Samyang Buldak SWICY Sweet & Spicy Ramen

The Samyang Buldak SWICY Sweet & Spicy Ramen is a product I’d seen circulating online before we got around to tasting it. The concept is exactly what it sounds like which is Buldak heat meets deliberate sweetness. The packet inside isn’t just a sweet sauce. It’s sugar and caramel flakes that you pour directly over the top of the finished noodles.

Produced in South Korea.

What’s in the Package

There are two packets along with the wheat noodles. There’s the standard Buldak sauce and a separate sweet sprinkles packet that has the sugar and caramel flakes.

How to Cook It

Cooking directions per package instructions:

1. Add the noodles to 20 oz of boiling water (about 3 cups). Cook for 5 1/2 minutes.
2. Drain all the water.
3. Add the sauce and sweet sprinkles. Stir well and enjoy.

How Does It Taste

The Samyang Buldak SWICY Sweet and Spicy Ramen opens with a toffee-like sweetness that coats your tongue before the heat has a chance to arrive. The caramel flakes are not subtle. James described it as dessert immediately and I thought it was quite accurate. It’s a sweet noodle that happens to have Buldak spice underneath it rather than a spicy noodle that happens to be sweet.

James didn’t like it at first, but it grew on him. I didn’t love it either, but I found it more interesting than offensive. The sweetness is intense and one-dimensional in a way that the savory-sweet balance of the original Buldak isn’t. The spice is there and it lingers but the sugar completely dominates the eating experience. Your tongue ends up coated in caramel before the gochugaru gets a chance to build.

The noodles are noticeably thinner than the typical Buldak noodles at a 1.5 out of 5 on thickness. You also cook these 30 seconds longer than the original noodles which I thought was interesting since they’re thinner. This is a saucy noodle rather than a stir-fry. You don’t cook off the liquid the way you do with the original Buldak.

We were all stumped on toppings. James suggested leaning fully into the dessert direction. Phon said we were overthinking it. I wanted something sour to cut the sweetness. We landed on chicken nuggets as a potential direction but even that felt uncertain. If you’ve tried this one and figured out what to add, leave a comment below.

How Does It Compare

Within the Buldak lineup on this site the SWICY is the most divisive product by a significant margin. The Corn variety is the other sweet-leaning Buldak that I found too sweet for my taste. The SWICY makes the Corn look restrained. The Quattro Cheese has the most dessert-adjacent quality among the other varieties, but it’s still fundamentally savory. The SWICY is in its own category.

How to Level Up Samyang Buldak SWICY Sweet & Spicy Ramen

We’re truly stumped and we’re admitting it. The bowl is so committed to sweetness that it resists conventional instant ramen topping logic. James’s instinct was to lean fully into dessert. He suggested I make it into some type of brownie for my next ramen challenge.

A miso element might work for anyone who enjoys the sweet-savory combination in desserts. If you’ve cracked the code on what to add to this one, leave your answer in the comments, pretty please with sugar sprinkles on top.

Final Verdict

The Samyang Buldak SWICY Sweet and Spicy Ramen is one of the most intriguing instant ramens we’ve tried. The caramel sugar flakes are an unexpected move and the result is a bowl that tastes more like dessert than instant ramen.

The spice is real but the sweetness wins completely. Whether that’s a feature or a flaw depends entirely on what you’re looking for. James called it dessert. I’m still thinking about use cases. This was, as the tasting ended, intriguing.

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

Related Instant Ramen

• Samyang Buldak Spicy Chicken Stir-Fried Ramen
• Samyang Buldak Corn Spicy Chicken Stir-Fried Ramen
• Samyang Buldak Quattro Cheese Spicy Chicken Stir-Fried Ramen
• Samyang Buldak Rose Hot Chicken Ramen Noodles
• Samyang Buldak 2x Spicy Chicken Stir-Fried Ramen

Where to Buy Samyang Buldak SWICY Sweet & Spicy Ramen

• Amazon
• Target
• TikTok
• Walmart