Soba Noodles with Leftover Braised Pork Belly

One of my favorite leftover ideas is to use noodles and make it into a ramen, I’m a big fan of using leftovers to create a brand new dish. Eating the same thing for more than 2 days straight is just boring, you need to spice it up!  This uses the braised pork belly I had earlier in the week.  I’ll tell you the secret to making any* leftover dish into a ramen!

First, start your boiling water.  Then add to it powdered chicken or beef stock depending on the type of meat, a tablespoon for every serving.

Here, consider your vegetable options (whatever you have in your fridge or freezer, if it sounds good, try it!).  In my case i did 1/2 cup diced potatoes and 1/2 cup onions.  If you are adding root vegetables that takes a while to cook, you want to put them in the water first and boil until tender.  I added both the potatoes and onions and boiled for about 5 minutes.

Then add in moderation the flavor profile that you used for your leftover.  So for example, for this bowl of ramen, I used a ~2 teaspoons of soy sauce and ~1 teaspoon of sugar.  You want to do this because in most cases, your leftover won’t have that much of the braising liquid to flavor that much water in the broth, this step balances the broth flavor to match the leftovers.  Add the pork belly right into the boiling water along with the braising liquid (it’s probably hardened to a gel at this point), stir, and taste it!  Make sure it tastes just like your leftovers did.  You don’t want it to taste watery or bland, if anything you want it on the slightly salty side due to the addition of the noodles in the next step.

Finally after everything boils for another 2 or 3 minutes, add the soba noodles.  They should only take another minute or two.  They usually come in pre-measured bundles for a single serving.

Ladle into a bowl and enjoy your fast and easy lunch!

*DO attempt with: Leftovers from Asian restaurants such as sesame chicken, kung pao beef, mushu pork, tea smoked duck.  Non asian thing such as Pot roast, steamed fish, steaks, etc.

*DO NOT attempt with sushi, anything fried, anything mashed or mushy in texture, pies, and so forth.