Use Your Noodle When Buying Ramen Noodles

Because of the complicated topic, we’ll have a Part 3 later to address gluten-free, vegan, and restaurants.  Our first part, A Ramen Noodle Adventure, Part 1, was published October 2017, so if you missed it or want to refresh your memory, check for a link or type it into search.

First of all, how many ingredients should ramen noodles have?  Not the soup base, just the noodles.  Usually it’s about four to six.

We checked ingredients for some homemade ramen noodle recipes just to compare.  Here they are from Quora:  hard flour, soft wheat flour, water, baking soda, egg, potato starch.  According to Serious Eats, it’s the noodles that define the soup.  They say the noodles should contain wheat and an alkaline salt solution also known as kansui (alkaline water).  Wheat gluten provides the chewiness.  The recipe includes bread flour, wheat gluten, kosher salt, baking soda, water.

Let’s try one more.  According to 1000s of Recipes, the ingredients are: kosher salt, water, bread flour, wheat gluten.  Now let’s look at packaged noodles on the shelf.

Hakubaku:  organic wheat flour, salt, mineral salts, water.  Noodle packet only is 9.5 oz. about $3.19.  Make your own soup broth or purchase a broth separately.  Sold at Whole Foods or check online.

Koyo:  organic heirloom wheat flour, sea salt.  Wait.  Where’s the liquid to bind the dry ingredients?  This product is sold at Whole Foods and Amazon, 2 oz. includes soup packet, around $1.29.  We found two Amazon disclaimers for Koyo products, legal and health.  Legal:  “Actual product packaging and materials may contain more and different information than is shown on our website.”  Health:  “…you should not rely solely on this content and Amazon assumes no liabilities for inaccuracies…”  This product is made somewhere in China.

Maruchan:  enriched wheat flour, vegetable oil preserved by TBHQ, salt, soy sauce, potassium carbonate, sodium phosphate, sodium carbonate, turmeric.  Packaged noodles with soup packet, 3 oz., .99 or less.  Lunch cup with soup base, 2.5 oz.,  around .99  In Part 1, we discussed TBHQ, tertiary-butyl hydroquinone, which can increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke.  This product is widely sold.

Mike’s Mighty Good:  ok, we’re frustrated.  Mike’s runs the ingredients for the noodles and soup together.  For instance, the 1.7 oz. cup of Pork Tonkotsu Ramen Soup begins with unbleached wheat flour, pork broth, organic sunflower oil, and chicken fat.  Is this how the noodles are made?  Later, there is sea salt and wheat gluten after other ingredients.  Their Spicy Beef, 1.8 oz., starts with unbleached wheat flour, chicken fat, organic sunflower oil, yeast extracts, then goes on, but which are in the noodles and which are in the broth?  This “craft” ramen soup does have 33% sodium.  It’s sold at Amazon, Whole Foods and other places, around $2.59-$3.00.

Top Ramen:  information was all over the place.  In October of 2017, it was reported by Forbes and numerous publications that Nissan, the makers of Top Ramen, planned to remove artificial flavors, MSG, and reduce sodium.  Are the ingredients for the noodles and soup run together?  Here are some:  enriched flour, palm oil, salt, autolyzed yeast extract, calcium silicate.  These could be noodle ingredients.  On many sites, some of the ingredient list is cut off, or they list wheat and TBHQ at the end of a long list.  Once again, TBHQ is not good for health.  On one site artificial ingredients was listed.  Therefore, when were the ingredients modified to remove artificial ingredients or hasn’t it been done yet?  This product is widely sold and a 3 oz. package is around .50.

Trader Joe’s (own brand):  unbleached wheat flour, sea salt, vital wheat gluten, sunflower lecithin.  Trader Joe’s brand of chicken or miso come in 1.5 oz. containers including the soup base, around $1.29

We thought the ingredient list for Hakubaku made sense.  There is a broth made by Imagine Foods that has excellent ingredients you could use with these noodles or provide your own broth.  Trader Joe’s either uses sunflower oil to bind the dry ingredients or could their ingredient list use clarification?  Didn’t really see anything bad.  Mighty Mike’s is just ok because the sodium is high and we recommend you read the soup ingredients online or on the package before purchase.  We’re not sure about Koyo–even though they claim to use organic ingredients, we can’t seem to pin down where in China they’re made–not the town, not the factory–or what liquid is used in the noodles.  As far as Maruchan or Top Ramen, we don’t recommend using any product containing TBHQ.  Remember:  Use your noodles when buying ramen noodles!