If you are looking for rich, creamy, spicy, cheesy carbonara ramen and you’re on a tight budget, you’ve come to the right place. My Buldak Carbonara Ramen recipe is a super simple take on the popular ramen flavour. Just a few extra ingredients really makes the ramen go from a tasty snack to a lip-smacking meal.
Ingredients
- 1 130g pack of Buldak Spicy Ramen Carbonara Hot Chicken Flavour
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp mayonnaise
- 20g cheese (approx.)
- Chives
Method
- Finely chop the chives, grate the cheese, and separate the egg white and yolk. Save the egg white for another recipe.
- Create the carbonara sauce in a small bowl. Use a fork to combine the egg yolk, mayonnaise, approximately 1 tablespoon of the grated cheese, the entirety of the powder flavouring from the ramen pack, and most of the hot sauce from the ramen pack (save a little for drizzling on top before serving).
- Add your ramen noodles to a saucepan and cover with 600ml of boiling water. Let it simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, until the noodles have broken up and softened.
- Reserve a teacup of the noodle water and drain the rest.
- Return the noodles to the saucepan with the carbonara sauce, using a little of the reserved noodle water to rinse out the small bowl.
- Over a very low heat, gently mix the sauce into the noodles. Gradually add more reserved noodle water and continue stirring until the noodles are fully coated and the sauce is thick and glossy.
- Serve the carbonara ramen in a bowl, topped with the remaining cheese, a drizzle of hot sauce, and the chives.
Tips for Making Delicious Carbonara Ramen
A few extra tips to make your Buldak ramen just right for your tastes.
Chives Can Be Swapped!
I love the fresh and slightly oniony bite of chives, but you can replace them with:
- Fresh parsley
- Spring onions (scallions)
- Tarragon
Any fresh green herb should work, though I haven’t personally tried it with basil or coriander/cilantro. You really need something fresh to cut through the creaminess, so don’t skip the herbs entirely.
Choosing Cheese
I used cheddar cheese for this recipe, as I had a block of the mature stuff in the fridge. Ramen is often something I cook when I don’t have much in the house, so whatever cheese is laying about is what ends up in the recipe.
You could use parmesan, American cheese slices, red Leicester, even mozzarella.
Try Kewpie Mayo
If you want the best flavour, it has to be Kewpie mayo… but it might not be viable if you’re on a tight budget in the UK. I used Hellmann’s because it’s affordable and tastes pretty good.
Kewpie mayo is made with a higher ratio of egg yolks and specific seasonings to give it a really rich, umami flavour. If you want to try it, the best place to buy it in the UK is on Amazon. It is available in my local Morrisons and Tesco, but the price is almost double what it is online.
Adjusting Spice Level
If you’ve never tried Buldak Carbonara Ramen before, go easy on the hot sauce packet. You don’t have to use all of it to get a good flavour. That stuff is rocket fuel!
Add half to the sauce, give it a taste just before serving, and then decide if you want to mix in the rest.
Cooking vs Not Cooking the Egg
A lot of recipes for Buldak Carbonara Flavour Ramen create a sauce using an egg yolk and just toss it through the noodles at the end. They rely on the residual heat from the noodles to cook the egg yolk.
Personally, the thought that the egg could be raw or undercooked turns my stomach. Besides, gently cooking the sauce with the noodles and reserved water makes it 10x more creamy, thick and glossy.
Just be careful not to bring your sauce to a boil, as this risks scrambling the egg. Instead, get it piping hot in the saucepan and stir constantly to keep it smooth.
Buldak Carbonara Cost Breakdown
I bought all my ingredients in Morrisons in April 2026. Here’s what it cost me:
- Ramen packet – £1.50 (from a pack of 5 at £7.50)
- Egg – 29p (from a pack of 6 medium eggs at £1.75)
- Mayo – 16p (from a 750ml bottle at £3.80)
- Cheese – 25p (from a 400g block at £2.49)
- Chives – 20p (from a 20g fresh pack at £0.85)
The total cost of the ingredients in my bowl is £2.40.
If you bought everything listed in the full pack size, it’d cost you £16.39. From that, you could make 4 bowls of ramen with chives, 1 ramen bowl without chives, and have 1 egg and plenty of mayo and cheese leftover (not to mention 5 egg whites for meringue).
If you want to reduce the price further, don’t buy your ramen from the supermarket. You can always find packs of Buldak Carbonara Flavour Ramen on Amazon for much less – just make sure you buy the one that says “HOT Chicken Flavour Ramen” rather than “Artificial Spicy Chicken Ramen Flavor”.
Finding Flow in Cooking
It’s really easy to just make your ramen, shovel it into your mouth while you scroll on your phone, and be done with it. But you can find a lot of enjoyment (and flow) if you slow down a bit, take a few minutes to cook a recipe, and savour each bite.
The Navigation Codex is all about listening to your intuition, listening to your body, and enjoying life each day. If you feel the urge to reconnect with your food and do some cooking – but you’re on a tight budget, have limited kitchen space, or only a few utensils to hand – then starting with a simple ramen recipe like this one is ideal.
Let me know if you tried this recipe and give me your thoughts in the comments below.
