Nissin Cup Noodles BBQ Flavors Review | Noodle Journey Episode 221

Nissin is back with more limited edition gimmick noodles again, which means I have to review them again so that I don’t miss out. Today’s review is Nissin Cup Noodles BBQ flavors: Texas BBQ and Kansas City BBQ. I really have a love-hate relationship with Nissin’s gimmick Cup Noodles at this point. I love when they try new, thinking-out-of-the-box noodle recipes, but I hate that most of them have been, let’s say, subpar. And quite frankly, I don’t expect soft Cup Noodles covered in Nissin’s interpretation of barbecue sauce to be very good, but I just have to know. Another thing I hate is that when these limited-time Cup Noodles come out, my review schedule has to get adjusted, and I’ve got to review these while they’re still on store shelves. I had a completely different product review planned for this episode, so thank you for screwing up my plans, Nissin.

In all seriousness, let’s talk American barbecue real quick. I am not what you would call a barbecue enthusiast, mainly because I live in a state that is not even remotely known for quality barbecue. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of decent barbecue places in a 30-mile radius from my house, and I wouldn’t even get through all five fingers on that hand in doing so.

And I’m not well-versed in the differences between the major regional barbecue styles, although of course they’re easy enough to Google. Without looking things up, I didn’t know just by looking at these cups what the difference is between Texas barbecue and Kansas City barbecue. Apparently, Texas focuses more on bold and smoky flavors, while Kansas City is more in the realm of sweet and tangy flavors. So those are appropriately the flavor profiles that Nissin says you can expect from these.

As a side note, “what’s my favorite barbecue style?” you might ask. Look, like I said, I’m not a connoisseur, but of all the ones I’ve tried in my various travels, I actually love Alabama white barbecue sauce. Look it up if you’ve never tried it. It’s really good, and it’s a big departure from the tomato-based sauces.

One last thing before I get to the first cup: as with most of the limited Cup Noodles flavors in the last couple of years, these are currently exclusive to Walmart stores, selling for just over a dollar each. Nissin hasn’t said how long these will be available, so just assume they’ll be around most of the summer, probably, since it’s grilling season.

Nissin Cup Noodles Texas BBQ:

The Verdict:

Let’s start with the Texas BBQ flavor. Like I just mentioned, the flavor in this cup is marketed as bold and smoky, and Nissin says this is supposed to taste like a beef brisket with robust dry rub flavor. That sounds kind of good, but I’m still very cautious about the idea of barbecue instant ramen.

Inside the cup, we’ve got your standard Nissin Cup Noodles, a powdered sauce, and some dried flakes. The sauce contains salt, sugar, black pepper, brown sugar, beef stock, garlic powder, paprika, onion powder, and other spices. The flakes appear to only be textured soy protein, which is what looks like little chunks of beef in here. The sodium is 1,320 mg for this whole cup.

This is microwave only for the instructions, so I cooked this following the directions on the label.

After cooking, it does smell reasonably good and it does smell like barbecue sauce. I think the problem my brain is going to have with this is that barbecue sauce and Cup Noodles are not exactly something I associate with each other. Also, it is still a pretty watery consistency, and that is also not something that I associate with barbecue sauce. I’m getting an onion, black pepper, garlic, and smoke aroma out of this. I don’t know what to say. This is going to be weird.

Noodles:

I’ll keep the noodle score brief because I’ve talked about Cup Noodles so many times on the channel. They’re fine. They’re nothing spectacular. I know they get soft after they sit for a while.

• 5/10

Spiciness:

The black pepper in here is pretty strong. I’m not really getting any notes of anything chili-adjacent, but there is some tingling going on on my tongue from the black pepper.

• 1/10

Overall:

Yeah, it does taste like a somewhat more watery barbecue sauce got mixed into your Cup Noodles. But, I can’t believe I’m saying this, it’s actually really good. It’s tasty as hell. The one thing I want to draw attention to first is the black pepper is very coarsely ground, so it does give it that sort of dry rub texture that Nissin said they were going for. I think that’s really delicious – I like coarse ground black pepper. The other flavors are not overwhelming. One of my main problems with barbecue sauce is if it veers too sweet or too syrupy, then I’m just not into it. But the flavors in here are extremely savory with the good punch of onion and garlic. I know there’s sugar and brown sugar in here. I’m not really getting a whole lot of that. It comes across as much more umami-forward than it does sweet.

Yeah, you could approximate this recipe by getting some dry noodles, cooking them up, covering them in your favorite Texas barbecue sauce, and maybe adding a little water just to get the consistency the same, and you’d have this. But I don’t usually keep barbecue sauce on hand, so this is super convenient for me to have it in this form. I just keep coming back to this shouldn’t work. I shouldn’t like noodles in a sauce that I associate with a thick cut of meat. My brain is having a hard time processing that. But I think this is doing a really good job at translating a thick, savory barbecue sauce into something that is appropriate for noodles, and I’m here for it.

The other thing to call out is the soy protein pieces. They don’t have the texture of a properly cooked brisket. They’re softer than that and a little more stringy, but they’re not that far off texture-wise or flavor-wise from beef, and they do provide a nice additional texture to this entire cup.

That being said, I think my chief complaint is that there aren’t other toppings in here. This would have gone great with some actual pieces of onion, minced garlic, stuff like that. But I am truly astonished at how much I like this. Mind-blown. Seriously. I’ll admit that my initial hesitation about this flavor was completely unfounded. This is great. Good job, Nissin.

• 9/10

Nissin Cup Noodles Kansas City BBQ:

And now it’s time for the other flavor, Kansas City BBQ. As I mentioned way up above, this is meant to be a sweet and tangy finish in comparison to the Texas style, which was smoky and slightly spicy. Nissin is saying that this is supposed to evoke a pulled pork flavor in ramen form. Very interesting, especially considering pulled pork is not one of my favorites, but I’m willing to give this one the benefit of the doubt because the last one was so good.

Once again, this has noodles, powdered sauce, and some flakes. The sauce this time has salt, sugar, molasses, brown sugar, pork stock, garlic powder, onion powder, sucralose, tomato powder, white vinegar, and other spices. The flakes are more soy protein. Sodium for the entire cup is 1,280 mg.

After microwaving this, it does indeed smell like a tomato, molasses, vinegar-based barbecue sauce. Strong whiff of onion there, too. I’m very surprised to say, but once again, this smells pretty good.

Noodles:

The noodle score is the same as last time. If you let these sit too long, they get really soft. Not my favorite. You know how Cup Noodles are.

• 5/10

Spiciness:

This is tangy, but only tangy in the sense of the way a tart tomato and white vinegar can make something tangy. I’m not detecting any chili pepper notes in here. If there is any chili, it’s very, very light. I’m also not detecting any black pepper this time, which I guess is the style of the barbecue sauce. So yeah, this is really mild, but it’s not a total zero. When it says tangy in Nissin’s official write-up, it doesn’t really mean spicy, at least not to me.

• 0.5/10

Overall:

I’ll start by saying I don’t like this one quite as much as the Texas flavor, and that’s probably more of a personal preference, as I’m learning that I think I like that barbecue style a little bit better than this barbecue style, or at least the sauce flavors. This one is really heavy on that tomato vinegar flavor. Not in an inedible way, but it’s pretty tart. There’s some underlying sweetness and onion flavor that kind of balances everything out. It’s not overly acidic, which is what I was afraid of. Back when I was a kid, Kraft made a barbecue sauce I think was called Onion Bits, and I don’t think they make it anymore. They probably have a newer version with a different name, because Onion Bits is a terrible name for a product. But if you ever had that before, or a Kraft onion barbecue sauce, that’s kind of what this reminds me of.

And besides not liking the flavor quite as much as the Texas one, my other complaint, again, is that there’s not enough of a variety of flakes in here. The soy protein in this one is not similar to the soy protein in the Texas flavor. This is a little softer and, I guess, more pork tenderloin-like in its texture. But without any of the “dry rub” ingredients or the more firm soy protein, this is all more of a one-note texture, and I don’t love that about it. This really needs something a little more crunchy in it to differentiate the textures a bit.

That said, I don’t hate this. I still think it’s pretty tasty, and if you like this type of barbecue sauce and you think pouring some over some instant noodles sounds appealing to you, then you’ll probably enjoy this flavor. Good, but not great.

• 7/10

Final Thoughts

So there you have it: two very interesting new flavors from Nissin. I approached this review as someone who likes barbecue well enough, but doesn’t usually go out of their way to eat barbecue. And I found both flavors to be pretty good. I think the Texas BBQ flavor is very good; it appeals more to my personal taste preferences, and I think it has better texture. But the Kansas City BBQ flavor, if you like that style, the more acidic, sweet flavor, I think you’ll probably enjoy it, too.

Now, I’m just going to put this out there: If you’re a barbecue purist or a ramen purist, then you probably shouldn’t buy either one of these. They’re weird in that American barbecue and Cup Noodles are not really two flavors and textures you think about going together. So look, if the idea grosses you out, I’m not saying you should go out and buy these. But if you do have an open mind about such things, they’re both worth trying.

Continuing the Journey:

• Nissin Cup Noodles Wings is the most recent limited-time American food gimmick from Nissin.
• Nissin Cup Noodles Turkey Dinner Flavor is another Cup Noodles product where the concept sounds like it should not work, but I loved it anyway.
• Nissin Cup Noodles Dill Pickle Flavor is a lesson in how not to do a limited-edition Cup Noodles flavor.
• For a delightful Asian barbeque flavor, check out Indomie Mi Goreng Barbeque Chicken Flavor.