Samyang Buldak Mac n’ Cheese Review | Noodle Journey Episode 218

Today’s review is not technically an instant noodle, but it is certainly part of the instant noodle universe. These are brand new from Samyang: Buldak Mac n’ Cheese Sweet Corn Flavor and Carbonara Flavor.

Now then, I don’t think I need to explain what this is – it’s clearly macaroni and cheese with Buldak sauce, but you might be wondering where to buy it. You can get either flavor in these cups, sold only in 4-packs right now for about $7. Or you can buy these flavors in a typical-sized mac and cheese box for about $2.50. Right now, both the cups and the boxes are exclusive to Walmart stores. There is so much in the instant noodle world that’s exclusive to Walmart nowadays. I’m honestly impressed how far it’s come. I don’t love shopping at Walmart for a variety of reasons, but at the same time, it is cool that products that were once considered niche, like spicy Korean Buldak sauce, are now available throughout the USA.

I can’t find any confirmation on whether or not these are limited edition. So, if you want to try them, buy them sooner rather than later, just in case they are limited. With that out of the way, let’s get this review going.

Sweet Corn

The Verdict:

I’m going to start with the Sweet Corn flavor. I have to say, I found this choice of flavor to be a little strange at first glance. Buldak has a Quattro Cheese flavor already that I think is pretty excellent and would translate very well to a macaroni and cheese product. So why are they doing Sweet Corn flavor instead? I think it’s one of two things. I think Samyang either intends this to be a take on Korean corn cheese, which is a very popular Korean street food. The other option could be that this is a take on Mexican street corn. There’s literally no way to tell because there are no individual spices listed in the ingredients on the cup. So I’m about to find out at the exact same time you are.

Inside, there is a very small amount of macaroni, which is an enriched pasta, a sauce packet, and a powder packet. There is also a flavorless white powder covering the bottom of the cup. Unless I’ve come across some sort of Scarface drug mule situation, I’m going to assume that it’s some kind of thickening agent independent of what is in the powder. The liquid sauce looks to be a watered-down version of your standard Buldak sauce, which is a sweet and spicy mixture of sugar, soy, chili pepper, onion, garlic, and various spices. In the powder packet, you’ve got sweet corn powder, mascarpone cheese, butter, and milk. Based on my reading of the ingredients, this appears to be vegetarian. The sodium for this is a very reasonable 420mg, but that’s also probably because this is a very small portion.

To cook this, you add water up to the fill line inside, microwave it for 3 minutes, and then, without draining the noodles, add the powder and the sauce to your taste. After microwaving, this came dangerously close to spilling over in the microwave at a couple points, so keep an eye on it if you buy this for yourself. Since the packaging says this is an adjustable spice level, I tasted it with just the powder first before adding the full sauce packet.

It definitely tastes like sweet corn, with the emphasis on the “sweet.” It is very sugary. I thought it needed at least a little bit of Buldak sauce to balance it out. Yes, Buldak sauce is already sweet, but there is some umami in there, and this desperately needs that. Once stirred together, it thickened up pretty nicely despite how watery it looked at first.

Noodles:

As far as the macaroni texture goes, I’m not a connoisseur of instant mac and cheese. I eat Kraft every once in a while. I eat Annie’s every once in a while. This is a pretty standard macaroni texture. Reasonably al dente. It did not come out gummy or soft. I think 3 minutes in the microwave was the perfect amount of time to cook this.

• 9/10

Spiciness:

With the whole sauce packet added, I don’t think this is as spicy as original black-packaged Buldak sauce, but that’s not to say it’s not spicy. It is still very potent. I gave the original black package an 8/10 for spice. This is less potent. I do believe that the corn and the cheese are contributing on some level to lessening that perceived heat.

• 6.5/10

Overall

Samyang used to make a flavor called Buldak Corn that was apparently possibly discontinued within the last year or so. It was really my least favorite Buldak product to date, just an overwhelming burnt popcorn, stale tortilla chip flavor that I did not enjoy. I didn’t think it paired well with Buldak sauce, and that’s coming from someone who loves popcorn and tortilla chips. Buldak Corn had its fans – I wasn’t one of them.

I mention that because I was afraid this Sweet Corn flavor would be similar and that I was going to hate it all over again. That is not the case. I think this is very good. It desperately needs the Buldak sauce to balance it out though. If you only put a couple drops of sauce in here, I think it might verge on too sweet. But with the sauce, the added soy, umami, and chili flavor that is present in Buldak sauce turns this into a really nice sweet, savory, spicy triple punch.

It has the aroma and flavor of canned corn, maybe even creamed corn, and then on top of that you get that solid foundation of salty, savory, peppery Buldak sauce. My one complaint is that from a flavor perspective, I’m not getting a lot of cheese. I was expecting a little bit of cheese umami here, and it’s just not quite present. The texture did thicken up nicely, though, and I think the corn and Buldak flavors are very complementary. So despite the slight lack of cheesiness, I think the flavor is great in this. I didn’t expect to like this, but it is surprisingly good.

• 8/10

Carbonara

The Verdict:

Now let’s check out the other flavor, Carbonara. If you’re unfamiliar with the original Buldak Carbonara and are only here discovering Buldak through the Mac n’ Cheese varieties, or maybe you just haven’t had it before, you should know not to expect anything resembling an Italian carbonara pasta. I made that assumption all the way back in Episode 5. Even though I absolutely loved the Carbonara Buldak flavor, I thought it was going to be more Italian-inspired and less Korean. What this really is, if it is flavored like the regular Buldak Carbonara sauce, is more of a creamy Korean chili sauce – sweet and spicy pepper with a generous amount of milk and cheese to give it a creamy finish. I think the original Carbonara noodle pack is delicious. It’s one of my favorites. It’s what got me into Buldak as a whole, and it’s also one of Samyang’s most popular offerings in the USA, if not globally. So I suspect this is going to be the more popular flavor of the 2 Mac n’ Cheese varieties.

Inside, once again, there is macaroni, mysterious white powder that better not be anthrax, Buldak sauce, and Carbonara cheese powder. What’s interesting is the sauce packet does specifically say Carbonara, but the ingredients look to be exactly the same as in the Sweet Corn one. So the only difference here is really the powder packet, which contains mozzarella cheese, cheddar cheese, gouda cheese, mascarpone cheese, camembert cheese, milk powder, sugar, and garlic. Whereas the Sweet Corn flavor only had one kind of cheese, the mascarpone, this Carbonara one will kick your lactose intolerance into full gear with five different cheese powders inside. Again, the ingredients here look vegetarian to my eyes. The sodium is 410mg for this one cup.

After microwaving, I added the cheese powder first and gave it a little taste. It was immediately clear that this is not the same Carbonara cheese powder from the noodle pack. It is much more orange, which tells me there is probably some food dye in here and some cheddar cheese driving that color. So this isn’t going to be exactly like the Carbonara flavor that you might already know and love. It does resemble the Carbonara noodle pack in one other regard, though, because there are some little pieces of parsley floating around in here.

Without the sauce, this tastes like a standard mac and cheese flavor. Lots of cheese flavor, a little sweet, but very bland. If on the off chance you buy this and discover you can’t handle Buldak sauce, you could still salvage this as a standard mac and cheese, but you would need to add some salt because it is really lacking in salt. After the sauce goes in, it smells pretty good and comes together much more the way you would expect.

Noodles:

Same macaroni as last time. I’m not going to rescore that.

• 9/10

Spiciness:

The spice level is a little less here from what I’m perceiving, and I’m going to chalk that up to the fact that this has more cheese and milk in it because I think it is the exact same sauce. So this is just a little bit less spicy than the Sweet Corn flavor was, but it is still spicy.

• 6/10

Overall:

This doesn’t quite taste like Buldak Carbonara, which I kind of expected. It’s actually quite a bit cheesier. It more closely reminds me of Quattro Cheese, which is also one of my favorite Buldak flavors. This has a much cheesier backbone than the Sweet Corn flavor did, which I think makes it feel more like a traditional mac and cheese with Buldak sauce added rather than the more unique flavor that was in the Sweet Corn. But that doesn’t mean this is bad. I think this is extremely tasty. If you’ve had the Quattro Cheese flavor or the Carbonara flavor, you should know what to expect from this. It is a sweet, savory, spicy, cheesy combination of chili sauce and dairy. Despite the fact that it’s not quite the Buldak Carbonara flavor I was expecting, I’m very happy with this.

• 8/10

Final Thoughts

I think these are both really good. I think they’re a great idea, and I think if you like sweet, savory, spicy flavor combinations, you’re probably going to enjoy both of these. I will say the Sweet Corn one is the more unique flavor of the two, but it is also lacking in cheese flavor compared to the Carbonara flavor. At the same time, the Carbonara flavor is a much more standard mac and cheese flavor, but with the added Buldak sauce taking it in a different direction.

So really, I’m very pleasantly surprised by both of these. I did not have high hopes, but I think these are both really tasty, really enjoyable. Definitely seek these out if you’re a mac and cheese fan and a Buldak fan. If you can’t handle the entire Buldak spice packet, by all means add the sauce bit by bit until it is at a tolerable level for you. I think these will come out just right.

Continuing the Journey

• Want another creamy, cheesy Buldak favorite? Check out Samyang Buldak Cream Carbonara.
• Curious about more creamy Buldak? You might love Samyang Buldak Basil Cream Udon as much as I did.
• Want to see the corn idea done in noodle form? Check out Samyang Buldak Corn.