AIP cup of noodles rebuilt with sweet potato noodles, clean broth, and permitted aromatics in place of grain ramen

A desk lunch usually means the vending machine or a cup of instant noodles microwaved in a breakroom, and both of those are built from a grain and a bouillon cube stacked with ingredients Core AIP does not recognize. This jar solves the actual problem, not the symbolic one. You build it the night before, keep it cold, and pour hot water over it at your desk with nothing else required. Some version of this belongs in the fridge for the weeks when cooking a real lunch simply is not going to happen.

Chicken bone broth is where the real work is happening in this jar. Its glycine is one of the amino acids most tied to how the gut's single-cell wall holds itself together, and a warm cup of it does something real for a body working to calm an overactive immune response. Ginger and lime keep the whole thing bright instead of heavy.

Layer the jar with some care, since you are going to be looking at it more than once: the pale noodles, the purple cabbage, the green onion scattered on top like a lid. When the hot water goes in and the color blooms through the broth, that is worth 10 seconds of actually watching before you pick up a fork.

Ingredients

• 4 oz cooked chicken, cubed or shredded
• 1 portion spiralized sweet potato or zucchini noodles (about 1 to 1.5 cups), in place of grain ramen
• baby bok choy, carrot, purple cabbage, and green onion, sliced (fresh, to fill the jar)
• 1/2 to 1 cup AIP-compliant chicken bone broth, in place of a bouillon cube
• 2 tbsp coconut aminos
• 1 tsp clean-label fish sauce (no additives)
• 2 tsp lime juice
• 1 tsp ginger paste or grated fresh ginger
• 1 tsp honey, in place of coconut sugar
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp mushroom powder
• sea salt to taste

Swap note: the grain ramen is replaced with spiralized sweet potato or zucchini noodles, both Core vegetables. The bouillon cube is replaced with clean bone broth, since most cubes carry non-Core additives. Coconut sugar is replaced with a small spoon of honey, and the ground black pepper from the original is omitted because pepper is a seed-spice that is off the Core plan. Garlic powder and mushroom powder stay, as they are ground vegetables rather than seed-spices. Use a clean-label fish sauce with no added ingredients. The source lists the garlic powder, mushroom powder, and ginger without amounts, so the quantities here are reasonable starting defaults to adjust to taste, and the honey is set to 1 tsp to match the source's 2 tsp coconut sugar at honey's higher sweetness.

Method

Stir the broth, coconut aminos, fish sauce, lime juice, ginger, honey, garlic powder, mushroom powder, and a little salt together in a small jar. This is your soup base. Keep it in the fridge.

In a large heatproof jar, layer the cooked chicken on the bottom, then the sliced vegetables, then the spiralized noodles on top. Cover and refrigerate until you are ready to eat, up to a couple of days.

When it is time to eat, let both jars sit at room temperature for twenty to thirty minutes so nothing cracks from the heat. Pour the soup base over the noodle jar, then add very hot water to fill. Put the lid on and let it rest. Sweet potato and zucchini noodles soften faster and more gently than grain ramen, so check after a few minutes and adjust; this soak time is untested across noodle types and should be confirmed in your kitchen. Stir with a fork to separate everything, rest another minute or two if the vegetables want more time, then eat warm.

*Adapted from unboundwellness.com*