Tantanmen Recipe (Easy Tan Tan Ramen Noodles)

Tantanmen (or tan tan ramen) is the Japanese rendition of the spicy Chinese noodle dish Dan dan mian. It's made of ramen noodles served usually with ground meat and vegetables in a creamy yet spicy broth made of peanuts, sesame, and chilli.

The biggest difference between the tantanmen and dan dan noodles is that milk and sesame paste are added to the soup base in tantanmen. This helps to mellow out the chilli oil spiciness and add an extra layer of creaminess. The Chinese dan dan mian has a spicier taste, while the Japanese tantanmen has a nuttier and sweeter flavour.

Our recipe will show you how to make an easy tantanmen at home using minced meat of your choice, such as chicken. We'll also show you some easy substitutes if you can't find ingredients like sesame paste and Japanese rayu.

Jump to:

• Tan Tan Ramen Ingredients
• Tantanmen Recipe | Tan Tan Ramen
• Can You Prepare It In Advance?
• Where To Eat Tan Tan Ramen?
• Tantanmen vs Dan Dan Noodles

Tan Tan Ramen Ingredients

Here are the ingredients you'll need to make our tantanmen recipe.

• ramen noodles
• minced pork (can be replaced with minced beef, chicken or turkey)
• vegetable oil
• ginger, minced
• garlic minced
• soy sauce

Tantanmen soup

• soy sauce
• sesame paste (or tahini or miso paste)
• rayu (Japanese chilli oil)
• sesame oil
• white vinegar or rice vinegar
• sugar (optional)
• white pepper powder (optional)
• peanut powder (optional)
• garlic minced
• chicken stock (or chicken stock powder)
• soy milk or almond milk

Toppings (optional)

• soft-boiled egg (ramen egg)
• bean sprouts, blanched
• Bok Choy blanched
• Spring onions, green part only, chopped for garnishing
• Toasted sesame seeds for garnishing
• Crushed roasted peanuts for garnishing

Noodles

For tantanmen, we use ramen noodles but any type of noodles can be used. The most suitable type to use is wheat-based as this will best achieve the texture and chewiness needed for this tan tan ramen dish. 

You can try using thicker noodles like udon too. We've even seen people who've made tantanmen using vermicelli noodles. Personally, we've never tried it and we would still recommend using wheat-based noodles. 

Sesame Paste (芝麻酱)

The nutty flavour comes from Chinese sesame paste. Some restaurants also add peanut butter or crushed peanuts for an extra nutty flavour and added texture.

However, if sesame paste is difficult to find, you can use tahini instead. The biggest difference is that Chinese sesame paste uses toasted sesame seeds, while tahini uses untoasted sesame seeds. Therefore, using tahini will give you a less nutty taste for the flavour of your tantanmen. 

Alternatively, you can also use miso. But again, it will be less nutty and saltier. Between the two alternatives, we prefer using tahini better.

Rayu (Japanese Chilli Oil - 辣油)

Japanese chilli oil is easy to buy in-store and adds a light kick to your dish. You can also easily prepare your own at home by mixing ginger, garlic, green onion, roasted sesame oil, and pepper and chilli together.

In a pinch, you can also use Chinese chilli oil like Lao Gan Ma as a substitute. In general, Chinese chilli oil has a stronger base, making it spicier than Japanese chilli oil. However, the flavours work very well, as Tan tan men were originally a Chinese dish.

Milk

Typically, unsweetened soy milk is used. The milk gives the tantanmen soup base a creamier consistency. Almond milk is also a good alternative if you're looking for a less creamy consistency and a slightly sweeter taste.

If you want a creamier base, you can opt for dairy, but it will result in a thicker soup base than the regular tantanmen.

Cooking Wine

If you can get your hands on Japanese sake (Japanese rice wine), that would be ideal. However, any type of cooking wine or dry white wine can also be used as a substitute. We typically use Shaoxing wine as a replacement. If you don't have any cooking wine, you can replace it with mirin, too. It will turn out a little bit sweeter than simply using cooking wine.

Minced Meat

For our recipe, you can use any type of minced meat, like beef, chicken or turkey. An easy way to keep the dish vegan is by using any type of vegan meat. 

Typically, you'll use minced pork as a sprinkle of garnish and as a source of protein in this dish. Depending on the restaurant, you might get more generous serving of minced pork or even larger slices of diced pork in your tantanmen bowl.

Vegetables

There are many vegetables you can add to our recipe. We love to use bean sprouts, bok choy and baby spinach leaves. However, you can also white cabbage and zha cai (榨菜), which is a pickled mustard root common in Chinese cuisine.

We've also tried using wood ear mushrooms, which add a lovely crunchy in-between bite.

Toppings

Addng toppings will help build volume to your dish and make it more filling. We love adding a ramen egg. It's a soft-boiled egg marinated in the sauce where the yolk is usually super runny but sometimes could also be firm and custard-like.Chopped spring onion and toasted sesame seeds are great as garnishes and add texture to the dish. Nori seaweed is particularly popular in Japan due to its added umami taste.

Can You Prepare It In Advance?

Once you have all the ingredients, tan tan ramen is easy to prepare in advance at home. The soup paste and the pork can be cooked and prepared at least 2-3 days in advance and kept in the fridge.

The soup stock and vegetables, as well as any other toppings or add-ons, will have to be cooked on the day that you want to eat it.

Where To Eat Tan Tan Ramen?

Across Asia, there are multiple restaurants with their own versions of this tan tan ramen dish. There are restaurants whose menu consists of only this one dish, and of course, there are those where you can get a sampling of other Japanese dishes as well. 

You can easily try this not only in China but also in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, or the Philippines. A popular place that we recommend in Taiwan and that's been around for more than 70 years is 老鄧 Lao Deng 1949. They have a variation where you can substitute sesame paste and crushed peanuts with soybean paste instead.

In the Philippines, Mendokoro Ramenba is also famed for its version. There's usually a long wait before you get seated.

In Japan, there are also loads of restaurants to choose from. Examples are a chain of restaurants called New Tantanmen in Tokyo, Tantan in Kyoto, and King Ken in Hiroshima.

There is also a slew of ramen restaurants outside Asia, especially since Asian cuisine has been well-received over the years. In London, a popular restaurant chain where you can get your fix of this dish (as well as other ramen types) is Bone Daddies.

Tantanmen vs Dan Dan Noodles

Tantanmen is Japan's version of Sichuan, China's dan dan mian (mian 麵 means noodles in Chinese so this is also called dan dan noodles) and was introduced to the Japanese society by a Sichuan-Japanese chef. 

Since it is normal for chefs to modify ingredients and flavour profiles to suit local tastes and to put their own twist to a dish, that's what happened when this was first introduced in Japan. 

If you're wondering where it gets its name, it's actually from danzi (擔子), which can be explained as a shoulder pole on which a person is carrying two loads. One side contains the raw ingredients, and the other contains the equipment needed to cook and assemble the dish.

If you talk to a Sichuan local, the place where tantanmen were first conceptualized and peddled, chances are high that they will have fond memories of eating bowls upon bowls of dan dan noodles when they were kids. There are even news reports of celebrities who, upon returning to their hometown, would make it a point to have a bowl of these noodles.

The original and most common version of the Sichuan dandanmian does not serve it with soup and is instead dry. This makes sense because it would have been more complicated (and heavier) to carry tantanmen on the streets if it was sold with soup. It was only served with a sauce made from a mix of soy sauce, vinegar, and chilli oil.

Soup version

Over the years, the soup variation was created. It consisted of boiling handmade noodles and adding these into a bowl of bean sprouts, green onions, chilli oil, soy sauce, and broth. In even later variations, toppings such as minced pork or dumplings were also used. 

This means that whether you prefer to have your noodles dry, or if you'd much rather eat it with soup, both choices are available in many restaurants today. 

Alternative to tantanmen, we also recommend trying "tsukemen" (dipping noodles) which is another type of ramen where the noodles are served separately from its soup. The soup is mostly seen as a dipping sauce so it will have a heavier taste. This means that you'll get to have both.