[Adapted from America’s Test Kitchen]
As my children get older, I need to lean into the trends to get them to eat healthy food. Even for me, I have to make hard sells to get nutrients into them. There are three of them for goodness sakes and their tastes are changing constantly. Of course, they are offered a continual stream of sugary snacks and ultra processed foods from society and mitigating that can be tough.
So, here we are. I love crockpot meals mainly because I can avoid the stress of making dinner in the late afternoon when there are so many other things going on such as homework and sports. Washing dishes is also an easier task after a crock pot meal, because all of the big items have been cleaned already (by me *sigh*). Crock pot meals are also great because they are usually made of whole food ingredients which are full of flavor due to their all-day simmer.
Funny story: We had a water main break on our street the day that I made this. As a result our water was turned off between 5 pm and 3 am the following day. I actually planned well on that day, so this meal was all ready to go by 4:30 pm.
The kids seemed to tolerate the ramen, so I think I’ll go ahead and keep it in our meal rotation. I can’t say there isn’t a ton of grumbling when I declare that this is what we’re having, but they eat it nonetheless. My husband and I enjoy this meal because it’s healthy and filling. It also provides a ton of comfort on these cold winter nights.
Pair it with some pot stickers or spring rolls (to keep the kids happy) or some crusty bread and enjoy.
This makes a big batch of soup, so feel free to half.
Crock Pot Ramen
Ingredients:
2-3 pounds chicken breast
2 quarts chicken stock
1 box Kettle and Fire chicken bone broth
1 16 oz bag carrot chips (these are just carrots cut into “chip” shapes)
1 T sesame oil
¼ c soy sauce
4 T fresh grated ginger
Bunch scallions
3 star anise pods
1 16 oz bag prewashed Brussels sprouts
1 T olive oil
4-5 cakes Lotus Foods rice ramen noodles (You can also use 4-5 packages traditional ramen noodles, just discard the spice packet)
1 – Heat oil at medium high heat and sauté onions and carrots for five minutes. Add ginger and garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Remove from heat.
2 – Place chicken breasts at the bottom of the crock pot. Add broth, onions, carrots, ginger and garlic. Cook on low 4-5 hours.
3 – In the meantime, scatter Brussels sprouts on a roasting pan and cover in 1 T olive oil. Roast at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
4 – When soup has been cooking for 6 hours, put chicken breasts on a plate and shred with two forks. Put back in crock pot and stir. Put crock pot to high heat and add in ramen noodle cakes. Stir and let cook for 4-6 minutes until noodles are soft but not falling apart. Stir in sesame oil
5 – Serve and top with Brussel sprouts.
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