This ramen recipe makes a quick, nourishing comfort-meal | Canada Voices

The Globe is serving up a new comforting soup recipe every week this January.

Midwinter is a good time for brothy noodles, and dishes that utilize scraps of leftovers and veggies that may be starting to wilt in the back of the fridge.

Calgary-based chef, culinary instructor and cookbook author Roni Zaide came up with this quick ramen after a long day of recipe testing for her second book, Food Therapy: Recipes to Nourish Your Body and Soul. “Despite my fridge being full of the dishes that I had prepared all day, all I craved on that cold winter evening was a quick, delicious and comforting ramen,” she says. Her latest self-published cookbook is a collection of feel-good recipes that provided her family with comfort at a time when they needed it most. This streamlined ramen made it into the book and is now in regular rotation at mealtimes, often requested by her two-year-old, Teega.

“After having a bowl of this ramen I always feel content,” says Zaide, who became vegetarian on her 11th birthday and made the transition toward a vegan, plant-based lifestyle years later. “The combination of a nourishing meal, the umami flavours and slurping noodles … the whole experience feels like the bowl of soup is giving you a warm hug from the inside.”

Roni Zaide’s Quick Ramen

For a gluten-free ramen, Zaide suggests using gluten-free soy sauce, miso paste and noodles. (Excerpted from Food Therapy: Recipes to Nourish Your Body and Soul by Roni Zaide.)

• 4 cups boiled water
• 1/3 cup tamari soy sauce
• 3 tbsp shiro miso paste (or 2 tbsp red miso paste)
• 3 tbsp rice vinegar
• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 cup thinly sliced mushrooms
• 1 cup cubed tofu (regular or smoked)
• 1 carrot, thinly sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tbsp minced fresh ginger
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast flakes (optional)
• 300 grams ramen noodles
• 2 green onions, sliced
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• Chili flakes, to taste

Optional upgrades:

• 1/2 cup corn kernels
• 1/2 cup shelled edamame beans
• 2 cups broccoli florets
• An additional cup of mushrooms, sautéed, for topping

In a large pot, combine the boiled water, soy sauce, miso, rice vinegar and sesame oil. Whisk everything together until the miso is fully dissolved.

Add the mushrooms, tofu, carrot, garlic and ginger.

Cook on high heat for 15 minutes. Using a fork, check that the carrot is cooked.

If the fork slides easily through the carrot, it’s done. Otherwise, continue cooking for a few more minutes. Add the coconut milk, nutritional yeast, corn and edamame.

Cook for two more minutes on high heat. Mix well and remove from the heat.

Add the broccoli to a medium pot of boiling water and cook for three minutes on medium-high heat. Drain the broccoli and set aside.

Cook the noodles according to package directions, and drain. To serve, place the noodles in a bowl and top them with the soup, broccoli, sautéed mushrooms, green onions, a drizzle of sesame oil and the chili flakes.

Serves 2-3.