Chinese Hot and Sour Soup with Ramen
on Nov 27, 2019, Updated Oct 05, 2021
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Incredibly delicious Chinese Hot and Sour Soup with Ramen is the perfect comfort food that’s ready in under 30 minutes! It’s a hearty meal, full of veggies, tofu, mushrooms and chicken.
I made this chinese hot and sour soup with ramen a couple of days ago, and I can tell you that it is easily one of the best things I have ever made! This recipe is an interesting twist between how hot and sour soup is made in India and the authentic way of doing it. But I also went ahead and added some ramen which is essentially Japanese. Now I’m confused. Because there’s an Indian style, Chinese flavors, and Japanese noodles. It’s a medley of flavors of cuisines, but don’t let that intimidate you because soup is hands down delicious!
Quick Walk Through: Chinese Hot and Sour Soup
Why I love this soup?
This is a really simple recipe that uses up a ton of veggies and particularly mushrooms. I ended up using three kinds of mushrooms because we are all mushroom lovers here. But you can stick to one. Tofu, chicken and pork are all standard ingredients in this soup. But you can decide which ones you like or even use a combination of two types of protein.
Let’s quickly jump in and answer a few simple questions you might have before we get to the detailed recipe.
FAQs
The list of ingredients in this hot and sour soup with ramen is simple – chillies, ginger, garlic, celery, carrots, mushrooms, tofu, chicken, soy sauce, cornstarch, vinegar and ramen of course. These are things that are probably already in your pantry so its a quick and easy soup to make which is ready in under 30 minutes. Perfect for last minute dinners! Plus leftovers make for fantastic light lunches.
The heat in this chinese hot and sour soup with ramen comes from dried red chillies and white pepper. The soup has to be on the hotter side. The sourness comes from adding vinegar right at the end. If you add the vinegar in the beginning or towards the middle, the vinegar will evaporate during cooking. Which is why we add the vinegar right at the end.
Normally, hot and sour does not have gluten but my version does because I add ramen noodles to it. If you skip the noodles, this will become a gluten free recipe.
Absolutely! You can easily make this recipe with chicken. Just add some shredded chicken while boiling the soup, or add 1/4 inch pieces of raw chicken in the beginning so that they boil and cook as the soup cooks.
This hot and sour soup with ramen is one of those easy soupy meals that everyone in the family will love. You can turn down the heat if that’s what you prefer but personally, I like that this soup clears up the sinuses and keeps me warm!
Watch Chinese Hot and Sour Soup with Ramen Recipe Video
Chinese Hot and Sour Soup with Ramen
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons Vegetable Oil
- 2 dried Red Chillies, finely chopped (feel free to cut this down to 1 if you like your food less spicy)
- 1 tablespoon Ginger, chopped
- 1 tablespoon Garlic, chopped
- 1/2 cup Celery, chopped
- 1 cup Carrots, chopped
- 3 cups Assorted dried or fresh Mushrooms, I used shiitake mushrooms, wood ear mushrooms and button mushrooms
- 2 tablespoons Dark Soy Sauce
- 2 tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
- 1 cup Firm Tofu, sliced
- 2 1/2 tablespoons Cornstarch
- 1 pack Ramen noodles
- 1 Egg, beaten
- 2 tablespoons Rice Vinegar
- 1/4 teaspoon White Pepper powder
- 1/2 teaspoon Salt, optional
- 1 teaspoon Toasted Sesame Oil
Instructions
- If using dried shiitake and wood ear mushrooms, rehydrate them by submerging them in hot water for 15-20 minutes till they soften up. Reserve the water to be used as stock in the soup. Slice all the mushrooms and set aside.
- Heat oil in a pan and add red chillies and ginger. Saute till the ginger is golden brown and add the garlic. Saute the garlic for a few seconds and add the celery and carrots. Cook the carrots for a minute or two and add mushrooms, tofu, both the soy sauces and six cups water (or low sodium stock) to the pot (if using the stock from mushrooms, reduce the water to 5 cups and add the stock). Bring the pot to a boil and simmer for 5-6 minutes. Add the ramen to the pot.
- While the ramen is cooking, stir together cornstarch in 1/4 cup water and slowly add it to the pot while stirring continuously. Bring the soup to a quick boil. The soup should start to thicken. Slowly add in the beaten egg, swirling with a ladle as you go to create egg ribbons in the soup. Stir in rice vinegar, white pepper, salt (if using) and sesame oil. Turn off the flame. Top with an egg or just some green onions and enjoy.
Notes
- Add chicken or pork: If you want to make this soup non vegetarian, add chicken or pork while boiling the mushrooms and tofu
- Spice levels: We like our hot and sour soup spicy so two chillies is great for us. You can always increase or reduce the chillies depending on how spicy you like your food
- Ramen: Feel free to skip the ramen altogether if you prefer just soup, but I’m a sucker for noodles!
So amazingly good! I made a few changes…didn’t have dried red chilies so used 1 tsp red pepper flakes…doubled the vinegar and the sesame oil. I added 1 tablespoon of gochujang paste at the end! Delicious!!
Yaay! that’s great Denise. so so happy you liked the recipe.
I found this recipe online, and it looked and sounded so lovely and tasty that I decided to try it out for myself. It was a huge hit with both my spouse and myself. What wonderful flavours from such a simple dish (I love those kinds of recipes), and the taste feels like something I toiled over for hours to achieve, haha. Thank you for sharing this information, it is really appreciated.
Thanks so much Virat
Hi, I am looking so forward to attempting this soup, I LOVE Hot and Sour soup and order it every time we have Chinese food! I have a question for you though, what type of red chilies do you use, what are they called?
Hey Michelle, any dried red chillies will do.
The recipe calls for water but the video says vegetable stock???
Hey Nicke, sorry about that. You can use either water or low sodium stock. I’ve fixed it in the recipe
Loved this recipe! I have Chinese international students and using ramen was not ok with them, so I used a Chinese noodle. Wasn’t spicy enough for us (maybe my red chili peppers are mild?) But we added more pepper and more hot peppers and it was delicious and we both loved it!
Thanks Darlee! Ya the heat levels in chillies can differ so I’m glad you were able to adjust them to your taste
Soy sauce usually isn’t gluten free
Thanks for the share. Would this taste good with chinese black vinegar instead of rice vinegar?
Yea I think it should work
I must try this! I can eat soup all day everyday!
Thanks Jennifer!
this totally hit the spot!!! thank you!
Thanks April!
This looks so awesome and good! Rice noodles or buckwheat noodles (100%) might make good gluten-free substitutions.