Somehow, my family got hooked on Cup Noodles instant entrees this past fall and winter. I had bought a case of them at WinCo, and their convenience for single-serve meals and snacks won our hearts. I'm talking about the styrofoam container of noodles and seasonings to which you add boiling water. It's not fancy. However, when I've just walked in the door, and it's about an hour after I normally eat lunch, these hit the spot in a hurry.
We ran out of them a month ago; but I still had most of a case of ramen noodle soup packets, the kind that make a pot of soup to feed 2 people. So, for the last several weeks, we've been making our own Cup Noodles in mugs, using part of a packet of noodles, some of the seasoning packet, additional dehydrated carrot pieces and chives from my garden. We add water to fill and microwave individual servings for a little over a minute. We top these with lentil sprouts or boiled eggs to make a quick but filling meal.
At WinCo, I was paying about 33 cents each for the styrofoam container Cup Noodle product. Ramen soup packets cost me about 20 cents each, when bought in a case from WinCo or 5-pack from Dollar Tree. We get about 2 servings from a packet of ramen soup. That's 10 cents per serving on the noodle and seasoning part of our soups. The dried chives come from our garden. The cost of home dehydrated carrot bits, fresh lentil sprouts, and one egg comes to about 15 cents, bringing the maximum cost for our homemade "cup o' noodles" to about 25 cents. It should be noted that our homemade version is a much more substantial snack or meal than the commercial product.
I don't know if anyone else makes individual servings of ramen from a packet, so I thought I'd share this in case it's helpful to someone else.
