Are you a Japanese ramen lover who wish to learn to make your own craft ramen at home?
One of the best secrets to making delicious ramen is to use the right tools. While tools are not the key to the taste of ramen, it is essential to help you make good ramen! If you’ve never made ramen before, you may not know what are all the different kinds of utensils you’ll need to get started.
In this article, I will introduce the cooking utensils that I recommend for making ramen. If you are thinking to start making ramen, you should source for a set of these basic utensils to be well-prepared for that wonderful bowl of Japanese ramen!
Important for beginners: Necessary Utensils for Home-made Ramen
Contents
Basic Cooking Tools
Chef’s Knife & Cutting Set
First is the kitchen knife, as cutting is the basis to food preparation. While you may probably have one in our kitchen, make sure to get a decent and sharp all-purpose knife which can cut & slice well. A single 8-inch Shun Knife should be able to handle most of the cutting process in ramen making that beginners can work with: <BUY 8-inch Shun Knife from Amazon>
You’ll also need a cutting board, a pair of kitchen scissors, peeler, and other small items. You can easily get a 5-piece set like this on Amazon: <BUY 5-piece set Knife from Amazon>
Kitchen Scale
To make delicious ramen that is consistency with the right balance of taste, it is most important to measure ingredients accurately to get the exact amount of ingredients and seasonings. The type of kitchen scale to get will depend on how much you plan to make, but it’s useful to have something that can weigh up to about 5kg. <BUY kitchen scale from Amazon>
Soup Ladle
The soup ladle is mainly used to transfer the right amount of ramen soup/broth and ramen sauce/tare for serving. It is ideal to have 2 ladles: a small one (about 30-50ml) for sauce/tare, a bigger one for ramen soup (about 250-360ml).
If you don’t have one or is not sure what to use, start with a basic set with various sizes: <BUY soup ladle from Amazon>
If you are serious about making traditional Japanese ramen, I recommend that you use a ladle that is made in Japan:
Cookware for Ramen Soup
Stock Pot (Zundo)
The Zundo (A Large Stock Pot) is a must for boiling ramen soup. If you only have a small pot, it will not be sufficient to boil pork bones which are large. A 12-quarts sized pot (about 11 litres) should be enough to make up to 10 servings of ramen soup, which is good for beginners: <BUY 12-quarts sized pot from Amazon>
Strainer
A strainer is a cooking utensil that is needed to separate the ramen soup or tare from boiled ingredients or skim scum during the cooking. It is very frequently use in ramen preparation. <BUY strainer from Amazon>
Cookware for Ramen Noodles
Noodle Machine
An authentic Japanese ramen noodle machine is typically only sold in Japan and they may be costly and large. Unless you plan to open a Japanese ramen shop, it is best to start with a compact pasta machine which is easy to get and not too expensive: <BUY Noodle Machine from Amazon>
Noodle Strainer (Ramen Tebo)
Ramen tebo is a type of deep noodle strainer used to boil ramen noodles. You can use this for boiling a specific serving of noodles, and then drain it strongly due to it’s shape. Tebo is commonly used for various Japanese noodles like ramen and udon. <BUY Ramen Tebo from Amazon>
Noodle Boiling Pot
In addition to the Stock Pot for ramen soup, you will need another large pot to boil noodles concurrently. Alternatively you can get a pasta cooking set which also comes with a strainer:
Once you have all the above tools, you are all set for your ramen adventure!
It can be daunting to source for the right tools & utensils for making ramen, especially if you don’t live in Japan. It is best to try to source them on Amazon as they ship to most countries and is convenient to use for sourcing all the things needed in 1 purchase.
Hope you find this useful, check out my recipes or watch my Youtube videos to start your ramen journey. Do tell me your comments if you try my recipes. See you next ramen!