Pot Noodle Meta-Review

I think every British person knows what a Pot Noodle is. That is a plastic pot filled with extremely low-quality instant noodles with a decent-ish flavour powder and god-awful sauce packet.

This blog post will be a sort-of meta review of the flavours of Pot Noodle I have eaten over the past two decades.

Bombay Bad Boy

Chicken & Mushroom

Beef & Tomato

Doner Kebab

Sticky Rib

Korma

Malaysian Curry

The Noodles

Let’s start with the thing all Noodles have in common (and perhaps the worst aspect of a Pot Noodle). The Noodles themselves.

To put it simply; the noodles are complete crap quality.

The noodles themselves have a horrible texture (when compared to Asian instant noodles or even the Super Noodles pots). You either leave them to brew for the recommended 4 minutes and have half-cooked noodles or leave them longer and get soft, but they become near-textureless.

Pot Noodles have the worst texture of any instant noodle I have tried. Such a shame that the 40+ years of profit have not been reinvested into improving the product. In fact, Pot Noodles have gotten worse since the late-2000s.

Pot Downgrades (aka the flavour section)

Nowadays, when eating Pot Noodles (only recently stopped) I have had extra powders and replace many of the sauce packets for them to have an acceptable flavour.

For example:

• Bombay Bad Boy requires nearly a dessert spoon of MSG and decent hot sauce (Sriracha)
• Chicken & Mushroom needs some extra salt, MSG added (Would also be better with decent quality soy sauce, rather than the complete crap Unilever provides)
• Beef & Tomato requires a Maggi seasoning cube and decent tomato ketchup (as the one Unilever includes is horrid)
• Sticky Rib and Korma require nearly a dessert spoon of MSG.

Malaysian Curry and Doner Kebab actually have a good flavour needing no extras.

However, one downgrade many Pot Noodle fans will have noticed is that they removed the Tiny Soya pieces over a decade ago.

Pot noodles are simply not what they used to be and with better options from Asia (both cheaper and better in quality). The only reason to buy a pot noodle is convenience (as very few Asian instant noodles come in pots) and ease of purchasing from almost any convenience shop.

Published: 24th August 2023