Mushroom ramen can (and should) be so much more than a late-night snack from a package. Fresh vegetables, silky soft tofu and homemade broth will give you a much healthier, satisfying and oh-so-much tastier ramen experience.

This mushroom ramen soup recipe is replete with the flavours of autumn: fresh mushrooms, sweet potato and leafy greens. Mushroom ramen is just what you need to warm you up when the fall evenings start to get a bit chilly.

Last week we learned how to make ramen noodles at home and what makes them different from other varieties of pasta. The process is simple, albeit somewhat lengthy as you need to let the dough rest for an hour. So if you’re going to go to the trouble of making fresh ramen noodles from scratch, you need a killer soup to go with them.

Of course you are by no means obligated to make your own noodles for this recipe! Fresh ramen noodles are fairly readily available in larger supermarkets these days and you can always use the dried package kind as well.

I tend to avoid the packaged ramen noodles as they often contain palm oil (and lots of other things I can’t pronounce), but they will do fine in this mushroom ramen recipe. You could also use spaghetti if you’re really in a pinch!

I’ll admit that when I was a teenager I loved packaged ramen as an after-school snack. However I rarely just ate them as they come. I loved throwing in whatever odds and ends I could find in the fridge; tofu, green onion and tomato was one of my favorite combinations.

The beauty of ramen soup, like so many other noodle-based dishes , is that it’s a great fridge cleaner. It’ll take whatever you throw in it and the variations are endless.

They key to making this a really killer bowl of ramen soup is to start with the broth. We all know that making a broth for pho is an art form. Ramen broth, I’d say, is not as complex but you need to put some thought into it.

For this mushroom ramen I started with the vegetarian dashi recipe from Just One Cookbook and reinforced it with some dried shiitakes, garlic and red chili flakes for a very light heat. A bit of miso for savouriness and just a pinch of salt to round out the flavour.

While your broth steeps, prepare your toppings. Roasting the sweet potatoes and mushrooms amplifies their flavour and makes them nice a crispy on the outside. Contrast that with soft, silky tofu and fresh leafy greens and scallions for crunch and you just might have the most perfect bowl of fresh homemade ramen you’ve ever tasted!