A few months ago, we were browsing Youtube after a long day of noodle experimentation and we stumbled upon some videos of home chefs making noodle dishes from scratch. One particular dish that caught our eye was a homemade Tantanmen, which we've both eaten many times in our childhood.
For those who don't know, Tantanmen is the Japanese version of a Sichuan Dan Dan noodle. Dan Dan noodles are normally dry noodles, but Tantanmen comes in a spicy chili soup and is normally made from a base of sesame paste.
In an attempt to re-invent this dish, we asked ourselves if we could make a low carb version using ingredients we had in our kitchen.
One of our favorite low-carb snacks is almond butter so we decided to make our own version of Spicy Almond Tantan Ramen with almond butter base, immi low-carb noodles, and chili bean 🌶 ground pork.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup of almond butter
- Handful of almonds
- 2 green onions
- 1 piece of ginger
- 4 cloves of garlic
- Soy sauce
- 1/4 lb of ground pork
- Dry sake
- Avocado oil
- Chili bean sauce (we use Lee Kum Kee)
- 1/2 quart of chicken bone broth
- 2 pieces of bok choy
- Chili oil
- Pickled radish
- immi low carb, high protein ramen noodles (or whatever noodles you prefer)
Recipe
- Scoop 1/2 cup of almond butter into a bowl.
- Put a small handful of almonds into a plastic bag and use a heavy object to crush them. Bonus points if you use a hammer like we did.
- Add the crushed almonds to the almond butter and mix together as well as you can. It's a workout.
- Dice 2 green onions, the ginger, and the garlic. Set aside half of the ginger to be used later.
- Fry the green onions, ginger, and garlic with avocado oil on a pan for a few minutes.
- Add 200mL of soy sauce to the pan and simmer for 5 minutes. This is your tare.
- Strain the tare into another bowl and set aside.
- Take another pan and fry the ground pork with avocado oil. Add in a splash of the dry sake, 2 tbsp of soy sauce, and 2 tbsp of chili bean sauce. Stir fry on medium heat until the ground pork is fully cooked.
- Put a pot on the stove and boil 1/2 quart of chicken bone broth along with the other half of the ginger you set aside.
- While that is boiling, take a small pot and boil the 2 pieces of bok choy. They will cook quickly so remove them after a minute or they'll get too limp. Nothing sadder than a limp bok choy leaf.
- Take out a serving bowl and put 4 tbsp of the mixed almond butter into the bowl.
- Pour the ginger chicken bone broth on top of the almond butter and stir together until fully dissolved.
- Pour in 1.5 tbsp of your tare and 1 tbsp of chili oil. Add in as much pickled radish as you'd like.
- Add in your immi ramen noodles. Feel great about the fact that you can eat delicious noods while staying healthy.
- Top with 2 bok choy leaves and the ground pork.
- Enjoy!
Fun Visual Recipe
Food Facts to get Rameducated
- Almonds are 100% reliant on wild bees and honey bees for crop pollination. Almond growers will even rent bees for pollination which is one of the most costly issues for growers.
- Sadly honey made from bees who have pollinated almond trees is bitter and can't be consumed.