GF Watercress Cilantro Tahini Ramen

It is winter and soup is on. I grew up with soup from my mother’s kitchen and vendor stands in Asia. The warm, flavorful liquid sends comfort to the belly, and the noodles give it substance. Here’s the secret that I recalled from the street vendors: drop an egg into the boiling water for poached, gooey and protein goodness.

Soy- and gluten-free. Vegan and paleo options. See tip below if watercress is not available.

1 cup chopped watercress (I buy a clump and use the whole thing. The pungency goes away when cooked. If you like spicy, no need to cook it)

1/2 cup chopped cilantro, to taste

4-5 ears of dried shiitake mushroom

2 cups of filtered water

2 Tb tahini (sesame) sauce

1 Tb Coconut Aminos sauce

2 Tsp nutritional yeast

1/2 or 1 cake, dried rice ramen

1 egg

1/4 Tsp sea salt, to taste

1/8-1/4 Tsp white pepper, to taste

In a medium pot, place shiitake mushrooms in water and boil at medium for 3 minutes. While cooking, in a large soup bowl, mix tahini, Coconut Aminos, nutritional yeast, sea salt, white pepper into a paste. This is the soup base.

After the shiitake mushroom boiled for 3 minutes, drop in ramen and crack egg next to it. Continue to boil for 2-3 minutes at medium (2 min for runny yolk); loosen ramen, separating the noodles. When that time is up, turn off the stove. Add cilantro, watercress in pot and stir. (If you prefer to have the veggies raw, you can put them in soup bowl and bypass the cooking.)

Pour content in pot into soup bowl. Mix thoroughly to ensure soup base dissolves. Enjoy!

Vegan option: leave out egg.

Paleo option: substitute ramen with enoki mushroom. Trim off 3/4 inch from roots and separate each strand. Put in boiling pot after dropping in egg. Same cooking time as above.

Spicy option: top with kimchi. 🙂

Benefits of nutritional yeast. It’s the good yeast, B-12, folic acid, etc.

Reasons to eat superfood watercress, cilantro, tahini, shiitake mushroom, Celtic sea salt.

Tip: you can replace watercress with chard or baby spinach, and cilantro with scallions. Here’s the dry version of Watercress Tahini Noodles.