Nissin Kanzen (Complete Meal) Soupless Cup Noodle Review

The Kanzen line of products started with curry rice years ago and I reviewed it back then. On my last trip to Japan I picked up the Kanzen Yakisoba Cup Noodle at a konbini. I enjoyed he curry rice version a few times so I really wondered what the Cup Noodle version was like!

It turns out the Cup Noodle version comes in the same paper cup as the instant rice versions with different artwork on the outside. It resembles a squat Cup Noodle cup with all the similar logos and writing. It emphasizes the complete meal aspect with the Kanzen blue circle logo. I'm kind of fond of this logo with yellow outline for it as I received a free squishy ball in the same blue + logo the first time I  bought this. My cat loves playing with it too. These special meal cups are easy to spot as they have a huge clear plastic cap on top with more description describing how special they are. Under the cap are the powdered sauce base in a big foil pouch and a seasoning oil packet. 

Kanzen Cup Noodle package.

The plastic cap with a cardboard insert underneath. These cost more than the normal Cup Noodle, but your getting more balanced nutrition. 

The cup with the cap off showing the seasoning oil sachet on the left and the powdered sauce base on the right.

This soupless Cup Noodle supplies about 15% of your daily protein, 28% of your fats, 56% of your carbohydrates, and 10 grams of dietary fibre. These noodles follow official dietary standards set by the Japanese government and provide a balance of 33 type of nutrients while keeping the food tasty. They've formulated the flavouring to mask the vitamins and minerals being added and I have to say they succeeded by my taste buds.

The typical instant noodle found in other Cup Noodles is not used in this version. Instead, they use a special three-layer noodle that blends dietary fibre and protein instead of flour in the central layer of the noodles to add more nutrition while keeping the texture and flavour of the noodles. The meat cubes taste the same but use a mix of soybeans and vegetables to maximize nutrition again. There is a lot of food science that goes into this product. Less sodium is also used in this product than some of the other noodles.

The cup by itself. You can see the image of the noodles at the bottom with a mix of egg, meat, and veggies.

The lid showing preparation instructions.

Nice, clean Cup Noodle logo with the addition of the Kanzen logo. The text in the red box below translates into "Cup Noodle Yakisoba" to indicate it is a soupless noodle like fried yakisoba.

Ingredients and manufacturing information.

Approval logos and website for more info.

The cardboard insert under the plastic cap that shows all of the nutrients.

The seasoning oil and powdered sauce packets.

Lifting the lid reveals typical shoyu flavour Cup Noodle ingredients. You have meat cubes, shrimp, egg, and green onion. You can see the noodles are air dried and are thinner than the regular noodles.

I added boiling water to rehydrate the noodles and toppings and waited 5 minutes. Once this was done, I peeled back the drain portion of the lid and poured all the water out.

You see the noodles rehydrated beautifully and now look like your regular noodle. The toppings also look great.

I added the flavour oil and powdered sauce base to the noodles and mixed everything well. The powder dissolved really easily and did not clump!

The noodles rehydrated into the size of a regular instant noodle and were a little chewier, too, which isn't a bad thing. The noodles are firmer with a clean break to them. It smells like regular Cup Noodle and the flavouring is similar to the regular shoyu cup noodle with a thinner soy broth. It has a lot of the flavour notes and is savoury enough to be satisfying. You can tell from the pictures below that the sauce is quite thin on the noodles as it doesn't really colour them all that much. This is distinct from the soup version, but that is a given considering it is a soupless noodle. Both versions have pepper as a flavour component and I noticed the pepper in the background more in this version. The other toppings were as expected and were a bonus add to the meal. This cup noodle is pretty good and I'm happy I gave it a try. I'm not sure this would replace my regular noodles, but if you are looking for something more nutritionally complete, this might fit the bill.

The noodles ready for consumption. Looks nice!

Closeup of the meat cube, egg, and noodles.