Instant Pot Chicken Ramen
When it’s cold outside and I want comfort food, this easy Instant Pot Chicken Ramen always hits the spot. Ramen noodles combined with shredded chicken, jammy eggs, served in a truly flavorful homemade chicken broth.
Here’s the secret: the crazy flavorful ramen broth is the star of the dish, and it’s made possible by the incredible Instant Pot.
If you love chicken ramen, also try out Miso Noodle Soup and Birria Ramen – two delicious ramen noodle soup recipe that I think you will enjoy thoroughly!
Chicken Ramen in the Instant Pot
This Instant Pot Chicken Ramen has so much depth in flavor yet is made in a super short amount of time. Ready in ~40 minutes!
I grew up eating soups made from homemade stocks that takes hours (or even a whole day) to cook.
We slowly boil the meat and the bones, and wait very patiently for the most flavorful, amazing tasting broth to grace us with its presence.
And then enter the life-changing concept that is the pressure cooker slash Instant Pot. Where one throws everything in this magical device and BAM, broth that takes a whole day to make are ready in less than an hour.
Welcome to the 21st century, where everything is convenient and (almost) instantaneous.
This yummy Instant Pot Chicken Ramen is simply that: convenient, (almost) instantaneous, and so incredibly delicious. We love this meal to pieces, and here are a few things you should know about it:
- The broth is crazy flavorful. Don’t under estimate this simple-looking bowl of chicken ramen. It pressure cooks the chicken thighs to create the best tasting chicken ramen broth, and you will never look at store-bought chicken stock the same way again.
- Using the Instant pot or pressure cooker, it makes this dish so attainable and easy to make!
- It stores really well and we love eating this as leftovers.
- It also happens to be healthy and good for you! No more store-bought ramen flavor packets with ridiculously high salt content. Instant Pot Chicken Ramen is the way to go!
- So versatile! Add other ingredients, use what’s at hand, and make it your own!
I should also note that this Instant Pot Chicken Ramen is not a traditional ramen recipe. It tastes kinda like traditional ramen, but it is not a direct replica (or copycat) of it.
Because traditional ramen is super complicated to make, I wanted to create this Instant Pot Chicken Ramen recipe that is crazy good but still easy enough for everyday people like you and me to make a simple and yummy comfort food meal at home.
Ingredient Notes
Besides an Instant Pot (obviously), here’s what else you need to make this Instant Pot Chicken Ramen recipe:
- ramen noodles – use ramen noodle packets but without the seasoning packets.
- chicken – using bone-in, skin-on chicken for maximum flavor. You can use boneless and/or skinless chicken too if you prefer not to mess with the bone and skin
- chicken broth – use good quality chicken broth or bone broth for best flavor
- garlic – use fresh garlic, avoid using garlic powder
- onion – use fresh onion as well
- ginger root – if needed ginger powder can be used. Somehow I find ginger powder to retain more of its original flavors than garlic and onion powder.
- Mirin – this is a Japanese rice seasoning wine commonly used in Japanese cuisine. You should be able to find this in my mainstream grocery store in the Asian aisle. Avoid skipping this because it is responsible for that delicious umami flavors often found in ramen noodle soups.
- soy sauce
- sesame oil – another ingredient that provides a unique umami flavor to the ramen broth.
- eggs
- salt and black pepper
Making Instant Pot Chicken Ramen
Here are three key components when preparing our Instant Pot Chicken Ramen:
- Cooking chicken ramen broth in the Instant Pot
- Preparing other ingredients – egg, noodles etc.
- Assembling chicken ramen
Cooking chicken ramen broth in the instant Pot
The chicken ramen broth is definitely the most complex component in this Instant Pot Chicken Ramen recipe. At the same time, it also happens to be the most tasty! It really makes our chicken ramen the delicious dish that it is.
Chicken ramen broth is cooked in the Instant Pot using chicken, chicken broth, garlic, onion, ginger, and Asian-inspired spices such as soy sauce, Mirin, sesame oil, salt and black pepper.
The product is a truly flavorful broth with so much depth in flavor. I can seriously drink this chicken ramen broth every day and never get tired of it. It is truly comfort food for me.
A few things to note when making chicken ramen broth in the Instant Pot:
- Even though the Instant Pot is set to cook for 20 minutes, give it extra time to build up and release pressure. It takes longer than 20 minutes from start to finish, but the good news is this is all passive time. Feel free to walk away and do something else!
- After the chicken ramen broth is cooked, taste the broth and add hot water if the broth taste too salty. I like it slightly thicker/strongly flavored so I typically do not add water, but you may prefer the broth to be more diluted.
- If you are using a different pressure cooker, you may or may not have more/less diluted broth. I tested it on a different pressure cooker and noticed it varies slightly using different equipment.
Other Ramen Ingredients
While the chicken ramen broth is cooking in the Instant Pot, I typically work on boiling the eggs/peeling them, and chopping the green onions to save time.
Once the broth is cooked remove chicken from the broth and shred it, then cook ramen noodles briefly in the Instant Pot (in the broth) under the sauté setting in the broth until noodles are soft.
Assembling Chicken Ramen
Then grab your bowls and assemble everything to bring together your Chicken Ramen:
- chicken broth
- ramen noodles
- shredded chicken
- boiled eggs
- green onions
How to store leftovers
The trick to storing leftover Instant Pot Chicken Ramen is to store the stock, eggs, noodles and green onions separately. Only combine them when you are ready to eat!
Don’t store ramen noodles submerged in chicken broth because noodles will get soggy. You can even freeze the broth for much later if needed.
Variation and Substitution
One of the beauty of this dish is that there are lots of ways you can make this!
Here are a few variations:
- Use different noodles: Use rice stick noodles (used in Pad Thai, Pho etc), udon, lo mein noodles, or even spaghetti!
- Add more veggies: Add other vegetables such as carrots, edamame, bok choy, spinach or other leafy greens.
- Add other garnishes: Dried seaweed, sesame seeds, crispy/fried onions or garlic will be delicious as well!
How to make this if I don’t have an Instant Pot
Yes! You can use a different pressure cooker to make this.
This dish tastes the best using a pressure cooker, but if you don’t have one, you can also use a slow cooker and cook the broth on high for 7-8 hours. You will need to boil the noodles separately instead of cooking them in the broth after the broth is done if you use this method!
I still highly recommend the pressure cooker method because pressure cooking creates the most flavorful chicken ramen broth.
We have been making and enjoying Instant Pot Chicken Ramen non-stop because we love it so much. It is the comfort food you need this Fall/winter!
Give it a try! You won’t regret it!
DID YOU ENJOY THIS RECIPE? Please comment below and give us a 5-star rating! This will help others find this recipe on Google and Pinterest. We very much appreciate your help! 🤍
Other Noodle Dishes!
Calling all noodle fans! More noodle recipes…just for you! 🙂
- Ramen Noodle Stir Fry
- Simple Thai Noodle Bowl
- Pad Thai Noodle
- Pad See Ew Noodle
- Shrimp Stir Fried Noodles
- Chicken Lo Mein
- Spicy Pork Ramen Noodle Soup (by Kitchen Sanctuary!)
Instant Pot Chicken Ramen
Equipment
- Instant Pot
Ingredients
- 2 lbs bone-in skin-on chicken thighs ~4 chicken thighs
- 6 cups chicken broth
- 2 cups water
- 3-4 cloves garlic
- 4-5 green onions
- ~1 inch ginger root
- 1 tbsp Mirin Japanese rice seasoning wine
- 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1/2 tbsp sesame oil
- salt
- pepper
- 4 large eggs
- 4 packets ramen noodles discard flavor packets
Instructions
- Prep ingredients: clean and remove skin from ginger root; cut and save the white part of the green onions, and cut into small pieces the green part of the green onions; sprinkle salt and pepper on both sides of chicken thighs.
- Set Instant Pot to 'saute' setting. Sear chicken thighs on one side (sear skin-on side first – doing this will produce some oil at the bottom of the pot and no additional oil is needed), flip and sear the other side. Make sure chicken thighs are not stacked on top of each other. You want to brown each piece on both sides, but no need to fully cook chicken. If needed cook in two batches.
- Add chicken stock and water to Instant Pot. Then add garlic, the white part of the green onions, ginger root, Mirin, soy sauce and sesame oil.
- Close lid. Set Instant Pot to cook on High Pressure for 20 minutes. Make sure to give it time as it takes a while for the Instant Pot to build and release pressure.
- While waiting for broth to cook, add water to a separate small pot and boil water on the stove. After it comes to a boil, gently lower eggs into boiling water and cook for 7 minutes for jammy eggs. (Cook for 9-10 minutes for hard boiled eggs). Remove eggs, rinse in cold water, and peel. Cut eggs into half.
- Once the broth is cooked, remove chicken thighs and shred chicken. Discard skin and bones.
- Taste broth. If it is too salty, add hot water to diute it. Keep in mind that ramen broth tends to be thick and super flavorful.
- Bring Instant Pot back to a boil under the saute setting, and cook ramen noodles in the broth for 2-3 minutes, or until soft.
- Assemble ramen noodles, broth, shredded chicken, chopped green onions (the green part that is cut into small pieces in Step 1) and egg in bowls. Serve and enjoy!
If I wanted to add mushrooms to this how would I do that?
I would add it in when you add the ginger, garlic etc (before you pressure cook) so you can pressure cook the mushrooms and infuse the broth with mushroom flavors!
I sure know what I’m cooking tomorrow night! This looks delicious. Such beauty photos too 🙂
Thank you so much! 🙂
What a delicious recipe MinShien!!! I first love ramen and I LOVE MY INSTANT POT! Thanks for sharing!
Aw thanks so much Christie! So happy to hear that you like it! 🙂
This one looks so flavorful and tasty. thank you so much for the recipe.
I’m glad you like it! 🙂
My husband loved this dinner. And it was easy for me to make.
Wonderful! Thank you for sharing!
We’ve been a bit under the weather and soup always sounds good, tried your ramen, WOW! MinShien, so so delicious and flavorful! Thank you, everyone loved it!
LOVE hearing that, Kathleen! 🙂
We loved everything about this ramen recipe! So good!!
YES!! We love it too! Thank you for trying it and letting me know how it went!
So glad I found this new ramen recipe for the instant pot! Delicious!
I’m so glad you found it too and enjoyed it! 🙂
Oh my gosh, I didn’t know ramen could be so easy to make at home and absolutely delicious. I’ll be making this recipe regularly!
Yes! Isn’t it awesome! So glad you discovered this and enjoyed it
This was a big bowl of comfort when I needed one, and the broth is out-of-this-world delicious. My whole family loved this!
Thank you! The flavorful broth is my favorite part as well 🙂
Hello, looks like a great recipe. Since you don’t mention this, I am guessing this is an instant release and not a natural release but I did want to check with you to make sure.
Thank you!
Yes! It is an instant release! Let me know what you think when you try it! 🙂
Going out to buy the ingredients now, if I wanted to add Bok Choy to it, when would I add that in???
I would add it at the end when you add the noodles! Let me know what you think when you try it!
It was delish!!! I ended up sauteeing the Bok Choy and adding on top!
Yay! I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
I stumbled across your site and immediately got super excited! So many amazing looking recipes to try! We started with this one and the whole family loved it! (We added bok choy at the end to the hot broth for some veggies.) Like everyone else says, the broth is tremendous! Thank you for approachable yet exciting recipes! We’ll be cooking through your collection for sure! 😀
Thank you for the kind words, Julie! I’m so happy to hear that you stumbled upon us and I hope you enjoy many of the recipes here. I’m glad you love this one as much as I do…let me know what else you make and what you think about it! 🙂
We just made it again tonight (added shitake mushrooms to the broth, bok choy after, did marinated ramen eggs this time and had a little chili crisp to finish garnish! SO. GOOD!!!) and the family agreed we never want chicken soup again. This is our ramen recipe! Thank you again so much! 🙂
I have to agree with you – this is just SOO much more flavorful! Thanks for sharing and I’m SO glad you are loving it so much!