We Cooked 5 Recipes from Instant Noodles & Beyond
This book was gifted by William Morrow. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Robin Ha's Instant Noodles & Beyond landed on my desk, and with 93 recipes inside, I honestly had such a hard time picking just one to make. There were so many fun ideas in there, and it felt like exactly the kind of project our house would get excited about. So we picked five recipes, tracked down five different noodle brands, and made an afternoon of it.
The Lineup
We deliberately picked five recipes with very different flavors:
Green Curry with tilapia, made with Mama noodles
Pad See Ew, made with Indomie Mi Goreng
Masala with chicken, made with Sapporo Ichiban
Kimchi Jjigae with Spam and tofu, made with Shin Ramyun
Kung Pao with chicken, made with Buldak Spicy
My family is not a fan of seitan, so for the Pad See Ew we used fried tofu instead.
How Each One Went
Green Curry was rich, a little sweet, and the tilapia held up better than I expected in an instant-noodle format. What surprised me was that it really did taste like green curry. The instant noodles didn't take over the whole dish.
Pad See Ew was the standout. Nobody at the table would've mistaken it for the real thing from a Thai restaurant, but the flavor was recognizable enough that it just tasted like Pad See Ew. The fried tofu worked beautifully too, so I wouldn't hesitate to make that swap again.
Masala was my real "now wait a minute" moment. I did not expect it to taste that Indian-food-ish.
Kimchi Jjigae was good, but I'll be honest about my bias here: we eat kimchi jjigae in this house regularly, several times a month, and we're particular about it. Judging Ha's version against a dish we already make constantly isn't really a fair fight. We were tough critics on this one.
Kung Pao was the spiciest of the five. It definitely split the table. It was too hot for me, but the serious spice-eaters in the house loved it.
Why the Pantry Matters Here
One thing that made this whole project easier than I expected was that the pantry staples Ha recommends lined up almost exactly with what we already had on hand, things like bonito flakes, gochugaru, sesame oil and kimchi, because this is just how we already cook.
But I still went hunting for the exact noodle brands each recipe recommended, because of course I did, and that hunt somehow became half the fun. I found an Asian market near me I'd never been to before, just because I was chasing down one specific bag of noodles.
I put together a pantry checklist based on my own staples and the five noodle brands I used for this project, if you want a shopping head start before your own grocery run.
The One We'll Make Again
Pad See Ew won by a pretty clear margin. Everyone had their own favorites among the other four, but this was the one dish where there really wasn't much debate. It's also the one I already know I'm making again soon.
Of the five we tried, this is absolutely the one I'd tell you to start with.
This whole thing started as a review copy sitting on my desk. It turned into an actual afternoon: hunting down noodle brands, crowding around the stove, tasting everything, arguing over favorites, and walking away with a few dishes we will make again.
If you want to know what I thought of the cookbook itself, I reviewed Instant Noodles & Beyond over on My Asian Era.
Instant Noodles & Beyond by Robin Ha publishes August 25 from William Morrow.
