As any student will tell you, instant noodles are the easiest cheapest meal around. But eventually, the monotony of spooning bland noodles in what is, essentially, salty hot water does weigh down your soul. That’s why we’ve come up with the best, tastiest ways to turn your instant noodle snack into a wholesome, filling meal! 

Spices 

This is the speediest way to give your instant noodles some substance. Just a quarter teaspoon of curry powder, chilli powder, and garlic powder can give the noodle broth some much-needed lift. It will make you actually want to drink the whole soup base, instead of just letting it sludge down the sink the next morning! Be careful, though — this can sometimes make your noodles a bit too spicy. Remember, you can always add more spice, but you can’t really take it out. 

Subbing out

You probably don’t want to have piping hot soupy noodles in all weather, do you? Sometimes, throwing out the soup base is the most important thing to do! Just cook the noodles the way you would normally, and then drain all of the hot water away, adding the packet to the noodles dry. The dampness of the noodles is enough to let the powder turn into a paste, and with enough mixing you’ll have yourself a really nice mi goreng style noodle! 

If that’s not enough, you can also add a bit of butter to the noodles as a sauce too, which gives it a nice glossy shine. 

Health food 

While filling and delicious, a bowl of instant noodle sometimes isn’t the healthiest option. The packets often have a lot of sodium in them, and the green bits of garnish really aren’t ‘vegetables’, no matter what you told your mum as a kid! But, it’s super easy to get your five a day in your instant noodles. Frozen peas, frozen corn, frozen green beans — just about anything you can get from the freezer section — defrost really nicely while the noodles are cooking, and provide a bit of much-needed vitamin to your meal. For protein, eggs in any form help to make the noodles more filling. We like adding a fried egg on top of our dry noodles, or cracking a beaten egg into the broth for an egg-drop soup. 

Different sauces

If you still want the goodness of a big warm bowl of noodles, but are sick of the same flavours, there’s a really easy way to recreate traditional broths with what you have in your cupboard. One of the cheapest ways to do this is to make Chinese ‘hot oil’, which is a combination of star anise, Chinese five spice, and chili flakes boiled in oil for half an hour. You can make this at home as well as buying it from the shop, it’ll last up to six months either way. Just add a spoonful of it to whatever broth you’re making for a quick hit of spice. Or, alternatively, you could add a bit of jarred sauce from your cupboard. I’ve found that a tablespoon of pesto into a little bit of broth makes really nice Italian inspired noodles, great with chopped tomatoes and fresh white onion. Alternatively, a tablespoon of chunky peanut butter and some chili powder can transform a basic chicken noodle soup into a delicious satay dish, and a little gochujang can instantly make anything taste as though it came from a Korean kitchen. 

It’s really good to stock up on pastes and sauces that can be added to anything, like gochujang, pesto, gochujaru, or even miso. These keep really well in the fridge and can be dumped into soups, stocks, or spread on toast when you’re really lost as to what to cook!