Although not the least bit nutritious, like many people, Oodles of Noodles were a big part of my diet for a long time. I even liked them uncooked and crunchy! Tasty, quick-cooking and cheap. If you need a fast meal and you’re not concerned about the nutritious aspects, what’s not to like?
I’m heading into my 7th year of being gluten free. I eat much healthier than I used to . . . and I still miss them.
And then I discovered Rice Ramen from Lotus Foods! Gluten Free & Organic!
I will tell you right now that the noodle brick doesn’t smell particularly great right out of the packaging. I can’t decide if it’s from the packaging or the ingredients (the one I tried was millet and brown rice), but they taste great once cooked! (And anyone who really knows me can tell you that I am very picky and can detect very subtle flavors and smells. Despite the way it smells uncooked, I was determined to give it a try, and yum! I’m glad I did!)
I bought a multi-pack, so I cooked the first two almost exactly the way the instructions said, except for swapping out 1 of the 2 cups of water for broth, and then not rinsing them since I ate it as a soup. It didn’t come with seasoning so I added my own. This left me with very long noodles when I went to eat them.
When I got to brick 3, I took the 4th one out too and set it aside. Put the 3rd back in the bag, closed it up, and tried to break the noodle brick in half against the table. It broke easily, so I split it into four pieces. Not only did it cook faster, but it was so much easier to eat when it was done! When I used to eat Oodles of Noodles, and when I bothered to cook them, I liked a firm consistency . . . slightly chewy. That didn’t work as well with Rice Ramen. They failed to absorb much flavor the first 2 times I made them, when I cooked them for the suggested 3 minutes.
The third time, I mixed my pre-broken brick of noodles, 1 cup water, 1 cup broth (Kitchen Basics), and a lot of seasoning (Adobo seasoning and Garlic Powder), I cooked them until most of the liquid was gone. They stayed as noodles; didn’t get pasty. Softer than I usually prefer . . . but, boy, did they absorb the flavors nicely!!
I’ll be eating that 4th brick tonight.
You can buy them in multi-pack (4 to a package) or individual servings which come with seasoning packets. I bought one of the individual packets (Forbidden Rice with Miso Soup) to try once my multi-pack is gone. Technically, 1 brick serves 2 . . . but I pretty much always ate an entire package of Oodles of Noodles myself, and those were much larger!
No matter how tasty the flavoring packet is, I probably won’t buy it again though — the sodium content with the seasoning, for 1 actual serving, is 460mg. Too much for me! But if sodium doesn’t (appear) to bother you, you can once again enjoy this yummy comfort food with minimal effort. Given, they’re not as cheap as the gluten-full version, but as GF products go, in a pinch, these aren’t bad!
If you’ve had a chance to try Rice Ramen, especially one of the packages which come with seasoning, please comment below and tell me your thoughts!
I discovered these Rice Ramen several weeks ago, and ate my first one several days ago. So what made me pick today, March 5, to tell you about them? It’s the 105th birthday of Momofuko Ando, inventor of instant ramen! You can read more about him here. He began experimenting in 1957 and debuted Cup Noodles in 1971. He passed away in 2007 at the age of 96.
