to end up in the same bowl: broth, noodles, and tare. The intimidation comes from trying to learn all three at once, on your first try, expecting restaurant results.

The fix is to do them one at a time, in the order they matter.

What ramen actually is (before the gear)

A bowl of ramen has four components:

Broth: the base liquid. Can be chicken, pork bone (tonkotsu), dashi, or combinations.

Tare: the seasoning concentrate. This is what gives each style its character: shoyu (soy sauce), shio (salt), or miso. The broth itself is intentionally under-seasoned; tare finishes each bowl.

Noodles: alkaline wheat noodles. The kansui (alkaline agent) gives them their springy texture and pale yellow color. Without kansui, you have pasta, which is fine but not ramen.

Aroma oil: optional but common. A few drops of sesame oil, scallion oil, or mayu (charred garlic oil) that float on the surface.

The four components are combined in the bowl at assembly: tare goes in first, broth ladled over, noodles nested in, toppings arranged on top. This happens fast. Have everything ready before the noodles hit the water.

Weekend one: broth and tare only

Your first weekend should produce a bowl of shoyu ramen using store-bought noodles. This isolates the two skills that matter most and removes the noodle variable entirely.

Shoyu broth is the right starting point. Chicken backs and wings, aromatics (onion, ginger, garlic, leek), and kombu for depth. Four hours on a low simmer. Clear, golden, and far more interesting than it sounds.

Start with your largest pot and cold water. Add the chicken, bring to a boil, and drain everything after 3 minutes. This is the blanch step: it removes the blood and impurities that would otherwise cloud the broth and create foam you spend an hour chasing. Rinse the chicken, rinse the pot, start fresh with cold water and all your aromatics. Now simmer on the lowest heat your burner allows for 3-4 hours.

The broth should barely tremble at the surface. A hard boil creates a cloudy, murky broth from the emulsified fat. Keep it gentle.

Shoyu tare takes 20 minutes and keeps for 6 weeks. Heat soy sauce, mirin, and sake in a small saucepan with a piece of kombu and a handful of bonito flakes. Bring to a gentle simmer, steep 10 minutes, strain. That is it. Refrigerate in a squeeze bottle. Use 1.5 to 2 tablespoons per bowl.

When the broth is done, strain it through a fine mesh strainer into a clean pot. Taste it. It should have depth and a clean chicken flavor, but feel under-seasoned. That is correct. The tare completes it.

Put 1.5 tablespoons of shoyu tare in the bottom of your largest bowl. Ladle in 300ml of hot broth. Taste. Adjust. This ratio is personal and batch-dependent. Add Sun Noodle fresh ramen noodles (cook in unsalted boiling water, 60-90 seconds), arrange your toppings, and eat immediately.

Weekend two: fresh noodles

Once you have a broth you are happy with, add noodle making.

Ramen noodle dough is: bread flour, water, kansui (alkaline salt solution), and a small amount of table salt. The ratios that work for most beginners: 100g flour, 38g water, 1g salt, 1g potassium carbonate and sodium carbonate (kansui), or 2g baked baking soda as a substitute.

Baked baking soda is made by spreading regular baking soda on a sheet pan and baking at 250°F (120°C) for 60-75 minutes. It converts to sodium carbonate, which is closer to true kansui than unbaked baking soda. Store in an airtight jar. Use the same weight as kansui called for in recipes.

Dissolve the kansui and salt in the water first. Combine with the flour and mix until shaggy. The dough will feel dry and rough. That is correct. Ramen dough is much stiffer than pasta dough and needs rest time to hydrate properly.

Rest the dough for 30 minutes wrapped in plastic. Then divide, sheet through your pasta machine starting at setting 1, folding and re-sheeting twice, then work progressively to setting 6 or 7 for thin ramen noodles. Cut with the spaghetti attachment.

Cook in aggressively boiling unsalted water for 60-90 seconds. The noodles cook fast. Have everything else assembled and ready before they go in.

Toppings worth learning

Toppings separate a good bowl from a great one. In rough priority order:

Soft-boiled egg (ajitsuke tamago): Six and a half minutes in boiling water, ice bath for 5 minutes, peel, marinate in a 2:1 mix of soy sauce and mirin for 4-24 hours. The longer the soak, the darker and more seasoned the white. The yolk should be jammy and orange.

Chashu pork: Pork belly, rolled and tied, braised in soy sauce, mirin, sake, and sugar for 2-3 hours until tender. Rest overnight in the braising liquid. Slice to order. The braising liquid doubles as a base for your shoyu tare.

Nori, bamboo shoots, scallions: Low effort, high visual impact. Bamboo shoots from a can are fine. Nori sheets from any Asian grocery.

What goes wrong (and what it means)

Cloudy broth when you wanted clear: You either skipped the blanch step or simmered too hard. A rolling boil emulsifies fat into the broth and you cannot undo that. If you want clear broth, you need a gentle simmer. If you want the classic white tonkotsu opacity, you want a hard boil, by design.

Noodles too soft or falling apart: Ramen noodles are cooked in under 90 seconds. If they are soft, they were overcooked. Pull them 15-20 seconds earlier. Fresh noodles cook far faster than dried.

Bowl feels flat and unseasoned: Add more tare, a small amount at a time, until the flavor comes forward. Every batch of broth concentrates differently. The tare ratio in recipes is a starting point.

Dough is crumbly and won’t come together: Under-hydrated, or the resting time was too short. Wrap and rest another 30 minutes. Do not add water directly to the dough; it creates uneven hydration and wet patches.

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Ready to buy your first broth pot and pasta machine? See the ramen making gear guide for what to get and what can wait.