Known as Ajitsuke Tamago or Ajitama in Japanese, Ramen Eggs are delicious as a topping on ramen or enjoyed as a snack. Learn to make these flavorful, perfect soft-boiled eggs with just five ingredients!
A great bowl of ramen is built upon a few significant components. There’s hot broth, fresh-made noodles, and the toppings. As far as the toppings go, no one can resist a perfectly cooked ramen egg that sits alongside sliced chashu, a sheet of nori, and green onions. Some would even argue that ramen egg is a must!
When done right, ramen egg is creamy, silky, full of umami, and ready to enrich and intensify your ramen enjoyment. The truth is, ramen eggs are not just for ramen alone. You can enjoy these delicious eggs anytime, in many different ways!
Table of Contents
What Are Ramen Eggs?
Ramen eggs are Japanese soft-boiled eggs known for their custardy, jammy, runny yolk, and umami flavor. They are marinated overnight in a sweetened soy-based sauce. In Japan, we call these marinated eggs Ajitsuke Tamago (味付け玉子), short for Ajitama (味玉) or Nitamago (煮玉子).
While these eggs are excellent on ramen, they are also fantastic to enjoy as a side dish, snack, or packed in a bento. Don’t limit yourself there! You can even add them to salads or sandwiches. That’s the magic of ramen eggs. They are so good and amazingly versatile.
Ingredients for Ajituske Tamago
Five ingredients are all you need, and you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to make ramen eggs at home.
- Good quality eggs, especially if you plan to make soft-boiled eggs
- Soy sauce
- Mirin
- Sake (or water)
- Sugar
For the marinade, you can create your version with additions (such as chili flakes for spice, etc), but let’s stick with the basics.
What changed from the 2011 Recipe?
Some of you might be familiar with the original recipe I shared in 2011. In the past, I used water instead of sake. However, for food safety reasons, I started making my ramen eggs with sake and like this version much better.
Why sake? The amino acids in the fermented rice wine enhance food flavors by adding hints of sweetness and umami, which makes the eggs taste better. In case you’re wondering, we would boil off the alcohol from the sake before marinating the eggs so it’s perfectly safe for kids to consume.
As part of the refinement, I also added a bit of sugar. To put the old and new recipes to the test, I had my family try out the two versions multiple times, and they concluded that the winner goes to this updated recipe. For those who can’t consume alcohol, you can still use water.
How to Make Best Ramen Eggs
You can find the detailed recipe below, but here’s a quick overview.
Jump to Recipe- Make the marinade.
- Cook soft-boiled eggs.
- Marinate the eggs overnight.
Cooking Tips
Tip #1: Cook the marinade
To make the marinade, I highly recommend cooking it for 1 minute after boiling. This ensures the sugar dissolves and the alcohol evaporates, leaving only the natural umami and sweetness in the sauce.
Tip #2: Use refrigerated eggs
Using a fine-mesh sieve/strainer, gently lower your eggs straight from the fridge into the (already) boiling water and lower the heat slightly to a simmer.
Tip #3: Cook 7 minutes from the first egg in boiling water
Start setting the timer for 7 minutes from the first egg submerged in boiling water. It takes about 30 seconds or less to submerge all four eggs (set the timer for 6 minutes and 30 seconds if you start the timer when you finish submerging all the eggs. Little adjustment matters!)
I use large American eggs for this recipe, and knowing that egg sizes vary in different parts of the world, you might need to adjust the cooking time slightly.
Tip #4: Shock the eggs in ice water
Shock the boiled eggs in ice water immediately and let them chill for at least 15 minutes. I use the same ice water to dip the boiled eggs a few times when peeling them. Water goes into the gap and helps peel easily.
Tip #5: Marinate the eggs overnight
Marinate the ramen eggs for just a few hours or overnight. I can make ramen the next day while the eggs stay marinated in the fridge, waiting for their appearance.
How to Store Ramen Eggs
Soft-boiled eggs should be consumed in 3-4 days. Keep the Ajitsuke Tamago or ramen eggs in the refrigerator at all times. Use a clean utensil to take out a marinated egg, if you continue to marinate the rest of the eggs. I’d take out the ramen eggs after soaking them overnight as I don’t want my eggs to be too salty. You can marinate for up to 2 days at most, but I recommend removing from the marinade after that.
How to Serve
I hope you’ll try this recipe because it can make your day better. Here are my absolute favorite ways to enjoy the eggs.
- Serve with Miso Ramen
- Serve with Vegetarian Ramen
- Serve with Tsukemen (Dipipng Ramen Noodles)
- Serve on Avocado Toast
- Serve with Japanese Curry
- Pack in Bento Box
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Ramen Eggs (Ajitsuke Tamago)
Video
Ingredients
- 4 large eggs (50 g each w/o shell) (refrigerated; use slightly older eggs, which are easier to peel)
Instructions
- Before You Start: Please note that this recipe requires a marination time of 8 hours or overnight. Gather all the ingredients.
To Make the Marinade
- In a small saucepan, combine all the ingredients for the marinade: ¼ cup soy sauce, ¼ cup mirin, ¼ cup sake, and 1 tsp sugar.
- Bring it to a boil and whisk it a few times to let the sugar dissolve completely. Once boiling, lower the heat and simmer for 1 minute. Turn off the heat. Set aside to cool completely.
To Make the Soft-Boiled Eggs
- Add 4 cups (1L) water (for 4 eggs) to a medium saucepan and bring it to a boil. There should be enough water to cover the eggs by at least 1 inch (2.5 cm). Once at a full boil, take out 4 large eggs (50 g each w/o shell) from the refrigerator. Carefully and gently lower one egg at a time into the boiling water with a mesh strainer/skimmer or a ladle. When you add the first egg, set a 7-minute timer. You can cook them 6 to 6½ minutes for a runny egg yolk and 8 to 9 minutes for a custard-like egg yolk.
- Once all the eggs are in the saucepan, lower the heat to maintain a gentle boil. Make sure the water is simmering, but not bubbling so strong that the eggs bounce around. If you want your egg yolks to be centered, gently rotate the eggs with chopsticks once in a while for the first 3 minutes.
- After 7 minutes, immediately take out the eggs and shock them in iced water for 15 minutes.
- Once the eggs are completely cool, gently crack the shell at the wide bottom end of the egg and start peeling it vertically toward the pointy top. Dip the egg in the iced water a few times to help with the peeling. Once you peel one section vertically, the rest of the shell comes off easily.
To Marinate the Eggs
- Place the eggs in a plastic bag and add the marinade to the bag. Why am I recommending a plastic bag? With a plastic bag, we don‘t have to use a lot of marinade to submerge the eggs. This marinade is used only one time for food safety reasons, so it’s most economical to prepare no more than the amount you need. If you use a container instead of a bag, it requires more marinade to submerge the eggs.
- Remove the air from the bag and use a clip or rubber band to seal the bag right above the eggs. This way, the eggs are completely submerged in the marinade. Refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight. You can rotate the eggs occasionally if you like.
To Serve
- Remove the eggs from the marinade and cut them in half lengthwise to serve. Use a piece of string, fishing line, or cheese cutter (that‘s what I used here) to cut the eggs in half cleanly. Enjoy the Ramen Eggs in bento, as a ramen topping, or as a snack sliced in half and sprinkled with furikake (rice seasonings) and shichimi togarashi (Japanese seven spice). If you want to warm up the eggs, soak the bag in warm water to bring up the temperature faster.
To Store
- Keep the Ramen Eggs refrigerated at all times. Do not freeze as the texture of eggs changes when frozen (with the exception of tamagoyaki). The ramen eggs will get saltier the longer they marinate, so take them out from the marinade after 12–24 hours (depending on your preference). Enjoy the ramen eggs within 3–4 days if your eggs are soft-boiled. If your eggs are hard-boiled, you can keep them in the refrigerator for up to a week. For food safety reasons, I do not recommend reusing this marinade with new boiled eggs. You can repurpose this marinade as a seasoning sauce for your stir-fried or simmered dishes but use it soon.
Notes
Nutrition
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on September 14, 2014. It has been updated with new images, video, and blog content in September 2021.
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Hello! This recipe is delicious thank you for sharing. How do you serve this with ramen where the egg is warm because if they marinate overnight in the fridge it’s tricky serving it in ramen where the outside is warm but the middle is cold. I don’t want to overcook the egg with the hot stock. Any tips would be helpful.
Hi Michelle! You can take out from the fridge to bring it to a room temperature or soak the bag in warm (not hot) water to bring up temp faster.
FYI, usually at ramen shops, these ramen eggs are always at room temperature and never be warm. 🙂
Hey,
I made these again with ramen and they are really good (: had a few extra this time as well for my bento the day after! I made it once before and I will make it again 😀
Hi Albert! Thank you so much for your kind comment! It’s great that you get to eat them on two days! 😀
Hi there! Do you know for how long these eggs stay good? A friend of mine is a big foodie, but doesn’t have a lot of spare time, so I’m thinking of making him a jar with marinated eggs. Do they need to be consumed within 36 hrs of making, or will they stay good for a day or three? I look forward to your reply, thank you!
Hi Merel! I re-wrote the instructions to be clear. I recommend consuming by the 3rd or 4th day (but remove the eggs from the marinade after overnight or maybe one more day in the marinade). You can keep marinating until that point, but you need to eat it by the 4th day, especially if you make soft boiled eggs. 🙂
A great and easy to follow recipe. I had never attempted prior to coming across your recipe but yum! I doubled the recipe and paired the eggs with ramen. I went for the custardy texture but they literally turned out perfectly minus a few welts because I peeled an egg or two too hastily 🙂
Hi Erin! Thank you so much for trying this recipe and for your kind feedback. I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed this recipe! 🙂
For the soy sauce, what kind of soy sauce do you recommend i use? Thanks 🙂
Hi Regina! I use organic soy sauce. More details here: https://www.justonecookbook.com/pantry_items/soy-sauce/
Hi there, what kind of mirin do you use here? hon mirin or mirin?
Hi Regina! I recommend using Hon-Mirin (expensive but very delicious) or Mirin listed here:
https://www.justonecookbook.com/pantry_items/mirin/
I only use first 2 (#1 and #2) for my cooking.
Hi,
The eggs turned out wonderful. My kids love them. Thank you for the recipe. One question, can I reuse the sauce for future batches of eggs?
Thank you.
Hi Kareen! I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed the eggs with the kids! Usually not recommended for food safety. But if you really want to use it, make sure to re-heat the sauce (to kill bacterias – you don’t see). 🙂
Hi,
How many times can I use the marinade sauce please?
Regards,
Xue
Hi Xue! For food safety, I recommend just once. 🙂
This is SO GOOD! I have had ramen a few times in Prague where I live, and the eggs were never this delicious. Next time I can try bringing my own ramen eggs to the ramen shop as substitutes to shop’s eggs… 😀 Thank you for the recipe.
Hi Laura! AHAHAHA! Your comment made me happy and smile. Yes, BYOE (bring your own egg)!!! LOL. Thanks so much for trying this recipe! I’m so happy you enjoyed it! xo
I’ve left these in the marinade for upwards of two weeks before and they come out delicious. If you try it you may want to slightly reduce the amount of soy sauce, or serve them with an unsalted dish. They get a little bit saltier than usual.
Hi Erin! Yes, I agree. When marinating for a longer time, it’s best to reduce the overall seasoning as it gradually gets saltier and more flavorful. Thank you for your tip!
One hint – eggs will peel easier if you first take a spoon and lightly crack them to break the shell. Then put back into the ice water for 30 mins before peeling
Hi Mike! Thank you for sharing your tip! My mom just tap the egg on the countertop too! I think her way is rough and I like your spoon method better. 🙂 Japanese also use a pushpin to make a hole BEFORE cooking the egg. Which is not a common stuff to keep in the kitchen tho…
You– are my new hero! Thanks for this easy, and well-explained recipe!
I was just at our favorite ramen shop in Hong Kong with my girlfriend- we always order an extra egg- and she said, just look something up on the net, and make your own– so…. I did! 唔該 !
Hi David! I’m glad you found my recipe and thank you to your GF for her GREAT suggestion! 😉
May I know how much time we need for room temperature eggs to have running yolk pls
Hi Augustina! I didn’t use room temperature eggs because your room temperature eggs may be different from my room temperature eggs or JOC readers’ from different parts of the world… while fridge temp is pretty much same everywhere.
Yum! Surprisingly tasty for so few ingredients.. I’ve previously used a more time consuming recipe with more than double the ingredients, and I think I prefer your recipe!
Hi Agnes! I’m glad you liked this recipe! Thank you for trying this recipe. 🙂