Our Favorite Buldak Ramen Stays True To The Flavors Of Indian Cuisine

In our roundup of the 11 best Buldak instant ramen flavors, Tasting Table ranked the brand's curry flavor as No. 1. Now, we want to explain ourselves — they're all legendarily spicy and flavorful, but there's a reason (several, in fact) why curry won over our hearts and stomachs.

As per, Buldak's curry ramen comes with a noodle puck, liquid sauce packet (where all the spiciness lives), and a pouch of dried veggie flakes. But while most Buldak flavors include sesame seeds and seaweed flakes in their dried packets, the curry flavor contains dried carrots, onion, and dried kimchi. Moreover, the packaging doesn't specify which type of curry this ramen is supposed to be emulating, whether Indian, Japanese, or Thai, but we think it tastes the most similar to the masala spices of Indian curry, or at least to the flavor of classic curry powder.

Warming chana masala spice is usually some combination of turmeric, Kashmiri chilies, coriander seeds, cumin, green cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, black peppercorns, and amchur dried mango powder. Curry powder includes most of these plus fennel seed and mustard seed. Still, "curry" is tricky to define considering the word itself was created by British colonizers as an umbrella term for describing the hallmark flavors of Indian culinary style. So, "curry" is as much a concept as curry powder is a spice. Still, Korean Samyang Buldak's Anglo-Indian curry flavor does a knockout job of capturing the taste of our favorite homemade Indian curry recipes.

As foodies might expect from any offering belonging to the Buldak oeuvre, the curry flavor is intensely spicy. Earlier this year, the brand's ramen was the subject of a mass recall in Denmark for being (yes, really) simply "too spicy." Indeed, our Tasting Table testers agree that the brand's 2x Spicy Chicken flavor is more painful that pleasurable to chow down on. But, Buldak's curry flavor is less about sheer spicy intensity than about the flavor of the sauce — praise many fans also said of Buldak's Carbonara ramen.

Beyond being spicy, the curry sauce packet is well-seasoned (an essential attribute, considering it's named after such a fragrant dish), creating an impressively dimensional flavor considering the utilitarian beauty of instant ramen. Buldak's signature bouncy, thick, curly noodles are as always adept at holding onto the sauces for a luscious coating and toothy chew. Blanketed in the sauce — which like most Buldak sauces is dark red to the point of being almost black with intimidating intensity — the finished product is really complex for a meal that's ready to eat in three to five minutes. (Pro tip: If you add a squirt of Kewpie mayo, the sauce packet transforms into a copycat Indian butter chicken sauce.) To bulk it up, feel free to add chicken breast or steamed veggies in true curry form. Although, this flavorful instant ramen can stand on its own.