While catching snowflakes on your tongue can be lovely, watching the wintry mix from inside a cozy, warm spot while enjoying a bowl of hot soup can also be delightful. When the weather outside looks a little too frightful to venture out for lunch or dinner, having some easy-to-make meals on hand can save the day. With Maruchan’s lineup of noodle soups, planning for snow days is as easy as deciding to wait one more day to put away that holiday decor.
Quick and Easy
Maruchan has several meal options that take very little effort to prepare. As an added time-saver, some of the soup and noodle varieties are offered in containers that you can eat from directly, resulting in one less dish to clean. Maruchan’s Instant Lunch is the old-school, cup-of-soup style you may remember from your college days. I’m a long-time fan of the Chicken flavor, and the Cheddar Cheese is tasty, too. The ramen is also available in bowls. I recently tried the Birria Beef flavor in a bowl, and it had a hearty taste with a beefy, Salisbury steak-like appeal.
Making these meals doesn’t require much more than adding hot water and mixing in the contents of the packets provided. If you’re near a coffee machine that has a hot water dispenser (like, say in the breakroom), you might even spend more time on small talk than you will making your lunch.
Newer Yakisoba Flavors
Another meal type Maruchan offers is Yakisoba, which is less of a soup and more of a saucy noodle dish. These noodles come in microwaveable trays, and similar to the brand’s Ramen Bowls, you just need to mix in water and the contents of the packets provided. Some newer flavors include Orange Chicken with a sweet, slightly bright flavor and Chili Cheese, which is savory and reminiscent of nacho or hot dog chili.
Add Your Own Enhancements
With more time on your hands, you could easily use one of the Ramen Soup Packets as a base for something special. I like adding an egg or some bok choy to mine to take it up a notch. For anyone with kitchen ambition, the “restaurant quality” Maruchan GOLD soup packets come with a liquid soup base, and the Maruchan website has instructions for using these to make impressive dishes. In the recipe for Chicken Shoyu Ramen, for example, ingredients like wakame, okra, and shichimi turn an everyday lunch into a meal that looks worthy of serving even the judgiest of guests.
Maruchan meals can be found in Walmart stores and online through Instacart or Amazon.
