Reddit mentions: The best sesame oils

The broth can be really simple. We generally start with chicken stock (or like my mom, just water and a bouillon cube), some ginger, garlic, and green onion. Very simple. As you cook, the flavors of whatever you're dipping in the broth will flavor it.

Some fairly traditional alternatives to chicken stock/broth are seafood stock (I have personally only had/made crab, but I imagine fish/shrimp would work fine as well), and lamb stock, which is used quite a lot in China.

If you go to a hot pot restaurant in China, they will typically have a sauce bar, or you'll order a variety of sauces that you can mix and match yourself.


Traditional selections include:

• Soy sauce
  
  
• Black vinegar (if you're near an asian market, try to get the actual mainland Chinese stuff, rather than the Taiwanese stuff... they are very different in flavor. Taiwanese black vinegar is much sweeter, and some attempt to mimic worcestershire sauce. I use this stuff, which is like $2 in my local store.
  
  
• toasted sesame oil
  
  
• Fresh chopped chilies, I like serrano for the neutral chili flavor
  
  
• Fresh chopped cilantro
  
  
• Fresh chopped green onions
  
  
• Garlic paste in oil (my wife makes it this way: crush a bunch of garlic into a bowl, mix oil into it and microwave until it is fragrant). You can also do it more traditionally by pouring hot oil over crushed/minced garlic.
  
  
• Crushed fried peanuts
  
  
• Sesame and/or peanut paste (think toasted tahini, sometimes mixed with peanut butter)
  
  -- This is often combined with fermented tofu (this is my favorite brand, about $2-3 in my local store).
  
  
• Fried shallots
  
  
• "red oil" （红油） or the similar red chili sauce -- basically toasted crushed dried red chilis and any number of other flavoring spices depending on regional variance and personal preference (cumin/sichuan peppercorn/sesame/anise/cloves/etc), then covered with boiling hot oil. Makes for a very fragrant sauce.
  
  
  
  Non-traditional options that I enjoy:
  
  
• pickled thai bird chilis (they basically look like this), often chopped up and floating in fish sauce.
  
  
• fish sauce. Sometimes with the above chilis, sometimes just on its own.
  
  
• sriracha
  
  
• scallion-ginger sauce (姜葱油）. I actually use David Chang's recipe for this. It's not exactly traditional, but I don't care... it tastes better than any other ginger-scallion sauce I've had.

Yes! Huge difference... cheap sesame oil tastes ... cheap! Definitely find a different brand and play around with it. Also, if the oil is toasted or etc will make a difference too. You kind of just have to play around with different brands until you find one you like.
I use this one: https://www.amazon.com/Kadoya-Pure-Sesame-Oil-oz/dp/B0000CNU10/ref=sr_1_4_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1465590908&sr=8-4&keywords=sesame+oil

This one is also good: https://www.amazon.com/Gosohan-Sesame-Oil-5-41-Ottogi/dp/B0041LMHCS/ref=sr_1_2_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1465590993&sr=8-2&keywords=ottogi+sesame+oil

For all the people here wanting to know about ramen, I'd recommend also investing in some fried garlic in chili oil and sesame chili oil, along with always having some green onions on hand to toss in.

You might not want the chili oil products in your Shin Ramyun, but they go well in pretty much any non-spicy ramen.

One recipe for sure: cheap hummus. Prepared hummas can be very expensive per ounce sold in relatively small jars. It's a healthy and flavorful sauce that can be used for a wide variety of purposes, as a dipping sauce, salad dressing, pita sandwiches and falafels, and for just about anything where you might use mayonnaise, tartar sauce, sour cream and other high fat & calorie sauces.

The pressure cooker lets you buy inexpensive and light dried chickpeas/garbonszo beans in bulk instead of using canned beans in which you're paying for a lot of water for not so much beans. All you need is a blender or food processor to puree the beans after cooking them in the pressure cooker and then to mix in the other ingredients. One tip is that you can use smooth peanut butter instead of tahini sesame paste and it tastes almost the same because the cumin seasoning is the overriding flavor. Roasted sesame oil can also be used instead of other oils for a big flavor boost, and it can be found in large 2 quart cans for a tiny fraction of the price of the small sesame oil bottles at the stores. Amazon has this sesame oil for a good price online and you can find similar deals at some warehouse/restaurant grocery suppliers like Smart & Final.

https://www.101cookbooks.com/instant-pot-hummus-recipe/

You can make a large batch once or twice a week, but it usually won't stay in the fridge for long because it's so good with many things.

Is black sesame paste the same as black tahini? I looked online for "paste," but the only things that came up were like this: black sesame tahini

For seasonings, you can't go wrong with having the following:

• Sriracha Sauce
  
• Nanami Togarashi Seasoning
  
• La-Yu Chili Oil

spicy sesame oil

Making Ramen from scratch really isn't all that expensive. The sesame oil in this recipe is probably about the most expensive thing in it ($6.30 per 5.5oz bottle), and that will wind up making 22 bowls of ramen. The noodles? Just buy a regular pack of ramen and only use the noodles from the package.

https://www.amazon.com/Premium-Roasted-Ottogi-Sesame-fl-oz/dp/B01FY82IYS

to OP and if anyone else interested in adding unique heat...

sriachha is always nice to have on hand, but I have often been going to this bad boy:

http://www.amazon.com/La-Yu-Chili-Oil-1-11-Fl/dp/B0002YGS96/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1419787787&sr=8-3&keywords=chili+oil

Use some S&B japanese chili oil. Comes in little bitty bottles, A little dab'll do ya. And In dab I mean 1 drop.

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https://www.amazon.com/Layu-Chili-Oil-1-11/dp/B0002YGS96/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=S%26B+japanese+chili+oil&qid=1568382330&sr=8-4