All About Samyang 2x Spicy Buldak Ramen! - Explore Cook Eat (2024)

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I love spicy foods and feel like I can generally tolerate hot and spicy pretty well. So, I was shocked when I tried Samyang Ramen 2x Spicy Buldak for the first time. I won't go into too much detail, but I must have lost around 3-4 pounds after consuming these spicy noodles! 🥵

A Little Samyang Noodles History

Samyang Foods Co. is a South Korean company founded in 1961. They produced Korean's first ramen in the year 1963. This ramen was called "Samyang Ramen" and is described on SamyangFoods.com as "Mild soup and chewy ramen long-loved by Koreans over 50 years."

Fast forward to 2012, when Samyang released Buldak Hot Chicken Flavor Ramen. It is also known as buldak-bokkeum-myeon. This means roughly "fire chicken stir fry noodles." SamyangFoods.com describes this as "Deliciously spicy noodle with sesame seeds and grilled seaweed flakes."

Buldak means "fire chicken". Bul means "fire" and dak means "chicken" in Korean.

The release of the Buldak Hot Chicken Flavor Ramen started a craze called the "Korean Fire Noodles Challenge." This challenge (now a viral internet challenge) involves trying to eat an entire serving of the hot instant ramen noodles, with many people filming themselves and posting to YouTube. If you haven't seen some of these YouTube videos, check them out you are in for a treat!

Samyang has since released many versions of Buldak Ramens, including the 2x Spicy Buldak Ramen, which we will focus on here.

What Is The 2x Spicy Buldak Ramen?

The 2x Spicy Buldak Ramen was introduced in 2017 as "Extreme Buldak Ramen." Samyang touted it as a spicier version of the original Hot Chicken Flavor Ramen. This ramen is also known as Haek-Buldak-Bokkeum-Myeon. Haek means something along the lines of "nuclear." 😅

It's interesting to note that this Haek ramen was only supposed to be a limited edition. It was introduced to celebrate the beginning of the year 2017, which was the year of the Fire Rooster.

These extremely spicy Korean ramen noodles were so popular that they are now no longer a just limited edition. In fact, Samyang seems intent on expanding these 2x Spicy ramen noodles globally, with the help of its super cute mascot Hochi (Buldak Trade Character)!

What Is In The 2x Spicy Buldak Ramen Package?

Now let me tell you what's in the flashy red package!

The Haek Spicy Buldak Chicken Noodle packet contains ramen noodles, a packet of the hot liquid sauce, and a packet of flake.

The Noodles

The ramen noodles are made out of wheat flour. The noodle's ingredients include sodium carbonate, potassium carbonate, palm oil, wheat gluten, guar gum, sodium phosphate dibasic, and soy lecithin.

The Sauce Packet

The sauce packet is appropriately red in color. The color of the sauce is a very deep red (nuclear looking!).

There are a plethora of sauce ingredients! They include red pepper, soybean oil, soy sauce, artificial chicken flavor powder, black pepper powder, and red pepper seed oil.

The back of the package lists many other sauce ingredients. Some of these are difficult to spell and pronounce so I will leave at this for the haek sauce for now!

The Flake Packet

The flake packet contains sesame seeds and dried seaweed. That was easy!

So How Spicy Is Samyang 2x Spicy Buldak Ramen?

So, let's answer the question "How Spicy is Samyang 2x Spicy Buldak Ramen?" in 2 ways.

The Scoville Scale

First, I'll start with the Scoville Scale. From Wikipedia: "TheScoville scaleis ameasurementof thepungency(spiciness or "heat") ofchili peppers, as recorded in Scoville Heat Units (SHU), based on the concentration ofcapsaicinoids, among whichcapsaicinis the predominant component." Basically, the lower the number on the scale, the less "hot or spicy" the pepper will be.

I read that there have been two versions of these noodles. The first original Samyang 2x version came in at around 8706 SHU. The back of the package of this first version used to have a picture of this scale with the rating on it. You can see that here, on Amazon.

This would be similar to a hot jalapeno pepper, or Tabasco Habanero Sauce. You can see that here, on the ScovilleScale.org.

So, I would say that's pretty hot and spicy!

An article on KoreaHerald.com states that the second or current version comes in at 10,000 SHU. By the way, as far as I know the current packaging of these spicy instant noodles does not state their Scoville Rating. But 10,000 SHU is HOT and equivalent to eating a serrano pepper or drinking a hot sauce called "Fire And Spice."

At 10,000 Scoville units, the 2X Spicy is one of the world's spiciest instant noodles!

My Personal Colloquial Experience

So, I don't think I could successfully complete the Fire Noodle Challenge. I mentioned at the beginning of this post that the first time I tried this spicy food (a few years ago) I lost several pounds.

I made them again for purposes of this post and the experience was pretty much the same as my first time. 😅

At first taste, my mouth began to burn. Then, I almost immediately started sweating. I prepared this "noodle soup style" (more about this later). When I drank a spoonful of soup I started coughing and spluttering.

However, the more I ate, the more I appreciated the wonderful spicy taste and Samyang flavor! I continued to sweat, but now I was enjoying it!

My opinion is that YES...these noodles are HOT and truly one of the spiciest ramen noodles in the world!

🎥 Video

Watch me trying out these noodles!

Where Can I Buy These Noodles?

I'm happy to report that these noodles are no longer available just in South Korea!

You should be able to find these at your local Asian market, and maybe even your local grocery store.

Amazon also sells a 10 pack which you can buy here.

How To Prepare These 2X Spicy Noodles

Let me say at the outset that the way I am going to show you is not stir fry ramen, but rather soup. This may not be the traditional way to eat these spicy noodles, but I love it in soup!

Noodle Soup

So, start by putting the noodles in boiling water and boil for 5 minutes.

Pour off some of the water, leaving enough to make your soup. Place the noodles and water in a bowl. Now add the nuclear sauce!

Stir in the sauce and then add the contents of the flake packet. Garnish with green onions as well for some lovely color and a bit of nutrition!

Grab your chopsticks and dig in...and don't be afraid to slurp!

Noodle Stir Fry

The proper way to enjoy these is as a stir fry. The cooking directions for stir frying are on the back of the packet.

To summarize: boil the noodles for 5 minutes. Drain but reserve 8 tablespoons of the cooking water. Add the nuclear sauce to the noodles and water, stir well then add the flake packet.

I will try it the proper way the next time I have these!

Pro Tip

My Pro Tip is be sure not to touch your eyes after handling the sauce packet like I did!

Enjoy Some Of The Spiciest Noodles Ever!

In addition to being spicy, these noodles are actually very delicious and flavorful. The noodles have a great chewy texture, and there is definitely a tasty hot chicken flavor.

My husband loves these so much that he has some almost everyday!

Bon appetit!!!

Other Instant Noodles Posts!

Instant Asian Noodles Soup With Hoisin Pork

Simple and Delicious Noodle Dish Ram-Don From the Film Parasite!

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Grace