Try putting the egg in later, so it's still soft after cooking.
You can buy crispy onion pretty cheaply, put it on at the end to give it a little texture.
Try it soupy, try it dry. Try draining it and adding the seasoning to the dry noodles.
Big spoonful of peanut butter / gochujang / miso / langaoma
Frozen veggies.
Mince meat, shredded chicken,
There's also heaps of different brands, give em a whirl.
Here are things I sometimes add to my instant ramen:
While cooking:
Before serving:
I also make pork belly specifically for ramen. I rub it with salt and sugar, roast it, slice it into strips and freeze it in small packs so I have it handy. It cooks up pretty quickly in a frying pan. You can put it in while cooking the noodles if you don't want to get a pan dirty but it's not quite as tasty.
Add a few drops of sesame oil, sesame seeds are also nice
Add a tiny splash of mirin, sake, or rice vinegar
Use stock for the liquid, or add miso paste, or mushroom powder
Rehydrate a pinch of wakame while you cook to add at the end
Experiment with condiments: soy sauce, teriyaki, hoisin, chili oils, etc.
Anything that's going to add healthy ingredients is probably going to bump you up over 10 minutes. If you're willing to do that, saute some stuff in the pan before you cook the noodles. I've done chicken, pork, mushrooms, bok choy, leeks. It's a bit more effort for a big improvement.
I feel a bit guilty eating instant noodles too, so I usually eat them whenever I happen to have leafy greens in the fridge to make it more balanced.
If you’re interested, there are lots to choose from at your local Asian grocery store (here’s a good list). Many varieties of cabbage, bok choy, spinach, mustard greens, etc. that go well in soups and hotpots. Or blanch and eat them on the side (when lazy, I just season with soy sauce, or save a bit of the hot water and mix in some chicken bouillon).
Other than that, I like adding kimchi.
For protein, yeah I just throw in an egg.
Sometimes I add mustard if I want some acidity in the broth. My dad turned me on to this. It works surprisingly well lol I think it’s more interesting than vinegar.
If you want it creamier, add something fatty. Milk, butter, peanut butter, sesame paste. Not a lot. Just a dash. A small slice of butter. Different chili oils. Primarily the bits in the oil rather than much of the oil itself. Buy fried shallots. Baby bok choy makes it a little sweeter. A bit of napa cabbage adds some good flavor. Tubes of tomato paste freeze well, squeeze some in
Throw in something a bit acidic. Lime or vinegar. A fermented or picked vegetable. Kimchi, som pak, something. A little tamarind paste can add a kick to it. Frozen dumplings. Thai basil. Shichimi togarashi. Five spice. Curry powder.
Back to the peanut butter, I always have powdered peanut butter for low calorie peanut butter flavor. Try a dash of soy sauce or fish sauce into it. Cayenne and/paprika powder.
If you have whole spices on hand, it doesn't take long for coriander seeds, fennel, star anise, cardamom, etc to add flavor to a broth.
Sliced bok choy, julienned ham, julienned carrots, baby spinach, slices of pancetta... If you're willing to pre-funk some ingredients up to a few days in advance, you can have more tasty additions such as marinated hardboiled eggs, lap cheong (shelf-stable until you open the package), chashu, crispy pork belly, Chinese or Japanese brisket curry.
I do frozen vegetables, shredded chicken, and bring it to a boil. Once I add noodles, wait 1 min, crack in an egg, and cook for the 2 more min. It makes a nice runny yolk that turns saucy when you tear into it.
Add frozen veggies. Just toss 'em in the water and let it boil. Add your noodles and seasoning packet as directed. You can usually find different "blends" at the supermarket. They're all fairly cheap and will last a long time in your freezer.
Pork floss.
Egg.
Veg.
Mushrooms.
All of those are available in shelf stable dehydrated version and it only takes a little bit to livein up a bag of ramen.
I always put a spoonful of crunchy peanut butter in my instant noodles (along with some extra spices). Makes the texture creamier, but with some crunch, and gives a kinda satay vibe.
Also since no one else suggested it yet, tofu is always a great option for easy protein. And albeit unorthodox in instant noodles, I've found beans to be a perfectly fine addition.
I like to add a tablespoon of oyster sauce, and then some Worcestershire sauce to taste.
I recently picked up a package of dried ramen toppings. It's got all kinds of good stuff in it, shiitake mushroom, fish cake, shrimp, imitation crab, along with several kinds of vegetable. It's really good!
Not healthy, but I love doing diced, pan seared spam in a teriyaki/garlic glaze. Sub spam for really any protein too.
For the Shin brand specifically, I like:
I usually only do one or two of these, but the point is to make it way better without actually adding to the cooking time. And the combinations of the above can work pretty well at mixing things up for a long time before getting bored.
Other ramen flavors, I sometimes add some of the above, or shredded cabbage, spinach, peas, other beans or legumes. Sometimes nori, canned corn, canned bamboo. Sometimes with the broth I'll add gelatin to thicken. For some seafood flavors I might throw in frozen shrimp. Certain flavors can go with sesame seeds.
I usually microwave steam some veggies, like broccoli & cauliflower. And then I take some canned green beans, and slice up a few white mushrooms, drop those in a huge bowl, cover with a little soy sauce, microwave for 30 seconds. Dump the drained steamed veggies in the larger bowl. Then when the ramen is done cooking, and I never use the sauce packet, but you can, I drain all the water. Dump the dry noodles into the large bowl and cover with Sriracha, and sometimes a small drip of toasted sesame oil. Mix well and eat.
These three from Babish are my favorite, especially the chili garlic one.
If you wanna go really cheap you can just add colby jack cheese, curry powder and onion powder to chicken ramen, which was my go to in college
Eat at a ramen shop sometime. You'll get a lot of good ideas.
I add frozen mixed veggies and salmon. Its quite nice in the shin ramyun soup and adds very little extra prep.
using a silicon ice cube maker- saute a 2:2:1 ratio by volume mix of very finely sliced garlic, shallot and ginger. add equal amount of that finely sliced spring onion after they get fragrant and saute till those are wilted. spoon into the ice cube maker and tamp down until packed tight, freeze them and use them one cube at a time with ramen.
you can freeze any prepared combo of stuff this way and put them in the ramen later. garlic-onion-mushroom-black pepper and add soy sauce while cooking for black pepper noodles, for example.
I add a raw egg and chopped green onions after cooking and draining. My partner adds mayo, mustard, and Sriracha after cooking and draining. I use to add a tiny dab of anchovy paste, but can't get that where I live now.
Most straightforward path from a health standpoint is switching from refined forms of noodles to whole grain noodles. I've never been able to find whole grain pre-formulated instant noodle brands that I like, so I just get plain noodles and flavorings separately.
You could throw in a couple of gyoza with the noodles. Sprinkle some sesame seeds on top. I like to add softboiled eggs, but that's probably more effort than you want.
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