Name: Gordon Ramsay Challenges Chef to Make a Budget Meal Using Ramen
Uploaded: 2025-06-17T17:13:46.000Z
Duration: 7 min 19 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Now, I've got a budget challenge for you.

But what comes to mind when you raid your store cupboard with all sorts of ingredients?

Oh, FYI, I do have a special ingredient I'd like you to use.

I'd like you to take some instant noodles and then rustle up a dish with whatever in that amazing store cupboard of you.

And I can't wait to see what you cook up.

Welcome to Next Level Kitchen, where Gordon is challenging the mentors of Next Level Chef to help take your cooking at home to the next level.

And today, Gordon's challenging me to make a noodle dish using inexpensive ingredients.

So we're taking something we're all very familiar with, ramen.

Honestly, this was like where I became a chef.

I'd always take a package ramen and just sort of plus it up.

This is a mash-up using the ramen noodles, but this sort of Dan Dan approach.

This dish starts with caramelizing some ground beef.

Standard 80-20 ground beef goes in the cast iron pan.

I love using a heavy bottom pan whenever cooking proteins.

So I just want to get some color on this ground beef.

Sort of spreading the ground beef out evenly.

Next, I'm going to add in a little bit of sesame oil.

I like to add the soy sauce early on so that we develop the umami and the caramelization that happens.

We're actually cooking the beef, and we're actually creating the sauce at the same time.

And I like to caramelize the meat a bit and sort of flavor it.

The fat sort of starts to render out of the beef.

And I want this really dark, deep, roasted flavor inside of the soy.

And so adding the soy to the meat as the flavors cook down, it's actually going to get absorbed into the ground beef.

Nine times out of 10 during the week, I'm always going to cook something with ground beef when I was a kid.

And also in my kitchen today, I always grab ground beef.

So this is a fun, easy way to make a dish super quick and super cheap.

And now I'm going to add in just a little bit of chopped garlic.

And I just want to start to sweat some of that garlic flavor out.

And because I like spice, I'm adding in chili flake.

You don't have to, but I'm a big fan of spice.

So I'm going to add in just a pinch of red chili flake.

And guys, believe it or not, we're almost halfway there.

So as this cooks down, it's going to caramelize, right?

This is a great time to drop the noodles because we're nearly there.

I actually undercook the noodles a little bit because I want this sort of bite or toothsomeness to the noodles.

And so to add a little bit of creaminess and a little bit of sweetness to this sort of Dan Dan style noodle, I'm adding a little bit of peanut butter.

So as you can tell, this is very protein rich here.

And it gives a really nice gloss and sheen to the beef.

Dan Dan, for me, it's one of those delicious, craveable sort of takeout dishes, sort of spicy, beautiful sort of notes of saltiness, sweetness.

And I mean, it's just slurpable and incredible.

So this is kind of a fast track to a not traditional Dan Dan.

So now that we have all of our ingredients, meat's going to go into the bowl.

Then you can sort of just add these blanched delicious ramen noodles.

It's OK if a little bit of water gets inside, kind of loosen up that beautiful Dan Dan style sauce.

Because you want to layer in flavors, I will add a pinch of salt and a pinch of black pepper.

And now for the freshness, I like to add just fresh leafy spinach, right?

Because it's cheap eats, but we can still get our nutrients.

I mean, this is like a five minute meal right here.

And it's perfect because it really just comes together so nicely.

And you don't have to do a ton of cooking really, right?

It's one pan for the meat, blanch the noodles.

And the heat of the noodles will actually cook the spinach.

And so to plate, we put some of the noodles down in the center.

I mean, if you really want to impress your friends or impress yourself, you can just blanch an egg, right?

You can sort of blanch and shock an egg, just boiling water, six minutes.

And you get this beautiful sort of jammy, incredible yolk.

I like to put that over top really to just kind of get that sort of ramen feel.

So I'll just run my knife through, a little peanut crunch for texture, kind of echoing the flavors of the peanut butter in the sauce.

I think when you're making a dish that is less expensive, but something that's satiating, that fills those senses that you walk away from with a smile, you get those crunch elements and soft moments that are really just fun to eat.

I know you guys all have that chili oil in your pantry you've been looking to use.