I was joyfully surprised today when one of my colleagues brought a package of Vite Ramen for me to try.
It turns out that Vite Ramen is a Kickstarter project with the mission of creating healthy and delicious instant ramen. It's certainly much healthier than most instant ramens - 28g of protein (~50% daily value), 560mg of sodium (~25% daily value), 12g of fat (~15% daily value), no frying, no artificial preservatives, and lots of vitamins. Also, I appreciate that it doesn't try to pretend this is actually 2.5 servings. Could this nutritionally complete meal actually be tasty as well?
The cooking process is identical to any other pack of instant ramen - boiling water for 3 minutes. There are four seasoning packs - vegetables, nutrients, soup base, and oil.
The results?
This was a pretty tasty bowl of noodles. The mouth feel was quite chewy and nice, although the taste was more wheaty than a typical pack of instant noodles (presumably because they use quinoa flour). The soup base certainly tasted like soy sauce chicken, which although is not a flavor I typically order, was quite satisfying. I would characterize this as halfway between the salty spicy POW of your typical instant ramen and the umami rich experience of a fresh ramen. But most importantly, I have no health qualms about eating this once a week and am happy to do it when I don't have a fresh dinner on hand. I will certainly be placing an order to try the shio and garlic pork flavors!
