If you grew up in Canada, there's a good chance you've slurped away at the iconic Canadian snack that is Mr. Noodles.
Whether it was a snack after high school or as a meal replacement during university when you didn't have time to cook, there's no doubt that the instant noodles brand played a part in most of our lives.
It's been a minute since I've had Mr.Noodles, so I wanted to give them another try to see how they stack up against my fond memories. While at the grocery store, I noticed that some of the house brands in Canada do their own instant noodles, and since they were all cheaper than Mr. Noodles, I decided to put them to the test to see if they could beat out the brand name product.
I picked up chicken-flavoured instant noodles from Selection, no name, Great Value and Compliments to compare them to Mr. Noodles and rated each of them out of 5 in terms of how much I enjoyed them — and there are two that are cheaper and tastier than the brand name.
Here's how everything went down.
Compliments Chicken Flavour Instant Noodles
Compliments Chicken Flavour Instant Noodles for $0.26 from FreshCo.
At $0.26, I wasn't expecting a whole lot out of the Compliments Chicken Flavour Instant Noodles from FreshCo and they lived up to my very low bar of expectations.
Unlike all of the other options I tested, the Compliments noodles seasoning packet was just chicken flavour with no peas, carrots or other vegetables. The chicken flavour itself was barely present (I'm not sure I'd be able to classify it as chicken if it was a blind taste test) and the noodles were both bouncy and chewy in an artificial, unpleasant way.
This one is a definite pass.
Rating: 0.5/5
Price: $0.26 for 85 grams
No name Chicken Flavour Instant Noodle Soup
No name Chicken Flavour Instant Noodle Soup from No Frills for $1.49.
The no name brand from No Frills was the second most expensive cup of noodles on this list, behind only Mr. Noodles themselves.
While the flavour of this is fairly ok and can definitely be identified as chicken, there was a very strange smell to this product, almost like a lemon cleaner which was very offputting.
There was a good amount of carrot pieces for some visual interest, but unfortunately, they got soggy quite quickly. The noodles also got very soft after sitting in the boiling water for a few minutes and felt quite mushy in my mouth.
Price: $1.49 for 65 grams
Rating: 1/5
Mr. Noodles
Mr. Noodles brand Chicken flavour from No Frills for $1.59.
The first bite I had of Mr. Noodles took me back to my teenage years. I used to throw a buttload of black pepper and a bit of sesame oil into the cup before eating it, but for this test, I ate it as instructed.
There isn't really a chicken-forward taste, but it does have a nice, comforting soup-esque flavour that I enjoyed. There was also a nice crunch from the corn and peas which made for some pleasant textural difference.
However, the noodles themselves tasted a little cardboard-y, and the simulated bits of chicken were strange (and not something I remember it having before?).
Overall, it's not as great as I remember it to be and it could definitely use the seasoning I previously mentioned, but it's pretty good and it'll fill you up, which is sometimes all you really need.
Rating: 3.5/5
Price: $1.59 for 64 grams
Selection
Selection brand Chicken Flavoured Instant Noodles for $0.99 from Metro.
And tied for first place, I'm giving the gold to Selection brand Chicken Flavoured Instant Noodles from Metro and Great Value Chicken Flavour Instant Ramen Noodles from Walmart.
Given how bland the product looks from the image on the cup, I was surprised to find a bunch of carrots in the seasoning mix and a very pleasant chicken flavour that almost tasted like the bird had been roasted (which is truly impressive given that there's no actual real chicken in this product).
The noodles held up nicely in the soup and didn't turn into sog. They didn't really have any discernable taste, but I'm not mad about it, and they turned out to have the perfect slurpability.
Price: $0.99 for 65 grams
Rating: 4/5
Great Value Chicken Flavour Instant Ramen Noodles
Great Value brand Chicken Flavour Instant Ramen Noodles for $0.77 from Walmart.
I found Walmart's Great Value brand Chicken Flavour Instant Ramen Noodles to be almost identical in taste to Metro's Selection to the point that I checked to see if it was the same distributor.
Alas, they are different, but the roasted chicken flavour (which is artificial) is very similar in both of them. The only discernable difference I could find was that Great Value had more vegetable selection, but given the abundance of carrots in the Selection item, I'd say they're about tied for how much vegetable they each had in them.
Price: $0.77 for 45 grams
Rating: 4/5
So, if it came down to having to pick which one of these I'd buy again, it'd definitely be either Great Value or Selection, but with Great Value costing just a little bit less, it'd have to be the Walmart house brand that I'd reach for.
For everyone out there who loves hot food, I did a comparison of spicy instant noodles that you can find in grocery stores and there's one that was simply too powerful for my palette to handle.
If you're more into tinned soup rather than instant soup, I recently did a taste test comparing popular chicken soup brands to find out which can should get a spot in my pantry, and a Canadian classic took first place.
Or, if tomato soup is more your jam, I also tested out that type of soup and the winner of that competition was a brand I'd never heard of or tried!
These prices are confirmed at the time of publishing, but they can change at any time. Taxes and fees may not be included.