Cheap, Quick, and Easy: Ramen with Peanut Sauce

This is my favorite thing to make when I'm hungry and want something quick. It's seriously so easy and costs very little.

Ingredients:

Sriracha hot chili sauce, Tamarind paste, Milk, Peanut butter, Top Ramen, onion, shredded coconut.*

Start by throwing away the seasoning packet. Ew, that stuff is gross. Besides, the ramen noodles themselves aren't that bad for you, it's just the nastiness in the seasoning packet. Boil some water and toss the ramen noodles in. Boil 3 minutes.

While the noodles are cooking, start chopping your onion. You DEFINITELY don't need the whole onion, I chopped this much

but used maybe a third of that. Basically, not a whole lot but if you really like onion add a little extra. If it seems like way too little, remember that this is just for one person, so think of how much total onion you want to eat.

In your bowl, add some peanut butter, about this much

and some shredded coconut.

Add an amount of milk about equal to the peanut butter

and microwave it for about 30 seconds. Stir it, then microwave it for another 30 seconds. If necessary, repeat.

Mix it up well, and add tamarind paste and hot sauce to taste. I use about a tablespoon of tamarind and a squirt or two of sriracha. Keep messing with it until you like the taste. By this time, your ramen should be fully cooked. Drain the noodles and add them to your bowl, mixing well to coat.


*A note about ingredients: Tamarind paste is probably the least common ingredient on the list. If you don't have any, lemon juice works fine; I prefer the tamarind. I got mine at Uwajimaya. Any hot sauce would work or even chili powder, basically anything to make it a little spicy. Also, coconut extract might even work better than the shredded coconut, but that's just what I have in my cupboard all the time so that's what I use. AND, if you substitute soy milk for the regular milk, it's totally vegan and it doesn't affect the taste at all. I pretty much just use whichever we've got in our fridge and can't tell the difference when it's in the sauce.