Quick Ramen Noodle Stir Fry
by Chungah
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This quick ramen noodle stir fry is so easy and budget-friendly using ramen noodles, ground beef and the most flavor-packed stir fry sauce!
Why you’ll love this quick ramen noodle stir fry
- Perfect for busy weeknights. Stir-fries are simply quick cooking meals. And this is the ultimate ultra-fast, weeknight-friendly dinner that requires no more than 30 minutes start to finish by using ground beef and instant ramen noodles.
- Highly customizable. This recipe can easily be adapted to mix in what you have on hand. For example, you can swap in ground turkey for the ground beef or use rice noodles in place of the ramen noodles to make it gluten-free. The possibilities are simply endless.
- Budget-friendly. You can essentially use up anything and everything in your fridge, transforming random veggies and proteins into the best clean-out-the-fridge meal.
How to make ramen noodle stir fry
- Cook the noodles. Cook the ramen noodles until al dente, rinsing with cold water to halt the cooking process.
- Prep the stir fry sauce. Combine the beef stock, oyster sauce, rice wine vinegar and Sriracha.
- Brown the meat. Crumble the ground beef with the onion in a large skillet over medium heat, draining off any excess fat and grease.
- Sauté the aromatics. Stir in the garlic and ginger until fragrant.
- Deglaze the pan. Add the stir fry sauce, lifting up the browned bits (fond) from the bottom of the pan.
- Add the noodles. Stir in the al dente ramen noodles, tossing until evenly coated.
- Serve. Sprinkle with green onions and sesame seeds, and serve warm.
Variations and substitutions
- Ramen noodles: substitute fresh lo mein, chow mein, Yaki-Soba or udon noodles
- Beef stock: substitute unsalted chicken stock
- Sriracha: omit for milder flavors
- Ground beef: substitute ground chicken, ground turkey or ground pork
Tools For This Recipe
Quick Ramen Noodle Stir Fry: Frequently Asked Questions
Yes! Cook the ramen noodles just until al dente, then rinse with cold water to prevent the noodles from clumping and becoming gummy.
The seasoning packet included with the ramen noodles should be discarded as the recipe builds a more balanced, authentic stir-fry sauce with a few pantry staples.
Yes! You can substitute ground chicken, ground turkey or ground pork. You can also try this recipe instead using boneless, skinless chicken.
Add quick-cooking vegetables such as broccoli, bell pepper, carrots, mushrooms and snap peas.
Always add the sauce towards the end of cooking time, allowing the sauce to thicken and create a glossy coat.
Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days.
Quick Ramen Noodle Stir Fry
Video
Ingredients
- 2 (3.5-ounce) packages instant ramen noodles, flavor packets discarded
- ⅓ cup beef stock
- ¼ cup oyster sauce
- 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon Sriracha, or more, to taste
- 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- 1 cup diced sweet onion
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
- 2 green onions, thinly sliced
- ½ teaspoon toasted sesame seeds
Instructions
- In a large pot of boiling water, cook ramen noodles until tender, about 3-4 minutes; rinse with cold water and drain well.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together beef stock, oyster sauce, rice wine vinegar and Sriracha.
- Heat sesame oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add ground beef and onion, and cook until beef has browned, about 3-5 minutes, making sure to crumble the beef as it cooks; drain excess fat.
- Stir in garlic and ginger until fragrant, about 1 minute.
- Stir in beef stock mixture, scraping any browned bits from the bottom of the skillet.
- Stir in ramen noodles until heated through and evenly coated in sauce, about 1-2 minutes.
- Serve immediately, garnished with green onions and sesame seeds, if desired.
Equipment
Notes
- Prep beforehand. This stir fry recipe comes together quickly. Have all the ingredients and sauce ready to go prior to cooking.
- Cook until al dente. Cook the ramen noodles just until al dente as they will continue to cook when stir-fried.
- Rinse noodles with cold water. This will stop the cooking process to tighten the starches and keep the noodles from clumping.
- Use lean ground beef. Opt for 90% or higher, preventing the dish from being overly greasy or oily.
- Make it mild. Omit the Sriracha for milder flavors, perfect for little ones and toddlers.
Did you make this recipe?
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Absolutely delicious! Wonderful flavor.
This was excellent! I will definitely make it again.
I make this once a month for my family. My husband would have it more often! Very tasty, easy to modify. Julienned carrot, diced bell pepper, really any extra veg works. My husband sometimes adds SE Asian flavor with crushed peanuts, lime juice and cilantro. I’m thinking a little gochujang would be a great variation, too. I agree with other comments that you could also increase the number of ramen packets to 3 or 4 for this amount of ground beef.
This was tasty and easy, but too meat heavy for me personally. I will make again and double everything but the meat. I served with steamed broccoli.
Love this! So so easy to make. I made it a second time yesterday and added some sauteed broccoli and tempeh, it was delicious!
Absolutely fabuloso, flavorful and so very easy. I’ve made this recipe several times and it freezes well (add ramen later)
Just made this – Absolutely delicious!
We really enjoyed this recipe. Family was not convinced that ground beef and ramen was a good idea – but they changed their
minds quickly! Can’t wait to make this again. I doubled the recipe so I cooked it in a big wok. One thing that worked for me was to cook the noodles at the same time I was cooking the beef. When the beef was ready I took the noodles from the water drained a bit and added right to the wok. It was a lot easier than trying to stir in noodles that had been drained in the colander and were already kind of clumped together. Thanks for a great and easy recipe!
I have made this for dinner but switched some of the ingredients as I didn’t have some of the listed items. It was still very tasty, and I usually end up adapting recipes based on what I have in. I have only recently started cooking noodle dishes, I generally cook more with rice. The kids are loving my noodle experiments. I can now add this dish to my noodle repertoire.
I made it yesterday but used chicken in place of beef, it was a great taste. You can feel the texture of toasted sesame seeds.
Thanks for sharing such delicious recipes
Cheers!!
We are a huge ramen fan here. This noodles looks just DELICIOUS. seems like our weekend is sorted.
I don’t have oyster sauce on me nor sesame oil. Is there some alternative I can use instead?
no alternative…how about this, go to the store and buy it.
Hysterical! I agreed
You can use soy sauce instead of oyster sauce, you can use vegetable oil instead of sesame but if you DO eventually get sesame it brings a certain flavor to the dish!
Really tasty! I would suggest rather than discarding the seasoning packets, just add to the ground beef. This was easy and will definitely make it again sometime!!!
It was great taste, I tried this noodle yesterday. I have replaced beef with grated chicken still it tastes delicious.
Thanks for sharing such new recipes.
Hi There! Just wondering if you could sub chicken and chicken stock for the beef and beef stock?
I used everything except green onion because I didn’t have any. But I did use a handful of frozen carrots and peas and this, was absolutely delicious. Damn delicious. I really enjoyed this recipe. The asian fusion was just great.
Loved this! Made it for the first time for my picky 11 year old and she took 2 bites and said “yes, you can add this to the weekly dinner list”. So thank you for another huge hit.
Side not, I have shellfish allergy so I subbed the oyster sauce with same portion teriyaki and it seemed to work! Ya!
With the current Stay at home order we are in I am missing fresh ginger. Is it possible to use ground ginger?
You can get grated ginger in a jar, similar to minced garlic in a jar. Much better than ginger powder but of course you can use ginger powder if that is all you have. I now keep jarred garlic and jarred ginger as staples in my refrig. Use them all the time!
Sooo Good! My whole family loved this. I added 1/2 red bell pepper diced the onions and beef and also some steamed broccoli at the end.
We added sauteed mushrooms and steamed broccoli and subbed soy sauce for the oyster sauce. Very good and quick. Will be added to my favorites!