Hosting a Ramen Party

Ramen is the ultimate format to serve thoughtful, delicious food in bulk. That’s because the more bowls of ramen you make at a time, the cheaper and easier it is to produce a quality bowl. So if you’re already planning your first post-COVID dinner party, I suggest you choose ramen.

Over the last 4 years, I’ve served about 600 bowls of ramen to guests. In doing so, I’ve found that the tools you choose are paramount for producing a superior final product (and a fun party). In this post, I’ll share all I know to help you host the perfect ramen party.

This post details the tools you need to make, store, and serve ramen for 2-20 guests. Whether you’re new to ramen dinner parties, considering hosting an at-home ramen pop-up, or looking for Christmas gifts for a ramen lover, this is for you.

A few tips before we get started

The most important rule

If you want this event to be a success, there’s one simple rule that you need to follow: don’t make everything the day of the event! In fact, try to make as little as possible the day of the event. Your party will be far less stressful if your only responsibilities on game-day are keeping your place clean, welcoming your guests, and heating up delicious ramen.

Thankfully, making your ramen in advance won’t result in a worse product. Even professional ramen shops prepare the broth, chashu, and noodles 1-3 days before serving. Doing so also gives you the opportunity to step back from your recipe and taste it as a more neutral observer (so you can correct your recipe before you serve it to others).

To make ramen in advance, you just have to rapidly chill the broth and chashu to fridge-temp as soon as you finish cooking them. This preserves the quality of the food and helps you to avoid the food safety issues that arise from having perishables at room temperature for too long. The best way to chill your broth and chashu is in an ice bath (e.g. throwing your pot of broth into a plugged sink with ice). More on this later.

Suggested schedule

I follow this schedule for my ramen parties to ensure the event goes smoothly.

• Three days before the event: Make the noodles. Store them in the fridge.

• Two days before the event: Make the eggs. Store them in the fridge.

• Day before the event: Make the broth and the chashu. Rapidly chill them and store them in the fridge.

• Day of the event:

  • Make yourself a test bowl before everyone arrives. Figure out what you need to fix with your ramen (e.g. how are the salt levels?) before you serve it to others.

  • Prepare the toppings (e.g. slice the scallions and keep them in the fridge).

  • Clean your place.

• One hour before guests arrive: Remove the eggs, chashu, tare, and aroma oils from the fridge to let them get to room temperature.

• As guests arrive:

  • Put the broth on the stove and bring it to temperature.

  • Put a pot of water on the stove (for the noodles) and bring that to temperature, too.

• When it’s time to serve guests: Relax! The hard part is over :)

I’ll provide my tool suggestions in this same order.

Suggested Ramen recipes

While I’ll be sharing the tools you need to pull off a ramen party, I won’t be sharing the recipes. I’m not even linking to recipe books on Amazon! That’s because the best resource for ramen in the English language is free, and it’s a Google Doc.

Consider this your ramen recipe bible. It’s a collection of recipes from Ramen Lord, a ramen-obsessed mastermind from Chicago. His free eBook is proof of his tireless efforts to improve the US ramen community.

And with that, let’s get to the tools you need to host this ramen party.

Noodle prep

1. Pasta roller

To make noodles from scratch (which I always prefer to store-bought noodles), I use my KitchenAid pasta roller attachment.

To make your own noodles, just follow the recipes here. With a KitchenAid, you’ll want to ensure that the dough is fairly flat before you put it through the roller. Otherwise, the roller can break. I find this easiest when use recipes with 35% or higher hydration (i.e. the ratio of water/flour is at least 35/100).

2. Capellini cutter

My preferred noodle size for ramen (especially for the ligher broths that I typically make) is capellini-sized. This capellini cutter is what I use.

3. Potassium carbonate

An important ingredient in ramen noodle dough is kansui, a mix of alkaline salts that increase the pH of the dough to give the noodle characteristics distinctive of ramen. It’s not really possible to purchase kansui in the US, but it is easy to make. My recipe for kansui is:

• Put 200g of baking soda in the oven at 300ºf for 1 hour.

• Combine baked baking soda with 100g potassium carbonate.

This makes far more than you need so you can keep it in your pantry for next time.

AJITAMA prep Tools

1. Egg hole punch

To ensure the ramen eggs you serve have a perfectly centered yolk, you should prick a hole in the top of the egg before cooking. The easiest way to do so is with an egg piercer. Learn more on my egg theories here.

2. “Egg” baskets

To cook multiple batches of eggs, and to ensure you’re quick when you transfer the eggs from the boiling water to a cool water bath to stop the cooking, I recommend a noodle basket or two.

3. Ajitama storage container

Once you’ve peeled your eggs, you’ll want to keep them in a container with the egg brine. These little cambros stack well in the fridge and hold 12-16 eggs. To ensure the eggs are submerged, I recommend covering the eggs with a paper towel after you put them in the cambro.

Broth prep

1. High capacity pot

I’m going to assume you don’t have a stock pot to serve 20 people yet.

2. High capacity pressure cooker

You can cut significant time off of your ramen cook if you use a pressure cooker. This one is mine.

My rule of thumb is to treat one hour under pressure like 5 hours of regular cooking. This means I can do a 6-hour traditional cook (wherein I typically add aromatics in hour 6) in 2 hours (with 1 hour under pressure and 1 hour cooked traditionally with added aromatics).

3. Strainer

You’ll need to strain that beautiful broth! I follow the Thomas Keller rule of thumb and strain my broths every time I’m transferring broth from one container or pot to another.

4. Broth storage

I use these cambros to store my broth in the fridge. I have 3! Making fridge space is one of the bigger challenges at this point.

5. Ice wand

Ice wands are a convenient way to chill your broth rapidly. The day before cooking your broth, you just fill this with water and put it in your freezer. Then you put the frozen wand into the broth to chill it before adding it to the fridge.

Chashu prep

Be sure to check out my pork coppa chashu recipe! Here’s what I use in that recipe.

1. Immersion circulator

I prefer cooking my chashu sous vide. I use a Breville Joule, which comes with a handy app that keeps track of how long the chashu has been at temp.

2. Meat carving knife

Especially for fatty cuts like coppa, you want to cut the chashu dangerously thin. A knife like this lets you cut the chashu in one sweeping motion.

3. Blowtorch

Especially for pork belly, many folks enjoy torching the chashu before serving. Your guests might have fun torching too!

I prefer to use the Bernzomatic TS8000. Here is the fuel you’ll need.

Tare and AROMA OIL prep

To make tare, you really only need kitchen basics. I’ll assume you have those. But be sure to check out my tare framework! Great way to course correct your recipe before serving others.

Serving Prep

Here’s what I use when I’m actively serving guests.

1. Serving trays

You’ll look a lot more organized if your ramen components (e.g. torched chashu, sliced eggs) are neatly arranged on separate serving trays in the plating area of your kitchen.

2. Noodle baskets

Noodle baskets are essential. You should be cooking each serving of noodles in a separate basket.

3. Long tweezers

I use these to fold the noodles over before putting the toppings in the bowl. A subtle touch that makes all the difference. Is it possible with chopsticks? Yes. Am I awful at doing this with chopsticks? Also yes.

4. Mise en place trays

I like to store my smaller toppings (e.g. scallions) in these little mise en place tins.

DINNERware

1. Ramen bowls

MTC Kitchen is my favorite place to buy professional ramen bowls for cheap.

2. Chopsticks

I prefer disposable chopsticks. You’ll have enough to clean when all of this is over!

3. Soup spoons

Slurp. These ones get the job done.

And that’s it! Let me know in the comments if you have any questions about hosting a ramen event of your own.