I’ve been asked about these low calorie noodles for a long time. Miracle Noodle is more widely known for it’s Shirataki Miracle Noodle. Those are made from yams. These are Kanten Miracle Noodles. So let’s see Wikipedia has to say about them:
Tokoroten is a dish in Japanese cuisine made from jelly extracted from seaweeds such as tengusa (Gelidiaceae) and ogonori (Gracilaria) by boiling. Pressed against a device, jelly is shaped into noodles. Unlike gelatin desserts, tokoroten has a firmer texture. Flavorings vary from region to region, and can include variations of vinegar, soy sauce, hot pepper, or sesame.
Kanten (agar, 寒天, lit. cold (tokoro)ten) is made by freeze-drying tokoroten.
Ah okay – so this is not Shirataki. Interesting – I’m curious about these noodles. It says it’s 40 calories, but that’s for half the package. Nonetheless, 80 calories is pretty slim where instant noodles are concerned. This was going to be a Meet The Manufacturer, but I never got the answers for my questions back, so thought this morning would be a good time to give them a try. Let’s check these Miracle Noodles!
Here’s the back of the package (click image to enlarge). Note the nutrition facts – interesting! Looks to be meat free but check for yourself. To prepare, put the noodles and sachet contents in a bowl. Add 1 1/2 cups of hot water. Stir for 30 seconds or until noodles are soft and consume.
The noodles. They’re very fibrous – a real trip.
A good sized miso paste sachet.
Has a pleasant miso scent.
The solid ingredients sachet.
A nice looking melange of shiitake, cabbage, green onion, carrot and eggplant.
I thought this would be neat to share today (click image to enlarge). I recently did an AMA (ask me anything) on reddit. One of the questions I got was ‘what is your very best life advice?’ As it turned out, this guy has a page where he has been asking this question to some very interesting people. He’s doing 365 days of this with one person’s answer every day – was surprised to see Charlaine Harris and Davis Spade amongst those he asked – pretty honored!
Finished (click image to enlarge). I decided not to add anything to see if 80 calories worth of noodles would be filling. The noodles have a very different texture from anything I’ve tried before. Upon chewing, it’s like they collapse upon pressure in an odd way; not exactly crumbling, but condensing perhaps. Reminds me of chewing up a shredded plant substance, maybe like shredded boiled melon. The miso broth was actually quite well done – rich color and good flavor. The vegetables hydrated well in 30 seconds and were good too. As far as the fillingness, yeah. If you eat the whole pack, which isn’t a huge amount really. I think the 40 calories per serving is a little off, since how would one split the serving? I think this is probably to get away from the sodium level, although that too is much lower than most conventional instant noodles. 4.0 out of 5.0 – a pleasant surprise. UPC bar code 853237003371.
Here’s a demonstration of how to work with Miracle Noodle Shirataki products.
Thanks for the review – I am sorry no one got back to you – please contact if you will, so I can figure out why my staff didn’t get back to you.