Snapdragon Cheezy Umami Saucy Noodles

Snapdragon is a brand I actually respect. Their pho bowls at Costco are good and I’ve recommended them before. So when I saw them venture into cheesy saucy noodles I was curious. The bright yellow packaging and “Cheezy Umami” branding had my attention.

Produced in Vietnam.

What’s in the Package

Inside you get a noodle brick and one sauce packet labeled “The Secret Sauce.” The sauce packet is thick and the packaging leans into the fun branding. I was still optimistic at this point.

How to Prepare It

Bring at least 4 cups of water to a boil. Add the noodles and cook for 3 to 4 minutes. Drain the water and add the sauce. Stir until the noodles are fully coated and serve.

How Does It Taste

The smell when I opened the sauce packet was actually encouraging. Milk powder, a hint of cheese, something funky and rich. I thought this might be a surprise. It was a surprise, just not the right kind.

The moment we tasted it James and I both stopped. The flavor is aggressively sour. Not a pleasant tang. It was something closer to food that has gone off. We looked at each other and both of us spat it out. That doesn’t happen often.

Underneath that sourness there are faint notes of milk powder and Parmesan that I could just barely identify, but they’re completely buried. Looking at the ingredients later I could see both citric acid and lactic acid in the sauce, which explains a lot. Whatever ratio they landed on was way too much. The sour overwhelms everything else.

The noodles themselves are thin and wavy and they’re actually fine. They’re not the problem here. The problem is entirely in that sauce.

James and I were unanimous. We would not recommend this to anyone.

How Does It Compare

Samyang’s Carbonara Buldak and Nongshim’s Creamy Toomba both deliver on the creamy sauced noodle concept. This one doesn’t come close to either.

How to Level It Up

If you find yourself with a bowl and want to salvage it, you need to bury that sauce under something strong. Tomato sauce would work since it would essentially turn this into a weird vodka pasta and at least give the sourness somewhere to hide. An aggressive pour of Tapatio or Valentina works the same way, redirecting the flavor entirely.

Final Verdict

I wanted to like this. Snapdragon makes good products and the concept is interesting. But the Cheezy Umami Saucy Noodles has a fundamental sauce problem that makes it difficult to eat. The sourness is not a subtle note. It’s the entire experience. Skip it and go straight to their pho instead.

How do I rate my ramen? Check out the Ramen Rating Guide.

Where to buy Snapdragon Cheezy Umami Saucy Noodles

• Amazon
• Walmart