Chef Woo Black Garlic Beef Ramen Noodles Chef Ramsay

This is Chef Woo’s Black Garlic Beef Ramen Noodles, the cup ramen line that brought Gordon Ramsay on as one of its ambassadors. His name is plastered big across the front.

The whole pitch is the macros: 20g of plant-based protein per cup, no palm oil, no MSG, made in the USA. Between the celebrity branding and the protein math, I went in with high hopes.

Produced in the United States.

What’s in the Package

Inside the cup you get a fried wavy wheat noodle disc with the seasoning powder, dehydrated soy-protein “beef” pieces, dried green onion, dried red bell pepper, and small dehydrated greens already mixed in.

How to Cook Chef Woo Black Garlic Beef Ramen Noodles by Chef Ramsay

1. Add boiling water to the inside fill line, cover, and let it steep about 4 minutes.
2. Then stir well.

How Does It Taste

The first thing I noticed was mushroom. Specifically portobello. Close your eyes and this tastes like a wet, slightly sweet, mushroom-forward broth rather than a beef one.

The second thing: it’s too sweet. The seasoning leans on brown sugar and fructose, and you can taste it. The broth has a sugary edge that fights the savory direction the rest of the bowl is going for.

The black garlic on the front of the cup doesn’t really show up. I don’t smell it and I don’t taste it. If it’s in there, it’s buried under the mushroom and the sweetness. James agreed, the black garlic is more of a marketing claim than a flavor.

The broth is fine, it’s just one note. Sweet, mushroom, soy. The 20g protein noodles are solid texturally, bouncy enough, and they hold the broth. It’s the classic Chef Woo plant-protein noodle, the same one in the Chef Woo Roasted Chicken.

How Does It Compare

The closest match on the site is the other Chef Woo cup, the Chef Woo Roasted Chicken Flavor Ramen. Same noodle base, same protein, but a less sweet, more straightforward seasoning. The Roasted Chicken is the better Chef Woo cup if you want to taste what the format does well.

In the wider high-protein category, the Immi line pushes the protein numbers higher at 21 to 24g, with thicker broths and a higher price tag, though the flavors haven’t always worked for me. The Ramen Bae packets sit around 21g protein with a cleaner broth, and they’re my current pick in this lane. Either way, there are stronger protein-ramen options than this Chef Woo Black Garlic Beef.

If you want a real black garlic ramen instead of a marketed one, the Nissin Black Garlic Oil Tonkotsu packet is the actual benchmark. And if you want a real Chef Ramsay experience, just go to one of his restaurants, because this cup doesn’t deliver on the promise.

How to Level Up Chef Woo Black Garlic Beef Ramen Noodles by Chef Ramsay

Salt. Add salt. The bowl is sweet, and the seasoning needs pulling back toward savory to balance it out. A good pinch stirred in halfway through is the simplest fix.

Sliced Spam or sausage on top adds the salty, fatty meat dimension the “beef” claim is reaching for but doesn’t hit. A slice of luncheon meat stirred in does the same job.

Add some fresh garlic, minced and stirred into the hot broth, a spoonful of chili oil or chili crisp, and some fresh green onions on top brighten the whole thing up.

Final Verdict

The Chef Woo Black Garlic Beef Ramen Noodles by Chef Ramsay is a high-protein cup with a celebrity name on the front and a seasoning that mostly tastes like sweet portobello mushroom rather than black garlic or beef.

The 20g protein is solid and the noodles hold up. The flavor just doesn’t live up to the branding. Chef Ramsay would probably yell at this cup on TV. It’s not bad in an offensive way, just disappointingly one-note. I wouldn’t go out of my way to buy it again. The Chef Woo Roasted Chicken in the same line is the better cup.