When I can’t think of anything to make for lunch, ramen is always a good idea.
Luckily, I happened to have vegan “chicken” and “egg” to add to my ramen.
There are foods that I realized how much I enjoy when I started the plant-based diet.
Lentils are one of them.
I never paid much attention to this mighty food, which was unfortunate, because I really like it.
Now I use lentils all the time.
The lentil veggie curry was served with noodles.
Of course it goes well with rice as well.
Carbonara!
This famous pasta dish never gets old.
Of course, smoky bacon makes this dish 100 times better.
This time I added fresh lemon zest, and I really liked it.
The lemon zest brightened up the whole dish.
Oh, did I say it’s vegan?
Here is another dish I made utilizing the leftover food from my birthday dinner takeout.
The spicy pumpkin coconut Thai soup was turned into this ramen dish!
I added a few things (Kombu broth, sesame oil, etc.) to the soup to make it more appropriate for ramen.
The main purpose of doing so was to thin the soup and add another layer of flavor.
Tasty!!
I always liked seaweed, but it became extremely important in my diet when I switched to the plant-based diet.
Seaweed gives dishes the “ocean” flavor I crave sometimes, and I fully enjoy such dishes without so-called seafood, like shrimp and scallops.
In fact seaweed has become my “seafood”!
Hijiki seaweed is one of my favorites, although I cannot think of any type of seaweed I do not like.
After eating the same dishes from the Thanksgiving meal (leftover) for a few days, I was ready for something completely different.
I was in a mood for spaghetti, but something that would taste like ocean.
When I have a similar craving, I like to incorporate seaweed.
There are several different kinds of seaweed popular in Japan, and this time I decided to use Shio-Kombu (salted kombu), Aosa (dried seaweed flakes), and hand-torn Yaki-nori (roasted seaweed sheets).
I simply combined freshly cooked spaghetti with olive oil and the seaweed mix, and finished it off with homemade vegan white cheese and a drizzle of soy sauce.
So good!!
Simple udon dish.
Japanese curry soup, scallion, and fried tofu (a-ge).
Finished off with a vegan egg.
Tasty!
Who wouldn’t want this beautiful vegan egg in your noodle soup?!
Ramen is usually served in soup.
But the ramen noodles can be dressed with oil-based dressing, and it’s delicious.
This is perfect when you want noodles, but you want something lighter.
This was served with homemade vegan chicken, bean sprouts, garlic chives, scallion, and vegan egg.
The dressing was simply made with soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, and sesame oil.
I typically enjoy Natto over rice, but it goes well with Soba noodles as well.
This time I decided to add another sticky thing, grated nagaimo.
“Sticky” is not used as a good description for food in the U.S., but people love sticky food in Japan, including myself.
Yum!
Yakisoba, or fried noodles, has always been one of my favorite lunch dishes.
It’s easy to make, and I was probably making Yakisoba by myself at age 8.
I like to fry my noodles crispy for the ankake version.
Lots of veggies with thick sauce over crispy noodles.
So good!!
