Elevate your instant ramen noodles with these super easy Ramen Eggs. You do need to plan ahead a bit but it only takes 3 ingredients and less than 15 minutes of preparation.

Table of Contents
Instant ramen is far from a gourmet meal, but it’s nostalgic and comforting, especially on a cold lazy night. We usually spruce it up with some fresh veggies, green onions, and any proteins we have on hand.
Ramen eggs remind me of the simmered eggs in my favorite Vietnamese Braised Pork dish. In this dish, you cook the eggs in the braising liquid. And the braised pork itself takes a couple hours to make, so it’s much more time consuming than this super easy ramen eggs recipe I’m about to share with you.
Ingredients & Substitutions
- Eggs – You’ll need to cook the eggs before marinating it. Hard boiled or soft boiled will both work, depending on your preference. Just adjust the cooking time: about 8 – 9 minutes for hard boiled, 6 – 7 minutes for soft boiled. I like my soft boiled at exactly 6 minutes and 30 seconds.
- Soy Sauce – I use low sodium soy sauce because that’s what we have in our pantry. But regular soy sauce, any brand of soy sauce will work just fine. We will be diluting the marinade with some water anyways, so don’t worry too much about it being too salty.
- Mirin – This is a stable condiment in Japanese cooking. It’s sweet and a bit vinegary. You can easily buy this at any Japanese or Asian grocery stores. I also see it online at Target and Instacart. It comes in a small bottle too for those of you who don’t use this all that often.
If you don’t want to buy Mirin, the best substitution would be a combination of vinegar and sugar in a 2 to 1 ratio.
- You can use rice wine vinegar, white wine vinegar, or distilled vinegar, whichever you have in your pantry.
- For the sugar portion, you can use granulated sugar, corn syrup, or honey. Just note that honey will impart its own flavor on the marinade.
- For every 2 tablespoons of vinegar, use 1 tablespoon of sweetener.
Making the ramen eggs
- Boil the eggs. Let it cool and peel off the shells.
- Stir together soy sauce, mirin and water to make the marinade.
- Submerge the eggs into the marinade and refrigerate overnight or at least a few hours before serving.
FAQs
I used the same glass measuring cup that I mix the marinade in. You can use a clean glass jar with a tight lid, this will be handy for leftover storage. Or just use a ziploc bag, placed inside a bowl, this method will work best as it allows the marinade to get all over the eggs.
If the marinade is not enough to cover the eggs completely, you could add more marinade or just turn it during the marinating time so the eggs have a chance to get brown evenly.
The longer you marinate, the stronger the flavor. I prefer to marinate these ramen eggs at least overnight, but if you are in a time crunch, a few hours will work.
The eggs will last 3 – 4 days in the refrigerator. You can keep leftovers submerged in the marinade for even better flavor, but I recommend removing them from the marinade after 1-2 days or the eggs will get very mushy.
You can add crushed garlic, ginger and sliced chilis.
You don’t have to limit yourself to serving these eggs with just ramen. Try them with other type of noodles or even with rice.
More Asian & Asian inspired recipes
- Steam Buns
- Chè Đậu Đen (Vietnamese Black Bean Dessert)
- AnPan (Japanese Red Bean Buns)
- Beef Chili Pan (Deep Fried Chili Bread)
- Vietnamese Iced Coffee
📖 Recipe card
Ramen Eggs
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoon soy sauce
- 3 tablespoon mirin
- 9 tablespoon water
- 4 large eggs
Instructions
- To cook egg, bring water to a boil and gently drop cold eggs into boiling water. Reduce heat to keep water and a gentle boil. Cook egg for about 8 – 9 minutes for hard boiled or 6 – 7 minutes for soft boiled.
- Remove eggs from boiling water and drop into a bowl of ice water to cool.
- Mix soy sauce, mirin and water in a measuring cup. Peel eggs and submerge in the soy sauce mixture.
- Refrigerate until ready to use (half a day or overnight).
Nutrition
This recipe is adapted from Just One Cookbook, my go-to destination for Japanese recipes. I’ve made so many recipes from Nami’s blog, and everything is just amazing!
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We loved your descriptive narrative on this one. Can’t say the same for the salty egg, though.