Nongshim Chapagetti noodle review

Nongshim (which means farmer’s heart in Korean) are a huge South Korean company well known for making instant noodles and snacks. I personally love their spicy shrimp crackers, but I’m here today to write about noodles. Nongshim are probably most famous in Europe for Shin Ramyun, which is the best selling instant noodle brand in South Korea, renowned for its intensely spicy heat. However, the product I am reviewing here is not a hot and spicy one. (Spicy Chapagetti exists, with a chilli oil sachet provided, as opposed to the blend of vegetable oils in this product, but that is not for today.) Please note that this product is not suitable for vegetarians or vegans because of the shrimp extract in the sauce mix.

 

Nongshim Chapagetti noodle review

The product

Nongshim’s Chapagetti is their Korean “spaghetti” (a thick wheat based noodle with potato starch). The noodles are intended to be served with roasted chajang sauce. The whole thing is an instant noodle version of the popular Korean dish Jajangmyeon noodles. Chajang sauce is a rich roasted black bean sauce, which comes from a Korean-Chinese tradition. This is not a noodle soup product; it is intended to be noodles with sauce, which will effect how it is made (see below). This time, I bought a packet of Chapagetti, although a pot version also exists. I paid £1.15 for a 140g packet, bought at Longdan in Lewisham, south east London.

What’s Inside

The noodles themselves are made from wheat flour and potato starch, and have added flavourings including soy, salt and green tea extract. When you open the pack you find a large circular cake of noodles, which are not too tightly packed. They’re thicker than most instant ramen noodles and thinner than udon noodles. 

The Chajang sauce is made up from a powder base. It is meant to be intensely savoury with a touch of sweetness. The ingredients include soybean paste, onion, shrimp extract, sugar and caramel powder. I have no problem with eating Monosodium glutamate (it is a demonised ingredient which has suffered from the worst of bad science and racism), but there is no MSG in the sauce. 

The flavour oil packet has a blend of vegetable oil, olive oil, corn oil, sesame oil and mustard oil. As you will see from the packet, it prides itself on the presence of the olive oil, no doubt to emphasise this an equivalent of spaghetti. As stated above, the spicy version substitutes this for chilli oil, which means you could add your own chilli oil or chilli crisp if you want some heat.

The packet of dried vegetables contains some interesting items; cabbage, fried potato, onion and carrot and some veggie protein chunks.

The Chapagetti instant noodle are intended to be made on the hob. I am guessing that the thickness of the noodle means you can’t just soak them in boiling water and leave them alone. I have read that some people make the noodles in the microwave, but the possibility of any plastic container boiling over if your are boiling water for any length of time put me off. Cleaning up starchy mess in the microwave isn’t fun, and the whole point of occasionally eating instant noodles is to save on hassle.

Therefore I followed the packet instructions this time. I brought 600ml of water to the boil, added the noodles and the vegetable packet and set my timer for 5 minutes. 

 

This is what it looked like at the end of the 5 minutes... 

 

After 5 minutes, I reserved 60ml (4 tablespoons of the cooking water), drained carefully to avoid losing my new rehydrated veggies.

Then I put the noodles, reserved water and the sauce packet and flavoured oils into a bowl...

 

I then mixed everything up thoroughly. 

[I have read about a variation of this; the noodles, reserved water, sauce packet and flavoured oils are returned to the pan on a low heat, mixed together and cooked on low for a further minute. Only then are the noodles served up in a bowl. This is meant to make a richer, stickier sauce. I would like to try this technique in the future. Other recommended tweaks are to serve with a fried egg and toasted sesame seeds on top, or to serve some kimchi on top.]

What does it taste like

The noodles themselves are soft and chewy, with a good bite to them, thanks to their thickness. They are not, however, heavy, which I suppose is because they are made of both wheat flour and potato starch. 

The sauce clings well to the noodles, but I am guessing that if I use the variation of the cooking technique above (thickening the sauce in a pan with the noodles for a minute) the results will be even more thick and rich. There’s a lot of rich soy and onion flavour, and it is hard to believe this was a freeze dried powdered sauce. If you want taste but want to skip on chilli heat, these are for you!

The little rehydrated veggies give some little surprises every few mouthfuls, with little bits of “bite” alternating between onion, and carrot. The little round protein balls almost taste meaty (although they are not meat!).

This is a very nice instant noodle product to make at home as you need to be able to cook on the hob, but not suited to eating at work. I wouldn’t risk cooking this in the workplace microwave!

I use Gingey Bites’ rating system for my noodles. For Alex’s scoring method and an index of all of her instant noodle reviews, please see: https://gingeybites.com/guide-to-instant-noodles

Ratings

Texture 9/10

Flavour 8/10

Ease of making 6/10 (the method is more complicated than most instant noodles, as explained above).

Would I buy them again: Yes

You can read my review of Nissin brand’s collaboration Cup Noodle with Shoryu) here: https://snigskitchen.blogspot.com/2024/01/nissin-x-shoryu-ramen-masters-cup.html

You can read my review of Maruchan spicy chicken and prawn noodles here: https://snigskitchen.blogspot.com/2024/05/maruchan-spicy-chicken-and-prawn.html

If you follow my instant noodle reviews, you will know I love to add ingredients and flavours to instant noodles. Here, at Kavey Eats blog (run by the brilliant food, travel and cooking enthusiast Kavita – AKA Kavey) is a new spin on modifying Korean instant noodles from Su Scott’s new cookbook Pocha: https://www.kaveyeats.com/tomato-kimchi-ramyun-instant-noodle

This review represents the genuine opinions of Snigdha, who has received no incentive to write this review, and who purchased the product with her own money.